P2-M bribe to impeach GMA

Opposition congressmen disclosed yesterday that they were offered at least P2 million in cash last Friday to endorse the “weak” impeachment complaint recently filed against President Arroyo and speed up the dismissal of the complaint in order to give the President immunity from other moves to impeach her.

Party-list Rep. Crispin Beltran of Anakpawis told his colleagues in plenary session that a “Malacañang ally” tried to convince him to support the impeachment complaint filed by lawyer Roel Pulido in exchange for P2 million.

Beltran said he immediately rejected the offer and declared that militant party-list representatives will support the decision of the minority congressmen on the new impeachment case filed against the President.

Opposition Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro City went on record to say that a “Palace ally” approached him last Friday shortly before Pulido filed his complaint to persuade him to endorse the case.

“I knew then that this is not a serious impeachment effort. It is only meant to immunize the President from any other complaint within a one-year period,” he said.

Asked later if the “Palace ally” is a congressman, Rodriguez said he is a Malacañang functionary.

He would not say if the official belongs to the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office, whose officers frequent the House and the Senate.

Another minority member, Rep. Dan Fernandez of Laguna, said he was also offered P2 million.

Rep. Justin Marc Chipeco, also of Laguna, said he heard from some colleagues that there were offers of up to P5 million.

Party-list Rep. Florencio “Bem” Noel of An Waray, on the other hand, said his information was that the offers included funding for their projects.

Rep. Salvador Escudero III of Sorsogon urged his colleagues in the minority to name names.

“Unless we expose those who made the alleged bribe offers, the allegations will remain just rumors,” he said.

Laguna Rep. Edgar San Luis had endorsed Pulido’s two-page complaint that was filed last Friday afternoon.

San Luis counts himself with the group opposed to Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. and which is led by Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte, president of the pro-administration Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino.

Pulido also previously filed an ethics case against De Venecia, and yesterday filed graft charges against the Speaker and his son Jose “Joey” de Venecia III, the whistleblower in the scandal surrounding the $329-million national broadband network contract the government awarded to Chinese firm ZTE Corp.

San Luis said he endorsed Pulido’s impeachment complaint so that the truth behind the President’s role and involvement in the ZTE deal could come out.

He said he was not sure if Mrs. Arroyo was guilty or not of charges of betraying the public trust that Pulido leveled against her, despite his endorsement of the lawyer’s complaint.

“I would like to find out the truth,” he said.

Minority Leader Ronaldo Zamora belittled Pulido’s petition, saying that a two-page complaint that is not supported by evidence cannot be a serious effort to impeach the highest official of the land.

Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. said the petition contains more allegations of wrongdoing against De Venecia than against Mrs. Arroyo.

“It should be sent to the committee on good government instead of the committee on justice,” he said. 

President Arroyo maintained that she will not be distracted by political noise in pushing for the country’s economic development.

Mrs. Arroyo issued the statement in her speech at the launching of the “Go Negosyo Caravan” in San Fernando, Pampanga where she also pointed out that her administration has been promoting entrepreneurship as part of its agenda to cut poverty by 2010.

“No amount of political noise will stop us from implementing important initiatives to generate profitable businesses and generate millions of jobs for our countrymen,” she said in the local dialect.

Presidential Management Staff chief Secretary Cerge Remonde described the new impeachment as a waste of time and taxpayers’ money.”

“Every time the nation takes two steps forward on its path to economic growth and political stability, her detractors try to take us three steps back,” Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said.

Remonde said that relations between the President and Speaker De Venecia remain strong despite reports that some pro-administration congressmen are pushing for her impeachment.

“Both are conscious of the intrigues between them but their relationship is still strong, especially from the side of the Speaker, he is still very supportive of the President,” Remonde said.

Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Sergio Apostol predicted the complaint will be junked in the House due to lack of numbers.

He also dismissed talks of a looming political crisis in the Arroyo administration like what happened in 2005. He also hit Paranaque Rep. Roilo Golez for trying to create a scenario of political instability in the country when there is none.

“Golez is just trying to create intrigue. Politics is a game of intrigue,” Apostol said.

Presidential political adviser and Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno branded yesterday as “wishful thinking” the latest impeachment complaint filed against the President, adding that it will die a natural death in the House of Representatives.

“Any kind of impeachment will not prosper,” Puno added. It’s a numbers game and there are only 30 members from the opposition in the House.

When asked if the impeachment case could trigger a series of protest actions on the street, Puno said the people are tired of street rallies as evidenced by the fact that there have been no mass actions for the past several months.

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz laughed off reports he is spearheading a signature campaign among bishops to support the impeachment of Mrs. Arroyo.

“I do not know of any bishop, much less me, signing or leading a pro-impeachment move against President Arroyo on the occasion of the filing of another impeachment case by Atty. Ruel Pulido,” Cruz, former president of the  Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, told The STAR.

He said the case filed by Pulido “is rather weak, it has no particulars and in effect, it is even suspect.”

Cruz added that if it will be a strong impeachment case, then he will support it but he will not lead a signature campaign to get support for the new impeachment of Mrs. Arroyo.

The bishop said it is becoming harder and harder for the President to govern because thinking people find it harder and harder to believe her, to trust her, and even to respect her, for that matter.

Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago branded Pulido as a “political vaccine” to save Mrs. Arroyo because the complaint preempted any upcoming impeachment.

“That is actually a vaccine. You know, you inject a person and he can no longer be infected. So I imagine that Malacañang will have a timetable, every year someone will file a complaint so that a more detailed or partisan impeachment complaint on the part of the opposition will be precluded. Because the Constitution provides that only one impeachment can be filed against the President,” Santiago said.

Senate Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan assailed the filing of the impeachment complaint against Arroyo as an apparent ploy to stop the ongoing investigation into the $329-million national broadband network deal between the government and ZTE Corp. of China.

Pangilinan, Sen. Manuel Roxas II and Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said the hearings into the NBN deal must continue to get to the bottom of the allegations made against Mrs. Arroyo, Commission on Elections Chairman Benjamin Abalos and other government officials.

Pangilinan pointed out they would have to go ahead with the probe in aid of legislation despite the impeachment complaint. — With Cecille Suerte Felipe, Paolo RomeroEva Visperas, Christina Mendez, Aurea Calica