Ombudsman laments Aquino rallied allies to impeach her

UPDATED 11:14 a.m. - Embattled Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez on Tuesday lamented that President Benigno Simeon Aquino III has rallied his allies at the House of Representatives to support the bid to impeach her. "I am saddened by the turn of events as the president himself has ordered his allies at the House of Representatives to impeach me," said Gutierrez at a forum organized by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) in Manila. "It has confirmed our worst fears that the proceedings at the (lower) House has degenerated into a partisan political exercise," she added. Gutierrez made the statement just before the House justice committee was to vote on whether the two impeachment complaints against her should be transmitted to the House plenary. The besieged Ombudsman also questioned whether Aquino has the authority to rally his allies to move for the impeachment of the head of an independent constitutional body like the Office of the Ombudsman. She then said that just as the President cannot call for the impeachment of Supreme Court justices, who belong to the judiciary, so is he barred from rallying for the impeachment of the Ombudsman, an independent official. "Is it right for the President to say, 'Go ahead, impeach the chief justice'? Now, that is my question to you. Is it right to have him impeached?" asked Gutierrez. Still defiant Gutierrez also remained defiant of the House justice committee that is set to vote on the impeachment complaints against her. Gutierrez did not attend the final clarificatory hearing on Tuesday, where she was supposed to answer the two impeachment complaints filed against her. The lawyers of the Ombudsman, who attended the first clarificatory hearings last week, likewise did not show up in the proceedings on Tuesday. The Ombudsman also refused to provide the House panel with documents the committee compelled her to produce last week, citing “confidentiality of records." “The Ombudsman said in her reply that she cannot be compelled to divulge the pending cases before the Office of the Ombudsman. For what reason, I don’t know," justice committee head Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas said at the start of the proceedings. Even without Gutierrez, the House justice committee will determine on Tuesday if there is probable cause to remove the Ombudsman from her post. If majority of the committee members finds probable cause to impeach Gutierrez, the impeachment cases, which Tupas said will be consolidated to a single complaint, will be transmitted to the plenary for another round of voting. According to Section 3, Article XI of the 1987 Constitution, the impeachment complaint against the Ombudsman will have to get a one-third vote of all House members—in this case, 94 affirmative votes— before it can be transmitted to the Senate for trial. Undue haste During the forum, Gutierrez hit the House justice panel for supposedly railroading the impeachment proceedings against her even if the Supreme Court has yet to issue a final decision on whether the House panel can hear the two impeachment complaints against her. "The indecent haste with which the committee has proceeded has become too obvious and alarming. The committee should have suspended its proceedings, but the committee voted nonetheless to continue with the proceedings despite being made aware that I have filed a motion for reconsideration at the Supreme Court," Gutierrez said. She added: "Without waiting for the Supreme Court's final ruling, the committee required me to file my answer within a period of three days, when the period is 10 days. And then within 10 minutes each, the committee separately resolved without any deliberations the sufficiency in form and substance of the two complaints and the sufficiency of the grounds as impeachable offenses." Gutierrez also likened to a "kangaroo court" the House panel, which supposedly violated her rights. "While I must admit that the impeachment complaint filed against me in the House of Representatives is political in nature, it is not a reason for them to skirt the rules and railroad the proceedings. A House that steps on the rights of an individual by hammering through an impeachment process is no different from a kangaroo court," she said. Gutierrez said the committee's "utter haste has become more palpable" because it only gave her six days to submit all her pleadings before House panel. "Indeed how can anyone refute evidence when one has not yet seen and examined [the evidence] within a short perdiod of time requried for her?" she asked. She also said that last Friday, the House committee ordered her to submit on Monday her rebuttal of the evidence presented against her. "How can the Ombudsman or anyone [come up with] all the documents to be produced within one working day? Is it fair to require me to produce all my documents within one working day?" said Gutierrez. Liberal party decision On Monday, during a gathering of the Liberal Party in Quezon City, Aquino rallied his fellow party members in the House to support the impeachment of Gutierrez. The President, who is LP chairman, said the Ombudsman supposedly betrayed public trust by sitting on the cases of certain high-ranking government officials of the previous Arroyo administration. Aquino said the impeachment case will serve as a benchmark for those who are for or against the people. “Eto na ang sukatan. Totoo ba tayo sa mga kumalinga sa atin, o pababayaan natin sila? (The time of reckoning has come. Have we stayed true to those who had taken care of us, or shall we turn our backs on them?)," the President said. “Siyempre sino ba ang naghahanap ng away? Pero itong away na ito, hindi puwedeng atrasan ito na hindi tayo taksil sa ating mga kababayan (Of course, who’d go out his way looking for a fight? But this fight is something one cannot retreat from without being traitors to our fellow Filipinos)," the President added. Cavite Rep. Joseph Emilio Abaya, Liberal Party (LP) secretary-general, said the party has adopted a unified stand endorsing the impeachment case against the Ombudsman to go to trial in the Senate. "The LP party stand is to support the impeachment case. The 80 LP members are expected to vote for the impeachment," Abaya told GMA News Online in a phone interview on Monday. The party’s decision to vote as a bloc against Gutierrez is expected to sway the House’s ruling on the complaint. "That is definitely a tipping point as far as numbers are concerned, but we cannot be complacent. The challenge is to have all supporters present on the floor when voting day comes," Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teodoro Casiño, one of those who endorsed an impeachment case against the Ombudsman, said in a text message to GMA News Online on Monday. – with Andreo Calonzo, VVP/RSJ, GMA News