Opposition to take ‘long route’ to impeach Arroyo--solon
First posted 05:31pm (Mla time) June 08, 2006
By Maila Ager
INQ7.net
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AFTER a crushing defeat last year, the opposition bloc at the House of Representatives will again try to impeach President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, but this time via “a long route.”
"Last year, we used the constitutional shortcut,” Senior Deputy Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano said Thursday. “We tried to get the number first before we filed the case."
"Now, we will take a long route. We will file the complaint even with only one endorser," the Taguig–Pateros representative told INQ7.net in a telephone interview.
The new complaint against Arroyo will be filed while Congress is in recess and the one-year ban on filing a new impeachment complaint against her lapses, said Cayetano.
The opposition-backed complaint was quashed on a technicality in September with the lower chamber, packed with Arroyo allies, ruling to take up another impeachment complaint filed ahead of it.
Cayetano said the “creeping impeachment” approach was necessary to fend off administration
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efforts to thwart fresh opposition bid to oust Arroyo.
"We saw the capability of the administration. During the Erap [nickname of deposed president Joseph Estrada] impeachment, he did not use the appointments or pork to quell the process,” he said. “But this administration, it's doing everything to stop us."
Only 52 legislators voted to impeach the President last year, short of the needed 79 votes to bring the case to the Senate for trial.
But even after surviving the impeachment vote, Arroyo has remained hounded by allegations of electoral fraud, corruption and human rights violations -- the issues raised by the opposition bloc in its complaint.
I hope the pro administration solons will not block the impeachment this time. Truth should come out.