‘No more impeach raps vs ombudsman’

MANILA, Philippines — Due to time constraints, the House of Representatives can no longer take up the impeachment complaint filed against Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, who is set to step down in July this year after serving her fixed seven-year term. 

Oriental Mindoro Rep. Rey Umali, chairman of the House committee on justice that is supposed to deliberate on the complaint, noted that they only have nine session days left when they resume session on May 15 and end the second regular session on June 1. 

 “We only have a few weeks left. We don’t even have a month in this second regular session. When we resume sessions again (in late July), she (Morales) would have been retired. What would we be hearing by then? We will just be wasting time and paper on a matter that is of no importance, and which case will have nowhere to go by then,” he told dzBB yesterday. 

The Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, an anti-crime group supportive of President Duterte, filed in December 2017 the complaint against Morales, an appointee of former president Benigno Aquino III in July 2011 replacing Merceditas Gutierrez who resigned. The complaint remains unendorsed by any lawmaker.