House panel resumes hearing on Noy impeachment today

MANILA, Philippines - Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas, chairman of the House committee on justice, said yesterday that a simple majority vote out of 55 panel members is needed to declare the impeachment complaint against President Aquino sufficient in substance.

Tupas said the committee will strictly follow the rules on impeachment, which provide that at least 28 votes is required for the complaint to hurdle the second stage of proceedings.

He told reporters during the weekly Kapihan sa Diamond Hotel news forum in Manila that if the complaint will pass the committee level it only needs 98 votes of House members for the automatic transmittal of the articles of impeachment to the Senate, which will then convene into an impeachment court.

He said supporters and those who oppose the impeachment of Aquino would be given 10 minutes to talk in today’s resumption of the House committee hearing.

The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), whose leaders are complainants in the impeachment case filed against Aquino, called on the House justice committee yesterday to apply the same standards used in the impeachment of former ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez in determining sufficiency of substance of the complaints filed against the President.

Bayan secretary-general Renato Reyes said there can be no double standard.

The same House justice committee headed by Tupas in 2010 set forth the standards during the Gutierrez impeachment. There should be no problem applying the same to Aquino’s impeachment.

“We are confident that the impeachment complaints filed against the President are sufficient in substance. The committee should then proceed to the next stage, which is to require the President to answer the allegations raised against him,” Reyes added.

In September 2010, 41 members of the House justice committee voted to declare two impeachment complaints against Gutierrez as being sufficient in substance.

 It was the first time since the regime of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that an impeachment complaint hurdled the requirements for sufficiency in substance.

“Instead of lawyering for Aquino, the justice committee should require Aquino to answer the allegations regarding culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust in relation to the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). Aquino keeps talking to the media, saying that the DAP was right and the SC was wrong. Let him defend his actions in the impeachment proceedings then,” Reyes said.

Bayan said that the Gutierrez case clarified several issues related to impeachment proceedings.

The committee allowed the filing of multiple impeachment complaints so long as these are referred to the committee at the same time.

It also set the bar for sufficiency in form and substance and required the respondent to answer the complaint in writing in order to determine probable cause. – With Rhodina Villanueva