House committee keeps impeach bid vs Supreme Court justice alive

MANILA, Philippines–The House justice committee on Tuesday voted  27 to 4 with 1 abstentions to keep alive the impeachment complaint filed against Associate Justice  Mariano del Castillo after finding sufficient grounds to oust him for plagiarism.

Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo

House  committee chair and Iloilo Representative Niel Tupas Jr. took time off from his duties as lead counsel of the prosecution against impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona to shepherd the del Castillo impeachment complaint which Albay Representative Edcel Lagman claimed has gone beyond the 60-session processing limit.  Lagman was the lone abstention.

“Considering that the instant impeachment complaint against Supreme Court Associate Justice Mariano C. del Castillo was referred to the Committee on Justice as early as 2 February 2011, it is respectfully submitted that as of yesterday, 6 February 2012, 84 session days have elapsed,” said Lagman in a letter to Tupas.

Tupas maintained that only 55 session days have passed since the filing of the complaint (the pro-impeachment group claimed that a suspended session was not counted as one session day) and the committee voted 28-5 to shoot down Lagman’s motion to dismiss the complaint.

This means that del Castillo has 5 session days to present his case to the justice committee before they vote on whether to send the complaint to plenary for final voting.

The impeachment complaint, which arose from del Castillo’s flagrant copying without attribution of opinion of other legal experts  for his decision dismissing the charges filed by comfort women,  was deemed sufficient in form on May 18 last year.

With 188 lawmakers voting to impeach Corona (the entire process of filing, verification and approval finished in less than 5 hours) last December, del Castillo’s impeachment is seen as a certainty with the Senate facing the prospect of tackling two impeachment complaints at the same time, a fear already aired by Senator Joker Arroyo.