MANILA, Philippines?President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has eluded yet again another attempt to unseat her, thanks to what opposition said were allies who played ?blind, deaf and mute.?

After only three days of hearings, the House committee on justice voted 42-8 to declare the fourth impeachment complaint in three years against Ms Arroyo insufficient in substance.

The committee decision will be taken up on the floor on Tuesday by the entire House membership dominated by Ms Arroyo?s allies that is anticipated to affirm the ruling.

Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teodoro Casiño explained that lack of evidence was not the reason for the complaint?s rejection as averred by the majority.

?We presented a lot of facts, the problem is the majority are just playing blind (for refusing to read the charges), deaf (for refusing to listen to the minority?s arguments) and mute (for refusing to engage in a debate lest the proceedings take longer) to our complaint,? Casiño said.

He pointed out that at the committee level of the impeachment process, the presentation of evidence is not required.

Casiño warned that the dismissal of the impeachment complaint largely on ?a flood of legalisms? and Latin terms like res judicata would give future Presidents the go-signal to ?commit with impunity? the same crimes leveled against Ms Arroyo.

?This process is political, we are not judges or justices, we are here as representatives of the people and it is our duty to give due course to any of their complaints,? Casiño said.

Unlike Estrada?s case

He pointed out that the House had swiftly forwarded the impeachment case against former President Joseph Estrada in 2000 without lengthy debates.

Casiño said that the majority members were probably afraid that pursuing the impeachment case would also open charges that they got fertilizer funds and the Malacañang cash gifts.

He said this was the reason the people continued to believe rumors that congressmen were for sale, just like the latest report that some of them were paid off in a clandestine meeting at the Linden Suites Tuesday night.

?If we do not investigate the President, these doubts will continue,? Casiño said.

?This is a big mistake,? Minority Leader Ronaldo Zamora said, accusing the majority of shielding the President.

?Why? Can?t she answer for herself? It is the public who will render its judgment here?she is guilty. That is what is going to happen,? Zamora said after the hearing.

?Let us give the President her day in court and tell us?all of you are wrong and I am right.?

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman summed up the swift rejection of the impeachment complaint filed by a group led by businessman Jose ?Joey? de Venecia III, namesake son of the ousted House Speaker, after the majority opted to waive questioning the charges to abbreviate the proceeding.

Lagman called the impeachment case a ?compendium of ... implications, innuendoes and presumptions, all bereft of the requisite ultimate facts.?

He carved up the complaint?s causes of action in two groups, the first composed of five ?recycled? cases that were ?adjudicated and dismissed? in the previous impeachment cases?the scuttled $329-million NBN-ZTE deal, the ?Hello Garci? tapes, the P728-million fertilizer scam, the NorthRail contract and extrajudicial killings.

The panel dismissed the first-hand account of Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia Jr. and his photograph of the President and her husband visiting the ZTE headquarters in China on Nov. 2, 2006, as evidence of irregularity.

?Pictures do not lie but biased viewers do. The picture at Shengzhen golf course simply and only depicts the personalities in the photo. It is not a criminal pose or a mug shot. Neither does it portray a criminal act,? Lagman said.

He said that only three of the causes of action were new?the Malacañang cash gift for the hasty referral of the Roel Pulido complaint last year, the gold reserves contract for Mt. Diwalwal and the P5-billion Quedancorp swine scam. But he said these charges were found wanting in ?ultimate facts? to pin down the President?s culpability.

?I am perplexed why the complainants have not learned their lesson from their failures in the previous impeachment cases,? Lagman said.

?Either there is a failure in craftsmanship and advocacy or the complainants cannot in truth and conscience really make out a case for impeachment against the President.?

The majority did not even bother to consider the appeal of Anakpawis party-list Rep. Rafael Mariano for the 18 committee members who received fertilizer fund allocations from former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn ?Joc-joc? Bolante to inhibit themselves. It would have not mattered in the final count.

Unclean hands

Mariano was barred by the committee chair, Quezon City Rep. Matias Defensor, from reciting the names of the fertilizer fund recipients.

Defensor said that this was covered by the committee?s earlier decision to reject Gabriela party-list Rep. Liza Maza?s appeal for members with conflict of interest in the case?such as those who received the P500,000 cash gifts from Malacañang last year?to inhibit themselves.

?This is lamentable, they have rejected this complaint with unclean hands,? Maza said.

The hearing was over in less than two hours. Defensor and the rest of the majority bloc even had enough time to finish up their lunch of two sticks of pork barbecue, steamed vegetables and rice.

Defensor said that the committee would try to wrap up its report by Thursday in order to forward it to the committee on rules which would schedule a plenary vote. He expected the House in plenary to reject the complaint by Tuesday.

Minority to go to SC

The elder De Venecia remained hopeful that it was not yet over for the impeachment complaint noting that it was still probable for the minority to still gather 80 votes or one-third of the House members needed to overturn the committee decision.

Akbayan party-list Rep. Riza Hontiveros said she would go to the Supreme Court to question the committee?s vote in what could be a landmark case, should it happen, the norm being coequal branches of government are not supposed to intervene in each other?s internal affairs.

?It is absurd for the House majority to frame the process based on phantom requirements. A decision by the Supreme Court is now necessary to protect the rule of law,? she said.

?The majority wants the impeachment process to be reduced as a numbers game. In truth, what we need is to restore the impeachment process to its rightful place?as a credible mechanism to hold the government accountable,? Hontiveros said.