Impeachment bid vs Noy downplayed

MANILA, Philippines - Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. yesterday downplayed efforts to file an impeachment complaint against President Aquino by a taxpayer over an alleged fraudulent sale of a government property in Baguio City.

Belmonte was commenting on the move of Danilo Lihaylihay, president of the Philippine Association of Revenue Informers Inc., to have Aquino impeached for allegedly committing “massive tax fraud” for the P500-million sale of the 3.4-hectare government property known as Governor’s Park located along Session Road in Baguio City.

In his affidavit-complaint, Lihaylihay said Aquino, along with Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., Environment Secretary Ramon Paje and SM Investments, “committed massive tax evasion fraud and graft and corrupt practices through conspiracy and connivance” for failing to remit to the government the taxes due resulting from the sale of the government property. Lihaylihay wrote House Minority Leader and Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez asking him to endorse the complaint so the impeachment process against Aquino can start.

But the Speaker said the President had nothing to do with the sale since the transaction of selling the property to SM happened between the time of then President Fidel Ramos and the completion of documentation in 2011. “This (complaint) will not fly because it is baseless and unfounded. The President has nothing to do with the transaction. The story was not true. The auction and award were done in 1992 and the full payment was in 1997. The documentation was completed in 2011,” Belmonte said. Members of the minority bloc in the House of Representatives held a closed door meeting yesterday to discuss Lihaylihay’s complaint.            

After the meeting, Suarez said he was given the authority by opposition lawmakers to study the complaint and decide whether it was worthy of endorsement.          

“We have to conduct some research on this. We need to communicate with concerned agencies on this particular transaction. We have to study the complaint carefully,” Suarez told The STAR. Deputy Speaker and Quezon Rep. Lorenzo Tañada III said the complaint has “no basis and it will not prosper.” Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara said “any member of Congress or any citizen has the right to file impeachment raps against certain officials in the government.”

Lihaylihay had earlier accused former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of plunder for the alleged illegal sale of the old Iloilo airport. – With Artemio Dumlao