Flawed impeachment process to strengthen GMA’s impunity

While agreeing to the allegations against President GMA contained in supplementary complaint filed by UNO spokesperson Adel Tamano yesterday, AKBAYAN Rep. Risa Hontiveros announced that she would not re-endorse the Abalos impeachment complaint in order to revise the original one.

“We agree that President GMA is responsible over the bribery scandal in the ZTE deal and the pay-off controversy in Malacañang involving legislators. She should be held accountable for that and we challenge her to speak out to answer these allegations,” Rep. Hontiveros said.
“However, flaws in the impeachment process is stacked up against those who wish to use the impeachment process as the venue to go after President GMA. Impeachment should lead to accountability. But as we have seen in previous impeachment attempts against GMA, the process has been distorted to strengthen the President. We don’t want a biased process that would only deepen her impunity,” Rep. Hontiveros said.

She added that AKBAYAN supports the move of the Minority to question the rules of impeachment before the Supreme Court. “The rules have to be revisited to restore the integrity of the process. The one-year bar is meant to make the process credible, and not a hindrance to accountability and justice,” Rep. Hontiveros stressed, adding that AKBAYAN believes that no initiation of the process has taken place once the Justice Committee junks an impeachment complaint due to insufficiency in substance or form.

“We want a level and fair playing field. True, the process is political. But this doesn’t mean that it should not be governed by the rule of law or by reason. What we have seen in the last two impeachment attempts against GMA is a bastardization of a process that should be urgently corrected,” Rep. Hontiveros said.

“Even if Speaker De Venecia and President GMA were able to kiss and make up, the allegations of bribery should not be buried and forgotten. It is in this spirit that AKBAYAN has filed a case against former COMELEC Chair Benjamin Abalos before the Ombudsman. We hope that the Speaker of the House of Representatives would rise above his partisan interest and lead Congress in using its oversight powers to hold a corrupt President accountable,” Rep. Hontiveros said.