GMA impeachment process underway

The bid to impeach President Arroyo for alleged vote fraud was set in motion yesterday after a party-list legislator endorsed an impeachment complaint filed earlier by a Marcos loyalist lawyer.

Alagad party-list Rep. Rodante Marcoleta said he had endorsed the impeachment move since the process was the "only legitimate and constitutional way" to resolve the crisis that arose after Mrs. Arroyo admitted late Monday that she had discussed her votes with an election official during last year’s presidential ballot-counting.

Marcoleta said he had verified the impeachment complaint and found it "to be sufficient in form and substance."

Marcoleta’s endorsement sets in motion the complaint filed by private lawyer Oliver Lozano for "betrayal of public trust," one of several grounds for impeachment against the President.

Lozano has been associated with the camp of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his family.

Mrs. Arroyo’s televised admission on Monday has triggered calls from the opposition for her to resign.

The complaint sprang from taped conversations in which a woman sounding like Mrs. Arroyo asks a man believed to be an election commissioner to ensure the votes.

In her apology, Mrs. Arroyo admitted she had called an election official.

The President denied charges that she had been trying to rig the election, but admitted her call was "a lapse in judgment" and described it as a bid to protect her vote amid a slow ballot count.

Lozano accused the President of betraying the public trust by contacting the election official.

Lozano claimed the admission made by Mrs. Arroyo already signified conduct unbecoming of a public official.

The House of Representatives will assign a committee to investigate whether there are sufficient grounds for the complaint filed by Lozano.

Under the rules, the House Secretary General will forward the complaint to the Office of the Speaker within 10 days. The Speaker will then have three session days to refer it to the rules committee that will then forward the complaint to the justice committee.

If the complaint passes scrutiny it must then be voted on in the House before it is transmitted to the Senate, which would then transform itself into an impeachment court to hear the complaint.

Analysts believe it is unlikely that Mrs. Arroyo would be impeached without mass defections to the opposition ranks, since her allies hold greater numbers in both chambers.

On the other hand, opposition lawmaker Sorsogon Rep. Francis Escudero expressed misgivings over the endorsement of the complaint.

"The impeachment filed by Attorney Lozano clearly lacked substance. Secondly, there are legal and technical issues that have to be resolved before actually endorsing a complaint," Escudero said.

"Thirdly, congressman Marcoleta is not a member of the minority and endorsing a complaint should be a prerogative of the opposition," he said.

Escudero said Marcoleta’s endorsement of the "hastily filed impeachment complaint" could be a ploy to kill any moves to oust Mrs. Arroyo.

Once a complaint has been endorsed, Congress is barred from accepting any further impeachment complaints for a period of one year.

And if the impeachment bid fails, there would be no other constitutional avenue to seek Mrs. Arroyo’s removal, Escudero pointed out.

Mrs. Arroyo’s popularity has taken a beating, first over her tax reform measures, then with allegations of jueteng payola being linked to her family members, and finally the vote-rigging allegations, which have stirred opponents to promise a series of protests for the next few days.

A "noise barrage" and marches against the government will culminate in a "national day of protest" today, opposition groups said.

The last time the country tried to impeach a sitting president was in 2000, when Joseph Estrada was accused of corruption and plunder.

The impeachment hearings broke down after Estrada allies in the Senate blocked presentation of crucial evidence against him, plunging the country into political turmoil.

Massive street protests that followed snowballed into an EDSA II people power revolt backed by the military that forced Estrada to step down in January 2001. He was replaced by Mrs. Arroyo, then the vice president. — AFP