Bishop Bacani joins impeachment complaints

A leader of the Catholic Church appealed to allies of President Arroyo in the House of Representatives yesterday to give the new impeachment process against her a chance to work.

Joining impeachment complainants in a press conference at the office of Minority Leader Francis Escudero, Bishop Teodoro Bacani said while Mrs. Arroyo’s supporters killed last year’s impeachment complaints without going into the charges and supporting evidence in detail, they should have a "change of mind, heart and process" this year.

"Sana, ngayon ay magkaroon ng paglalahad ng akusasyon at katibayan bago pagpasyahan ang mga reklamo (I hope that they would hear the charges and the evidence before they decide on the complaints)," Bacani said.

He clarified that the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), in its pastoral letter more than a month ago, "did not say no to the impeachment process."

"They respected the efforts of various civil society groups to initiate new impeachment proceedings against the President. But they felt that these would be fruitless if House members did not have a change of mind, heart and process," Bacani said in Filipino.

Though he is not an impeachment petitioner, Bacani is obviously supporting what complainants describe as the "search for the truth" behind allegations Mrs. Arroyo cheated in the May 2004 presidential elections through the only means sanctioned by the Constitution.

Only one bishop, Deogracias Iniguez of Caloocan, has signed one impeachment complaint against the President. One priest from Bulacan is a signatory to another petition.

Bacani’s brother Rodolfo, a Manila congressman, voted last year’s for impeaching Mrs. Arroyo.

Asked if he is lobbying with House members to support this year’s impeachment process, the Church leader said he has only talked to his lawmaker-brother.

Bacani said he learned from their talks that the Manila congressman is being "pressured" to stay away from the new process.

However, he said he believed that his brother has not changed his stand on the impeachment issue.

Rep. Bacani, who is finishing his third and last term next year, is reportedly planning to run for Manila mayor. He belongs to the Liberal Party faction of Sen. Franklin Drilon. The other faction is led by incumbent, though third-term Mayor Lito Atienza, who is expected to field his own mayoral candidate.

Against impeachment

A state lawyer yesterday sought to have Iniguez’s impeachment case considered a "garbage pleading" mainly because it violates the policy of the separation of the Church and state.

"The constitutional pronouncement on the separation of the Church and the state is very clear like rendering to Ceasar, what is Ceasar’s, and to God, what is God’s," a certain Fernando Perito, who claims to be a "devout Catholic and a former seminarian," argued.

The lawyer filed a six-page motion with the office of House secretary general Roberto Nazareno, where all the eight complaints against Mrs. Arroyo have been filed since June 26, purportedly after the one-year ban rule on filing impeachment suits had lapsed.

Perito asserted the prelate has no right to intrude on the political affairs of the state, like join calls for the ouster of the Chief Executive, because his role as an official of the Church is to take care of his flock, or his parishioners, on moral and spiritual concerns.

He said Iniguez "intrudes defiantly on what is Caesar’s under the guise of being a pseudo layman inside a priest’s cassock and totally set aside what is God’s" and that he is "using his vestment, ring and influence to espouse a distorted position to humiliate a church member."

Perito called the pro-impeachment groups as "bloodthirsty sycophants" who make so many "wild accusations" and who "copied" the impeachment complaints from the rest, all "enjoying publicity by filing one baseless complaint after another."

For his part, a doctor of laws has filed his own opposition to the impeachment complaints.

Dr. Arturo de Castro, a pre-Bar lecturer at the University of the Philippines Law Center and professor of law in various schools, said Congress should not give due course to any of the impeach cases, citing "the sovereign will of the people is against impeachment."

"The voice of the people is the voice of God. Congress should respect the sovereign will of the Filipino people. Enough is enough," De Castro stressed.

He also pointed out that there is a pending case in the Supreme Court involving the dismissal of the impeachment complaint against Mrs. Arroyo last year.

But for former social welfare secretary Dinky Soliman, one of the impeachment petitioners who attended yesterday’s news conference with Bacani, said her former boss, Mrs. Arroyo, should face the new impeachment process to clarify once and for all the election fraud and legitimacy issues that have been hounding her.

Soliman was one of 10 Cabinet members and senior officials who quit in July last year in the wake of the election fraud-related impeachment charges against the President.

Concepcion Empeno and Erlinda Cadapan, mothers of two missing University of the Philippines students and who are among impeachment complainants, said they decided to support the impeachment process because their daughters’ rights have been violated.

"Karen (Empeno) and Sherlyn (Cadapan), who is pregnant, have been missing since June 26. They were abducted in Hagonoy, Bulacan. We are blaming the Arroyo administration and the military in Central Luzon led by Gen. (Jovito) Palparan for their disappearance," the two said.

They said instead of asking military leaders to account for political abductions and killings, the President even praised them in her State of the Nation Address last July 24.

‘Social evils’

Meanwhile, a group that represents major religious congregations of priests, brothers and their mission partners who work in various ministries in the country, challenged the government yesterday to put an end to extra-judicial killings in the country.

In a statement, the Association of Major Religious Superiors
of Men in the Philippines (AMRSMP) reaffirmed its opposition to political killings as well as environmental destruction, corruption and the alleged railroading of the Charter change process.

They also vowed to continue working to eradicate corruption in government institutions and other areas where they carry out their missions and other programs.

As for the group’s women counterpart, the Association of Major Religious Superiors of Women in the Philippines (AMRSWP) called on government leaders to train their attention to the "suffering Filipinos" and urged their religious sisters and lay partners "to live their prophetic calling by exposing and denouncing the prevailing social evils" in the country. — With Delon Porcalla, Edu Punay