House panel to begin Marcos impeach proceedings next week
The House committee on justice is set to take up the impeachment complaints against President Marcos starting next week, setting in motion a lengthy process to convince a body dominated by his allies that his term should be cut short.
The committee chair, Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro, said on Tuesday the initial hearings may be held from Feb. 2 to Feb. 4 to determine whether the two impeachment complaints against Mr. Marcos which were referred to the panel on Monday were sufficient both in form and substance.
“If these dates do not suffice, we will be scheduling further dates in the succeeding weeks,” Luistro added.
For the upcoming hearings, the sponsors of the two complaints, filed last week by lawyer Andre de Jesus and the progressive group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), will be asked to deliver sponsorship speeches before the panel consolidates them.
After this, the panel begins a five-step process to determine whether the House should support the consolidated complaint.
First, Luistro said, the panel will have to determine whether the complaint is sufficient in form, which means it was signed, verified and sponsored by a House lawmaker.
Being sufficient in substance, she explained, means “that the allegations… should be able to substantiate the grounds for impeachment under which the same is filed… [it] means that the impeachment complaint should be focused, confined to these respective grounds.”
Impartiality
Under the Constitution, there are only five grounds for impeachment: treason, bribery, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption, and other high crimes.
Once the committee has determined sufficiency both in form and substance, it will proceed to the determination of sufficient basis to support the impeachment complaint, Luistro said.
“As the fourth step, we will be conducting [proper] hearings, invite the complainants, witnesses, and even the respondent,” she said. “It is his (the President’s) prerogative whether to come or not because just like any other respondent, his participation is part of his right to due process.”
The last step, she said, will be the determination of whether there is probable cause to support the impeachment complaint.
After that determination, the committee is expected to submit its report to the plenary, where the vote of at least a third of the House members is required to approve the complaint.
Luistro stressed that the entire justice committee will act with “utmost independence and impartiality” even after Speaker Faustino “Bojie” Dy III already said he found no merit in the complaint, especially the one filed by De Jesus.
The majority leader, Ilocos Norte Rep. Ferdinand Alexander “Sandro” Marcos, has also recused himself from the rules committee, which is in charge of scheduling the complaints against his father.
“The members of the House are expected to evaluate, assess and hear the impeachment complaint with utmost independence and impartiality,” Luistro added.
She also expressed confidence that the panel is capable and ready to hear more than one impeachment case if needed, amid reports that the Makabayan bloc will refile its impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte on Feb. 6.
“We have no other option but to receive the same and evaluate the same and hear the impeachment complaint,” Luistro noted.
‘Cabral formula’
Also on Tuesday, Malacañang described the impeachment complaints as an attack on the administration, saying these will affect not only the President but also the country’s economy.
But Palace press officer Claire Castro said Malacañang will let the impeachment process take its course, reiterating that Mr. Marcos respects the legislature’s mandate on the matter.
Former Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares, one of the complainants in the Bayan filing, said the President should answer under oath all questions surrounding the so-called “Cabral formula” crafted by the late Public Works Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral that supposedly governed the Department of Public Works and Highways’ infrastructure budget.
Congressional inquiries into the multibillion-peso flood control scandal revealed that the formula was allegedly used to fund anomalous infrastructure projects in exchange for kickbacks.
“In any case, let the President say under oath that I didn’t know anything about it. I mean they named that formula after him: BBM (Baseline-Balanced-Managed) parametric formula,” Colmenares said.
The BBM formula serves as Bayan’s “smoking gun” in their impeachment complaint, which alleged that the President oversaw the systematic plunder of public funds and thus culpable for betrayal of public trust.
Mr. Marcos has sought to distance himself from the formula, while Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon once remarked that only Cabral understood how it worked. —WITH A REPORT FROM LUISA CABATO
