House impeachment battle shifts to plenary

Opposition congressmen and impeachment petitioners vowed yesterday to mount a campaign for more votes for their petition as the battle to remove President Arroyo through the impeachment process shifts to the House plenary session.

They made the move even as House leaders called on members of both the minority and majority blocs to put the issue of impeaching Mrs. Arroyo behind them and to now "move on."

"I think all the anxiety and agony that everyone has to go through, and the poisonous exchange of incendiary remarks by both sides, will now be put to an end so that we can begin to heal the nation’s wounds. The nation can then move forward," Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. said.

Echoing De Venecia’s appeal, Majority Leader Prospero Nograles said, "Let’s put the impeachment behind us."

But the opposition and pro-impeachment groups are not about to abandon their efforts to remove Mrs. Arroyo through the impeachment process even in the wake of the decision of the House committee on justice on Wednesday to dismiss their complaint.

A day after the committee voted 56-24 to declare the complaint insufficient in substance, Minority Leader Francis Escudero said they would solicit votes from their colleagues to reverse the committee decision.

"We want them to find our petition sufficient in substance so that further hearings can be conducted, during which Mrs. Arroyo could be required to answer the charges against her and we can present our evidence. If after the evidence is presented, we lose the impeachment fight, we will accept that, and we all can then move on," he said.

However, Escudero said the evidence will be so overwhelming and convincing that the House would have no choice but to send the complaint to the Senate for trial.

This prospect is what Mrs. Arroyo wants to avoid by suppressing the evidence through her allies, he added.

During the four-day hearings on the complaint, the justice committee, through its chairman Maguindanao Rep. Simeon Datumanong, ruled repeatedly that the impeachment rules do not allow the presentation of evidence unless the committee declares the petition sufficient in substance.

Former social welfare secretary Dinky Soliman, one of the impeachment petitioners, said pro-impeachment groups would now lobby with congressmen for votes.

"I ask our people to write your representatives in Congress, call them, text them, or approach them and tell them to support the impeachment process. This is the only way we can move forward," she said in a radio interview.

Rep. Teodoro Casiño of the militant party-list group Bayan Muna admitted that the campaign for more plenary votes is an "uphill battle."

"It would be an uphill battle, and yes we are at the moment out-scored, but all is not lost. We will put up a good fight and a good showing next week," he said.

He said he and other pro-impeachment congressmen "are working double time to convince their anti-impeachment colleagues to give the complaint a chance."

Casiño also appealed for a higher level of tolerance on the part of the majority for the outpouring of emotions by both pro- and anti-impeachment groups.

During the emotion- and tension-filled proceedings on Wednesday night, Datumanong repeatedly admonished people in the House galleries that were packed mostly with members of pro-impeachment organizations not to clap, boo, tease, shout, wave, or otherwise express their sentiments.

When some impeachment supporters waved white letter envelopes on which the word suhol (bribe) was written, the committee chairman’s fuse exploded. He angrily banged the gavel and ordered the transfer of the proceedings from the House session hall, where the galleries can accommodate thousands, to the much smaller Andaya Hall, which could hardly seat 200, so the public could be excluded.

Escudero and his colleagues refused to move to the smaller room, choosing to remain in the session hall.

It was at this point that De Venecia said he employed "shuttle diplomacy" by talking to both sides to continue the proceedings at the session hall.

De Venecia said opposition congressmen have only themselves to blame "for not gaining enough votes to support their cause."

"Even the 51 votes they garnered during the plenary vote on the committee report dismissing last year’s impeachment complaint may not reach 30-35 votes next week," he said.

De Venecia added that among the pro-impeachment congressmen who have abandoned the opposition’s cause are Representatives Robert Ace Barbers of Surigao del Norte, Jacinto Paras of Negros Oriental and Robert Jaworski Jr. of Pasig.

Conspicuously missing in the proceedings on Wednesday night was San Juan Rep. Ronaldo Zamora, who had a quadruple heart bypass at a Quezon City hospital about three weeks ago but who is expected to attend the plenary vote next week. Zamora heads the opposition’s impeachment team.

Also absent was Marinduque Rep. Edmund Reyes, whom the public saw on national television last August making an impassioned speech in which he asked his colleagues, "Is there no one else who will sign for the truth?"

Nograles shared De Venecia’s prediction on the outcome of the forthcoming plenary vote on the justice committee report.

"The probability that numbers will change in plenary appears very slim," said the majority leader.

He said if voting on the report cannot be set for next week, it would be scheduled for the last week of the month.

He urged the majority and the minority to work together on a legislative agenda that "can move the country forward."

Other allies of Mrs. Arroyo said they have no doubt that the House, in plenary session, would uphold the findings and the decision of the committee on justice.

"The votes may still change but more favorably for the dismissal of the complaint because the minority simply doesn’t have much numbers left," said Eastern Samar Rep. Marcelino Libanan.

He said on his part, the charge of cheating against the President is not a ground for impeachment since the alleged election fraud might have taken place before Mrs. Arroyo won her six-year term in May 2004.

For his part, Baguio City Rep. Mauricio Domogan said pro-impeachment groups should respect the decision of the Datumanong committee "because its members have done their best based on the Constitution, rules and jurisprudence."

"They (pro-impeachment groups) have done their worst stunts but these didn’t work," he said.

Bayan Muna Rep. Joel Virador said with the decision of the President’s allies to kill the process to impeach her, her critics "are left with no other option except the parliament of the streets."

"Mrs. Arroyo and her allies are gravely mistaken. The political crisis will bedevil her administration to the end," he said.

Such crisis could have been resolved through the impeachment process, he added.