Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. expressed support for the move of the opposition to file “a more substantial” impeachment complaint against President Arroyo to amend the weak complaint filed by lawyer Roel Pulido.
Pimentel argued a second impeachment complaint can be entertained within the year without violating the one-year ban under the Constitution if the same complaint can be amended before the accused official can be arraigned, much like the procedure in a criminal prosecution.
“So I would assume the same principle would apply to the impeachment proceedings. The President has not yet even replied to the impeachment complaint and therefore it may still be amended,” Pimentel told the Kapihan sa Senado news forum.
“And so all this talk about the first impeachment complaint as if it were written in stone is not necessarily true. It is not like the Ten Commandments that were handed over to Moses at Mount Sinai,” he added.
Pimentel noted Pulido’s announcement to withdraw if the United Opposition would proceed in filing its own version of the impeachment complaint.
If Pulido makes good on his word, then this will automatically remove a possible legal impediment in consideration of the impeachment complaint from the UNO.
Pimentel stressed he is not prejudging the Pulido impeachment complaint as weak since he has yet to read it. – Christina Mendez