2011: The year of impeachment at the House

MANILA, Philippines - The impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona and former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez stood out as among the biggest events in the House of Representatives in 2011.

The developments have heightened public perception of the chamber as a key player in the Aquino administration’s campaign for reforms and good governance.

Gutierrez, appointed by former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2005, resigned shortly after she was impeached by lawmakers on March 22 by a vote of 210-46 with four House members abstaining, based on two separate complaints filed by militant groups Akbayan and Bayan Muna filed in July and August, respectively.

Administration lawmakers and private complainants accused Gutierrez of “illegal, unjust, improper or inefficient” handling of cases involving Mrs. Arroyo and other officials of her administration apparently to protect them from prosecution. In 2009, an impeachment complaint was filed against her but it was dismissed in the House.

Among the cases that she allegedly sat on were the reported P728-million fertilizer fund scam, and the so-called Mega-Pacific scandal. She was also accused of weakening the plunder case against former military comptroller Carlos Garcia.

Opposition lawmakers said the charges were politically motivated since none of the charges accused Gutierrez of corruption but alleged inaction on controversial cases involving Arroyo, who is now facing charges of electoral sabotage. But before Gutierrez could stand trial in the Senate, she personally tendered her resignation to President Aquino.

Barely nine months later, Chief Justice Renato Corona was impeached for alleged betrayal of public trust with an overwhelming vote of 188 lawmakers in a swift impeachment process that had full backing of Aquino. The rushed impeachment of Corona, however, triggered protests from some of the country’s legal luminaries and political leaders.

The impeachment process took only less than a day on Dec. 12 though a few days earlier, rumors were rife that something was afoot and Corona warned in a speech of what he called attempts to destabilize the Supreme Court.

The country’s top magistrate is closely identified with Arroyo and former President Fidel Ramos. He is accused of being the architect of the SC’s issuance of the temporary restraining order against the Department of Justice’s power to put on travel watchlist anyone indicted for criminal offense or perceived as flight risk.

That day, members of the administration coalition met for a caucus presided over by Speaker Feliciano Belmonte. Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas, chairman of the House justice committee, gave a presentation on the articles of impeachment, and in a matter of hours, congressmen signed the 57-page verified complaint against Corona, which allows it to be transmitted directly to the Senate without undergoing House committee deliberations.

Under House rules, an impeachment complaint has to be approved by one-third of all House members—in this case, 95 lawmakers—for it to be transmitted straight to the Senate for trial.

No pressure

Belmonte said majority lawmakers decided to impeach Corona on their own and not because of any orders from Aquino, whose disdain for Corona was no secret.

“This (impeachment) is not upon his orders, but definitely he is in favor of it. We can say that he had been talking about this but it is really our own doing but with his full support,” the Speaker said.

House Minority Leader and Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman described the impeachment as the “mother of all blackmails.” He said all the 188 congressmen were allotted a minimum of 10 minutes each to read and comprehend the 57-page complaint that “would take them no less than 31 hours to attest that they have individually read the complaint.”

While nearly two-thirds of the chamber’s membership signed the complaint, many House leaders refused to affix their signatures on the document saying there was no time to read or study its contents.

Among those who did not sign the complaint were Deputy Speaker and Cavite Rep. Jose Crispin Remulla, Deputy Speaker and Cebu Rep. Pablo Garcia, House Deputy Majority Leader and Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas, Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, Navotas City Rep. Toby Tiangco, Assistant Majority Leader and Pasig City Rep. Roman Romulo, Batangas Rep. Hermilando Mandanas, Muntinlupa Rep. Rodolfo Biazon, Sorsogon Rep. Salvador Escudero.

Tiangco resigned from the administration bloc and relinquished his chairmanship of the committee on Metro Manila development.

Mandanas, on the other hand, was stripped of his chairmanship of the committee on ways and means. Aquino himself justified Mandanas’ ouster from the panel but said it was not because of the impeachment issue.

Belmonte said Corona’s impeachment was a difficult but historic decision that was “reached freely and voluntarily by a collective of equals” in the House.

He said the chamber exercised its power to impeach with care and lawmakers were fully aware of the consequences of such a move.

“The impeachment of the Chief Justice, fifth in line of succession to the Presidency and head of the honorable Supreme Court—a coequal branch of government—was an important and difficult decision, perhaps the most challenging that we have to confront in our present term,” Belmonte said.

“The power to impeach is an awesome power, the exercise of which is vested in this House to be used only in the most extraordinary of circumstances,” he said.

Protests expected

The Speaker said the House’s power to impeach “is reserved to exact accountability upon a privileged group of public officials whose mandate to stay in office arise not from periodic elections, and who are even beyond the reach of dismissal by the highest appointing power.”

“There are, as there will always be, some of us who will find fault in that historic decision. Our constitutional democracy guarantees to each the fundamental right of dissent and disagreement as forcefully as it guarantees to the Chief Justice the right to face and disprove the eight grounds that comprise the articles of his impeachment,” he said.

“Undoubtedly, we are navigating a stormy sea in our voyage towards rebuilding our nation and our institutions. Overcoming this tempest requires from each of us a matured and disciplined engagement, for us to canalize our differences in affiliation and ideology within the means and processes provided for in the Constitution,” he said.

Belmonte however continued to rally his colleagues to rise above partisan politics and immerse themselves in the urgent legislative work following Corona’s impeachment.

Members in trouble

Just when many had thought the Aquino administration would have a hard time pinning down Arroyo and some of her officials for alleged misdeeds, the former leader   now a Pampanga congresswoman  suddenly found herself under police custody and without access to telephones and computers at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) in Quezon City before Christmas.

In a dizzying turn of events, immigration officials stopped Arroyo  in wheelchair  and her retinue from boarding a plane bound for Hong Kong at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) on Nov. 15. The 64-year-old Arroyo wanted to travel abroad purportedly to seek medical treatment for her troublesome cervical spine. Arroyo brandished a Supreme Court temporary restraining order on the travel ban issued against her by the Department of Justice.

In late July until mid-August, Arroyo underwent three surgeries for an unstable cervical spine after complaining of severe pain in her neck and arms at the St. Luke’s Medical Center (SLMC) in Taguig City.

However, her recovery was not complete and she was made to wear a head and neck brace by her doctors. Her camp insisted that she needed to have medical consultations and treatment abroad, particularly in Singapore and Spain. The administration however suspected the claim was a ruse to enable her to escape prosecution since several plunder and human rights violation cases have already been filed against her.

On Nov. 18, the joint Commission on Elections (Comelec)-DOJ charged her with the nonbailable offense of electoral sabotage she allegedly committed in 2007 before the Pasay Regional Trial Court. After a few hours, the court issued a warrant of arrest and Arroyo was placed under detention at the SLMC.

On Dec. 9, the lawmaker was transferred to the VMMC as Judge Jesus Mupas of the Pasay RTC handling her case rejected the motion of her lawyers for her to be placed under house arrest in La Vista, Quezon City.

The transfer was not without hitches as the government insisted that she be ferried in a helicopter but her lawyers strongly opposed it on account of the bad weather at that time. After nine hours, Arroyo was transferred in a police-escorted coaster accompanied by former first gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo and other family members.

Up to now, Mupas has yet to decide on Arroyo’s request that he reconsider his ban on her use of mobile phones and laptops while under hospital arrest.

Another House member that had a run in with the law was former congressman Ronald Singson of the first district of Ilocos Sur. Singson tendered his resignation to Belmonte after the Hong Kong court sentenced him to 18 months in prison for carrying 6.7 grams of cocaine and two tablets of regulated substance in the special Chinese territory in July 2010. 

In May, the Comelec held a special election in Singson’s district and his younger brother Ryan won. He took his oath of office before Belmonte a few days later and vowed to continue his brother’s advocacies in the chamber.

On Aug. 3, Zambales Rep. Antonio Diaz died at the age of 83 of multiple organ failure. The special elections for the veteran lawmaker’s district have been set for February 2012.

Meanwhile, Rep. Ranulfo Canonigo, of the party-list group Kapatiran ng mga Nakulong na Walang Sala (Kakusa), survived an assassination attempt on Dec. 11 by unidentified motorcycle-riding gunmen as he was about to enter his house in Marikina City.

Canonigo is recovering from bullet wounds in his neck, back and thighs. Zamboanga del Norte Rep. Rosendo Labadlabad in a privilege speech disclosed that in-fighting among the leaders of Kakusa triggered the ambush of Canonigo. Police have yet to solve the case.

Cha-cha revived

Efforts to amend the 1987 Constitution under the Aquino administration gained ground in September after leaders of both chambers of Congress formally agreed to start working on amending the economic provisions through a “bicameral constituent assembly.”

The move came during the first legislative summit initiated by Belmonte held at the Edsa Shangri-La Hotel in Mandaluyong City where leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives agreed that both chambers would vote separately on the proposed constitutional amendments.

This means the changes to be made in the economic provisions in the Constitution would be tackled through the usual legislative process but the output would have to be ratified directly by the people in a plebiscite.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said that while this Charter change approach is untried in the country, it has been tried in the US.

The Speaker said there is no specific timeline for lawmakers to put in proposed amendments but he does not anticipate the issue to drag on.

“This (Charter change) process will be done by both Houses, it will be transparent, there will be public hearings, we will invite experts so the possibility of some vested interests will creep into the discussion will be minimized, if not, prevented,” Sen. Franklin Drilon, for his part, said.

Budget approved

On Nov. 22, the House approved the P1.816-trillion proposed budget for 2012, in what the chamber’s leadership described as the “earliest ever approval” of a national appropriation by lawmakers and “above all, a vote of confidence in the leadership of PNoy.”

But Lagman said lawmakers were deprived of the opportunity to pore over the amendments of the budget, adding that the final version was distributed to their offices just a day before the plenary voting.

Flagship projects of the administration under the budget program are the conditional cash transfer (CCT) with P39.4 billion appropriation; and the Public-Private Partnership (PPP), with P22 billion.

The controversial P4.9-billion hiring fund under the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefit Fund (MPBF) of the judiciary, Congress and constitutional commissions was returned to these branches and agencies, but a special provision was included to ensure the money will be used exclusively to fill vacant positions.

“We crafted this budget fully aware of both the potential and the limits of our present national economy. Our country obtained credit upgrades from international rating agencies, sharp improvements in its international competitiveness ratings, and received much-needed boost in foreign direct investments,” Belmonte said.

He said P1.8-trillion proposed outlay was crafted by legislators “with great pragmatism, and with as much foresight as is humanly possible.”

Before the second regular session of the 15th Congress went on a Christmas break on Dec. 14, the House was able to approve over 375 national and local bills. Since the opening of the 15th Congress and until the recess, the chamber has processed 2,420 measures, including nine Republic Acts and 1,680 approved bills and resolutions. From July to December alone, the chamber also adopted three Concurrent Resolutions, 76 Regular Resolutions and 48 Reports on Resolutions on Inquiries.

Higher approval rating

The House has also obtained favorable public approval ratings since convening in July 2010.

The Pulse Asia survey conducted from Aug. 20 to Sept. 2 showed the trust rating of the House rose by +11 percent, from 36 percent last May to 47 percent in August. Likewise, its approval rating rose by +7 percent, from 41 percent last May to 48 percent in August.

The Speaker’s trust rating rose by +8 percent from 33 percent in May to 41 percent in August, while his approval rating rose by +6 percent from 39 percent in May to 45 percent in August.

Isabela Rep. Giorgidi Aggabao said Filipinos see Belmonte as “clean and scandal-free.”

But Belmonte called on his colleagues not to be complacent citing “vital weaknesses in our economy that immediately need to be addressed.”

“We continue to rank low in the area of infrastructure particularly in the areas of port facilities and air transport. We also know there is much to be improved in terms of managing public funds, waging counter-corruption, enhancing the legal framework to make it more conducive to investments, and promoting transparency in government decisions,” he said.