Geneva trip of House official stymies filing of new impeach bid

MANILA, Philippines – The absence of a key official of the House of Representatives prevented the filing of the fourth impeachment complaint against President Arroyo yesterday.

Businessman Jose de Venecia III and Iloilo Vice Gov. Rolex Suplico were not able to file the complaint since House secretary general Marilyn Yap was not around to formally receive the document.

Yap is attending the Inter-Parliamentary Union conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

Though expressing frustration, De Venecia said they would file the complaint today on the assurance made by Speaker Prospero Nograles that other House officials would be around to receive the document.

De Venecia said he became disappointed after Nograles earlier assured him that Yap’s office would be open during the weekend to receive the complaint.

Since Yap was not around, De Venecia said they would file the complaint “first thing in the morning” today before House deputy secretary general Ramon Ricardo Roque to prevent other similar complaints from pushing through and spoil their move.

De Venecia and Suplico noted lawyers Oliver Lozano and Ruel Pulido filed “watered down” impeachment complaints last year that spoiled opposition attempts to pursue their complaint against Mrs. Arroyo at the House, resulting in its dismissal.

Nograles, on the other hand, reasoned out that De Venecia and Suplico could have filed the complaint before Roque even in the absence of Yap.

“If they wanted to file, they could have done so past midnight because that’s already the next day and secretariat officials have been working overtime because of the budget deliberations,” Nograles said.

The unavailability of any secretariat official to receive the complaint was not deliberate and not a delaying tactic, he explained.

Among the main causes of actions enumerated in the complaint are the bungled $329-million national broadband network deal with China’s ZTE Corp., human rights violations, the controversy surrounding the Northrail project, the ZTE-tainted Mt. Diwalwal project, the P728-million fertilizer scam, P500,000 bribery of congressmen and the alleged electoral fraud committed in the May 2004 presidential elections.

De Venecia said losing their impeachment complaint is immaterial since they simply wanted to “send the message” to Mrs. Arroyo that she should be held accountable for the allegations.

De Venecia, the son of former speaker and namesake Pangasinan Rep. Jose De Venecia Jr., was the losing bidder in the government’s NBN project that went to ZTE.

He later blew the whistle on the deal, implicating the President’s husband First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo and former elections chief Benjamin Abalos of overpricing the contract for kickbacks and commissions.

Abalos quit after the scandal broke last year and denied the allegations.

De Venecia’s allegations were later supported by another witness, Rodolfo Lozada Jr., a former government consultant on the NBN deal.

Opposition lawmakers believe De Venecia and Lozada may be the missing link in their effort to prove the President and her husband were involved in approving the NBN deal, which was eventually scrapped.

Suplico, for his part, said it is their obligation to make public and bring forth anomalies of the Arroyo administration through the impeachment process and hold her liable even beyond her term in 2010.

Administration lawmakers, on the other hand, dismissed the latest impeachment complaint “as show of senator wannabes.” – With Aurea Calica, Evelyn Macairan, Edu Punay, Antonieta Lopez, Marvin Sy