Citizens’ groups to lead GMA-impeach initiative

Opposition congressmen are giving way to citizens’ organizations and private individuals as leaders of this year’s initiative to oust President Arroyo through the impeachment process.

Left-wing groups said they will accuse Mrs. Arroyo of condoning political killings and violating the Constitution to muzzle legitimate dissent in the impeachment case being readied.

The new charges will be added to allegations of vote-rigging and corruption that were part of an impeachment complaint that was dismissed by the House of Representatives, dominated by Arroyo allies, last September on a technicality.

Opposition lawmakers said they will also charge Mrs. Arroyo for attempts — later judged unconstitutional by the Supreme Court — to crack down on anti-government protests and block investigations into alleged wrongdoing.

"We are staying on the sidelines. This effort will be led by private citizens," Minority Leader Francis Escudero told reporters yesterday before several groups announced at Club Filipino in Greenhills, San Juan that they would be the lead impeachment complainants.

However, Escudero said he and San Juan Rep. Ronaldo Zamora, head of the opposition’s impeachment team, would endorse the new complaint.

"The plan is to have only two endorsers, or as few as possible. The other House members — be they from the minority or majority — who are supporting this process will remain nameless and faceless to prevent the Arroyo administration from ‘operating’ on them until their votes are needed," he said.

The groups leading the impeachment initiative are four militant organizations represented in the House — Bayan Muna, Akbayan, Anakpawis, and Gabriela. Together, they have nine representatives in the legislature.

However, unlike last year when they were impeachment petitioners, their representatives will not act as complainants. Like Escudero and Zamora, they will serve only as endorsers.

Romel Bagares, one of the complainants’ lawyers, said other lead petitioner-organizations include the Manila Public School Teachers’ Association, Be Not Afraid Movement, Black-and-White Movement, Institute of Studies on Asian Church and Culture, and Pamalakaya, a peasant group.

"There would also be more than 200 private individual petitioners led by UP (University of the Philippines) Prof. Randy David, who is a victim of Proclamation 1017," he said.

Besides Bagares, who is a UP graduate, the other complainants’ lawyers are former UP law dean Raul Pangalangan, UP law Prof. Harry Roque, Adel Tamano, and Raul Poblador.

Among the complainants will be relatives of dozens of left-wing activists and human rights workers who have been killed since Mrs. Arroyo took power in an alarming wave of attacks they have blamed on the military or police, said Renato Reyes, a proponent of the new impeachment bid.

Military and police officials have denied the accusations and challenged their accusers to produce evidence and file cases in court. Mrs. Arroyo has ordered an investigation into the killings.

"We will charge her at the least for inaction and at most for condoning this policy of political killings," Reyes said.

Left-wing groups and relatives of slain activists will hold a vigil outside the House compound starting late Sunday ahead of the filing of the new impeachment complaint the following day.

They also want to be the first to beat other potential complainants in filing an impeachment petition with the office of the House secretary general at the start of office hours on Monday.

Escudero said the new complaint would be anchored "on the same charges of lying, stealing and cheating that we in the opposition leveled against Mrs. Arroyo last year and which have remained unresolved."

He said three recent presidential issuances and orders, which have been declared in whole or in part as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, will be included as proof that the President repeatedly violated the Constitution and as evidence of covering-up the truth behind the impeachment charges.

These issuances and orders are Proclamation 1017, which Mrs. Arroyo issued last Feb. 24 to place the country under a state of emergency; Executive Order 464, in which she prohibited Cabinet members and other executive officials and personnel from appearing in Senate investigations; and her calibrated preemptive response (CPR) policy against street protests.

The Supreme Court had declared as illegal and constitutional David’s warrantless arrest last Feb. 25, made by Quezon City policemen on the strength of Proclamation 1017.

Escudero said these issuances were aimed at suppressing the truth "behind our charges of lying, stealing and cheating against the President."

"For instance, through EO 464, Mrs. Arroyo prevented concerned officials from revealing what they know about the ‘Hello, Garci’ tapes and billions in fertilizer and farm input funds that were diverted to her election campaign," he said.

Responding to questions, the minority leader said he hoped that in addition to members of the opposition bloc in the House and several sympathetic administration congressmen, the petitioner-organizations could convince more lawmakers to support the impeachment process.

House leaders, however, have vowed to thwart the new impeachment initiative.

Majority Leader Prospero Nograles told reporters in Davao City over the weekend that he, Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. and other officials of the chamber would lose their posts if the initiative succeeds.

"We will all be dead if GMA is impeached," Nograles was quoted as saying.

He cited the case of then Speaker Manuel Villar Jr. in 2000 when the latter was ousted as House boss just minutes after he railroaded the transmittal to the Senate of the impeachment complaint against then President Joseph Estrada.

Largely because of such historic decision, Villar would later be elected to the Senate, where he will be assuming the presidency on July 24.

Other administration allies tagged Estrada yesterday as the "mastermind and financier" of the new impeach-Arroyo effort.

Representatives Antonio Cuenco of Cebu City and Edwin Uy of Isabela said they were basing their conclusion on the ousted president’s statement challenging Mrs. Arroyo to face a new impeachment process.

"Careless as he is, Erap, by his own mouth, keeps exposing his true colors. He can deny this to high heaven, but all indications point to him as the unseen hand working for the impeachment of the President. This is all about revenge, ambition and lust for a return to power," the two said.

They said no one else in the opposition except Estrada has the motive and the kind of money needed to oust Mrs. Arroyo. — With Delon Porcalla, AP