GMA assured of 189 votes to kill impeachment move in House

Embattled President Arroyo is assured of 189 votes, or more than two-thirds of the 236-member House of Representatives, enough to defeat the stronger opposition-initiated amended impeachment complaint filed against her.

Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. told The STAR last night that he and Antipolo City Rep. Ronaldo Puno had obtained the "firm" commitments of 189 members to prevent the complaint from being sent to the Senate for trial, whatever the evidence against Mrs. Arroyo.

De Venecia said he had already informed the President of this assurance from House colleagues.

If none of the 189 House members breaks his or her word, that would leave the impeachment petitioners with 47 members to work on. And assuming they were able to get the signatures of all 47, that number would still be well short of the required 79 signatures needed to send the complaint to the Senate.

The impeachment petitioners had 42 signatures when they filed the complaint on July 25. As of last weekend, 10 more signatures had been added, the opposition said, but did not reveal the names of the new signatories.

In its adoption of the draft rules of impeachment the other day, the House agreed to allow a "creeping" process in which impeachment proponents could gather more signatures while the complaint is being reviewed by the committee on justice.

De Venecia is president of the ruling Lakas party, the biggest bloc in the House, while Puno heads the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi), the second biggest group.

The two political groups have entered into an informal alliance to fight the opposition initiative to remove the President from office through the impeachment process and to push for Cha-cha (Charter change) through the constituent assembly mode.

Kampi is the political party Mrs. Arroyo founded in 1997 when she was still senator and then planning to run for president. She eventually agreed to be De Venecia’s vice presidential running mate and won, while the Speaker lost the presidency to then Vice President Joseph Estrada.

The sources said De Venecia and Puno were helped by leaders of smaller and fragmented political groups in obtaining commitments from administration allies, congressmen sympathetic to the President and those who have business interests to protect.

These groups include the Nationalist People’s Coalition and the Liberal Party, whose members have been torn between ousting Mrs. Arroyo and keeping her in office.

The House leaders worked separately, talking to their colleagues individually to obtain their commitments.

Asked how firm the commitments of the 189 members were, a House source said "these allies of the President will vote for throwing out the complaint come hell or high water, regardless of the weight of the evidence against her."

Headed for graveyard?

The information revealed by sources to The STAR jibes with that given to broadcaster Ted Failon of ABS-CBN by his own informants.

In the course of interviewing San Juan Rep. Ronaldo Zamora earlier yesterday, Failon said he has been informed that 162 House members had committed themselves to defeating the impeachment complaint.

He told Zamora that if that number is secured, the amended petition is apparently headed for the graveyard.

Zamora, who heads the opposition’s impeachment team, said he and other impeachment petitioners were not losing hope.

"When they read the amended complaint and see the evidence, we are confident that many of them will go for impeaching Mrs. Arroyo," he said.

Reached for comment, Minority Leader Francis Escudero shared Zamora’s optimism. "Remember that our colleagues in the House are not robots," he quipped.

For his part, another impeachment petitioner, party-list Rep. Florencio Noel, said he does not believe that House members "have blinders or are deaf or dumb."

Phoned by The STAR, Failon, a former Leyte congressman, said his information came from an "unimpeachable source."

He said he was told that support for the President is solid as a rock.

"Pilipitin mo man daw ang leeg ng mga nag-commit, di magbabago ang boto (Even if you break their necks, they won’t change their commitment)," he said.

He said several members of the majority were wavering in their support for the President and could still go for her impeachment had already been discounted.

He mentioned the names of Las Piñas City Rep. Cynthia Villar and Davao del Sur’s Douglas Cagas.

Indeed, these are two of the six names that Arroyo loyalists had been grouping with potential impeachment endorsers, according to The STAR’s sources.

The four others are the Remulla brothers of Cavite; Gilbert and Jesus Crispin; Robert "Ace" Barbers of Agusan del Norte; and Catalino Figueroa of Western Samar.

Figueroa’s Western Samar colleague, Reynaldo Uy, is one of the nine Liberal Party members led by Deputy Speaker Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III who have endorsed the amended complaint.

Sen. Joker Arroyo, who was part of the House panel that prosecuted then President Joseph Estrada in his Senate trial in 2001, has described the House as Mrs. Arroyo’s "first and only line of defense" in the fight for her impeachment.

He said the larger chamber is the "gateway to heaven" for the President, while the Senate is her "gateway to hell."

The president of the Senate, Franklin Drilon, who also heads the Liberal Party, has joined calls for Mrs. Arroyo’s resignation and for her impeachment if she refuses to step down.

In a related development, Rep. Rodante Marcoleta of the party-list group Alagad, the endorser of the original impeachment complaint filed by lawyer Oliver Lozano, said he plans to go to the Supreme Court to question the validity of the amended petition filed by the opposition.

He said the petition, in order to be valid, should be accepted not only by Lozano but by him.

"I was not even consulted in the filing of the amended complaint," said Marcoleta, an ally of Mrs. Arroyo.

The opposition said Marcoleta, by questioning the revised petition, is just showing his true colors and trying to confuse the public.

Meanwhile, lawyer Jose Lopez of Malate, Manila, who had adopted the Lozano complaint in a separate petition, has withdrawn his petition.

Draft rules a compromise

eputy Majority Leader Edcel Lagman, principal sponsor of the draft rules on impeachment, said it was important to expedite the impeachment process but not to the extent of railroading the complaint to the Senate for trial.

Lagman said the majority agreed with the minority’s proposal to adopt the impeachment rules of the 11th Congress to govern the impeachment proceedings against President Arroyo.

In a statement, Lagman said the following overriding reasons impelled the majority to end the prolonged debates on the draft rules:

• To convince the public and the opposition that the majority is not trying to change the rules to favor the President.

• To expedite consideration by the House committee on justice of the impeachment complaint.

• To underscore that there is no substantial difference between the draft rules and rules drafted by previous Congresses, including those of the 11th Congress.

But Lagman debunked opposition claims that the "creeping" collation of signatures is allowed by the rules of the 11th Congress under which former President Joseph Estrada was impeached.

It will be recalled that during the 11th Congress, after the impeachment complaint against Estrada was endorsed by installment by 77 members of the House, then Speaker Manny Villar caused the immediate transmittal of the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate.

"This was a misapplication of the rules which cannot constitute a precedent," Lagman said.

Lagman added that "what is poison sauce for the gander must not be inflicted on the goose; what was errant against Erap must not be perpetuated on GMA and others."

He said the committee on justice must complete its hearing and investigation to determine probable cause before transmittal of the complaint to the Senate, even after the required signatures are gathered.