Process of impeaching Gutierrez to begin next week

MANILA, Philippines – The process of impeaching Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez is expected to begin next week with the referral to the House justice committee of the impeachment complaint against her.

Speaker Prospero Nograles said the rules committee chaired by Majority Leader Arthur Defensor would meet next Tuesday to include the complaint in the House order of business.

It will then be referred in plenary session to the justice committee chaired by Quezon City Rep. Matias Defensor, he said.

Nograles had promised to do the referral before Congress adjourned for a month-long Lenten break early last month but failed to do so.

Under the rules of the House, he has 10 session days to send a complaint to the committee on justice.

Defensor said he would start hearings as soon as his panel receives the impeachment petition against Gutierrez.

He said the committee would first determine whether the complaint is sufficient in form, a process that involves making sure that the petition is in the form of a sworn statement and it is endorsed by at least one House member.

Five party-list representatives have endorsed the case against Gutierrez.

Defensor said after the committee votes on the petition’s sufficiency in form, it would determine whether it is sufficient in substance.

He said his panel has 60 session days to evaluate the complaint and submit a report.

In all the impeachment proceedings against President Arroyo since 2005, the justice committee determined that they were enough in form but lacking in substance.

All complaints against Mrs. Arroyo were dismissed.

The House also threw out impeachment charges against former Ombudsman Aniano Desierto, who was accused of weakening the tax credit scam cases, which are still pending in the Sandiganbayan.

Thirty-one prominent private citizens led by former Senate president Jovito Salonga filed the impeachment complaint against Gutierrez.

They accused her of “gross incompetence, betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution.”

They said public trust in the Office of the Ombudsman has collapsed since President Arroyo appointed Gutierrez as head of the agency in December 2005.

“High profile cases that involve graft and corruption of insurmountable amounts of public funds have either been gathering dust or have been permanently relegated to the archives,” they said.

They said the Ombudsman’s office “has become synonymous to inaction, mishandling or downright dismissal of clear cases of graft and corruption, some leading to the President herself or her closest associates.”

They added that Gutierrez’s agency has become “the coddler of the powerful and corrupt” under her watch.