The Arroyo Impeachment
Impeachment complaints are lodged against President Arroyo in the House Committee on Justice. The committee will need to vote on the form and substance of the complaint to determine if there is probable cause and enough evidence to send the complaint to a trial. A total of 79 votes in the entire House is needed to send the complaint to trial in the Senate. The committee, however, is still stuck on the issue of which of the three complaints to consider. Below is a day-to-day account of the Justice Committee hearings:
Day 1 – 10 August 2005
Impeachment Hearings Suspended
While the President has said that she is prepared to face an impeachment trial in Congress, actions of her own party indicate otherwise.
Judging from the large crowd at the first day of the impeachment hearing– both pro- and anti-GMA – which had gathered in the committee room to listen to the Justice Committee start the hearings, one could see the intense interest in the impeachment case against President Arroyo. The public, however, came away disappointed after the Committee suspended the session and went into executive session less than an hour after opening the public hearing.
People came to the hearing to listen to the opening discussion on which impeachment complaint would eventually be considered by the committee. A total of three complaints had been filed in the House – the first by Oliver Lozano and endorsed by Congressman Rodante Marcoleta (a party-list Congressman allied to the President), the second by Jose Rizaldo Lopez and endorsed by Congressman Antonio Alvarez (1st District, Palawan-Lakas), and the third complaint by the Opposition. The Opposition’s complaint was in fact an amended version of the Lozano complaint. Some weeks ago, in an apparent anticipation of the impeachment proceedings, majority Congressman Marcoleta endorsed the Lozano complaint which the Opposition called weak and designed to fail. If voted down, no other impeachment complaint against the President could be entertained by Congress for another year, according to the rules of impeachment. For this reason, the first day of hearings was an important one for establishing which complaint would be heard by the Committee.
Instead, the Committee got bogged down over discussions of space (not enough) and rules on whether non-committee members could sit and participate in the hearings as they are allowed to do when regular legislation is considered. Taken somewhat aback by the presence of some of the "Hyatt 10" who had come to observe the hearings, the Committee suddenly suspended the session and called for an executive session (e.g., no public allowed) in an apparent violation of its own rules. According to the impeachment rules, an executive session may only be called when matters of national security are to be taken up.
Given the developments of the first day of hearings, there is certainly a stronger argument now for an independent inquiry or fact-finding commission to get to the bottom of the “Hello Garci” tapes and related matters. Unfortunately, Malacañang has not moved on its earlier promise for the so-called “truth commission” – no Administrative Order draft has been released nor has there been any bill filed in Congress to tackle the matter.
|
