UNO to appeal rejection of impeach pleadings

The United Opposition (UNO) will appeal the decision of the chairman of the House committee on justice to reject the amendments it offered to the three-page impeachment complaint filed by lawyer Roel Pulido against President Arroyo.

“We will file a motion for reconsideration on Monday,” UNO spokesman Adel Tamano told a news forum in Quezon City.

He said Quezon City Rep. Matias Defensor, justice committee chairman, has no authority to reject their 38-page pleadings and should have referred these to his panel.

“With due respect to Rep. Defensor, he is not the committee and cannot decide for it,” he said.

Defensor is the father of Mike Defensor, who was Mrs. Arroyo’s chief of staff until he decided to seek a Senate seat in last May’s elections. The younger Defensor and eight other administration candidates lost.

Representatives Jose Solis of Sorsogon and Edgar San Luis of Laguna, who were guests at the forum with Tamano, agreed with the UNO spokesman.

Solis said Rep. Defensor should not have unilaterally made a decision for the justice committee.

“He disregarded the right of every committee member to examine the pleadings by rejecting them,” he said.

San Luis, the lone endorser of the Pulido complaint, said the most prudent course of action that Defensor should have taken was to refer the proposed amendments to his committee.

The pleadings included as evidence of betrayal of public trust and bribery against the President accounts of the Oct. 11 distribution of P500,000 to congressmen and governors after meeting separately with Mrs. Arroyo in Malacañang.

Also included is the latest Senate testimony of businessman Jose de Venecia III, who claimed that the President asked former economic planning secretary Romulo Neri why he did not accept the P200-million bribe that then Commission on Elections Chairman Benjamin Abalos allegedly offered to him.

Besides the UNO pleadings filed last Monday, Iloilo Vice Gov. Rolex Suplico amended his impeachment complaint against Abalos to include Mrs. Arroyo. The Suplico amendment was returned, too.

In rejecting the proposed UNO additions, Defensor said they constituted a new complaint, which should have been filed with the office of the House secretary general with an endorsement from at least one congressman.

“What we filed is not a new complaint but a supplement to the Pulido complaint, which Atty. Pulido accepted,” Tamano said.