Justice panel chair wants inclusion of MOA-AD in impeachment complaint junked

(Updated 11:03 a.m.) MANILA, Philippines – House Justice Committee chairman and Quezon City Rep. Matias Defensor Jr on Wednesday pushed for the junking of the motion to intervene on the impeachment complaint against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, as the panel opened its second day of hearing on the complaint. Defensor was referring to the motion for intervention which seeks to include the aborted memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain (MOA-AD) as among the grounds for the President’s impeachment. Defensor said the motion should be returned to its proponents, namely Manuel Quezon III and other political bloggers, because it is "without basis." "An independent controversy cannot be injected...and such intervention cannot be allowed when it expands the issue," Defensor said in his preliminary remarks. "The complaint for intervention is immature, and clearly a collateral accessory to the original impeachment complaint. Therefore the chair rules that the same be returned to the original proponent," he added. Defensor explained that the MOA-AD is rendered moot because the government had not signed it before the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. For his part, Bayan Muna Rep. Teodoro Casiño asked the Justice panel to include the motion for intervention in the complaint to allow ordinary citizens to get involved in the impeachment proceedings. “Sana po, the committee should consider na pagbigyan ng pagkakataon sa ordinaryong mamamayang na makisangkot sa mahalagang kasong ito (I hope the committee will consider and allow ordinary citizens to take part in this important matter)," Casiño said. “We should allow these kinds of amendments, or changes, or interventions in the complaint and let us decide if we can consolidate and we can add it as grounds for impeachment, he added. In his preliminary statement, Defensor also said the impeachment complaint filed by lawyer Guillermo Sotto which was referred to the Justice committee Tuesday night should be returned to its proponents, citing the one-year ban for filing a verified complaint. Aside from tackling the motion for intervention, the Justice Committee is also set to deliberate on the complaint’s “sufficiency in substance" after declaring it “sufficient in form" a day earlier. The impeachment complaint was filed last October 13 by businessman Jose de Venecia III, civil society lawyer Harry Roque, Iloilo Gov. Rolex Suplico, and other civil society leaders. The complaint aims "to impeach and bring to trial Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for her betrayal of public trust, culpable violation of the Consitution, bribery, graft and corruption and other high crimes." It is based on irregularities the Arroyo administration is accused of including the ZTE national broadband network deal, the P728-million fertilizer fund scam, and cases of extrajudicial killings in the country, and Malacañang's alleged bribery of lawmakers. - Sophia Dedace, GMANews.TV