Arroyo allies working to impeach Aquino

MANILA, Philippines—The House minority is keen on taking on the challenge of Chief Justice Renato Corona to impeach President Aquino for allegedly intervening in the Senate impeachment court.

But a former opposition member urged the minority bloc to be more discriminating in choosing “more relevant and seasonable issues” in its criticisms of the Aquino administration instead of riding on “nonissues” just to hit the President.

In a press conference, Minority Leader Danilo Suarez said: “No less than the Chief Justice has declared that the President committed an impeachable offense intruding into the procedure of the impeachment. We have to look into that.”

In a statement shortly after his defense team accused Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa of dangling P100 million in additional projects to senators allegedly in exchange for their support to oust Corona, the Chief Justice said the “President has clearly committed an impeachable offense when he came out swinging by openly urging the senator-judges to disobey the Constitution [that] he has personally sworn to uphold.”

Suarez said the minority would take up in a meeting next week Corona’s proposal and the letter of Danilo Lihaylihay urging the opposition to file an impeachment case against the President.

But Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, former Minority Leader, said that the subject of Lihaylihay’s complaint was a government transaction involving a Baguio City property 20 years ago.

“It is a relic which should be consigned to the archives rather than exhumed as a possible ground for impeachment of President Aquino since it is bereft of legal and factual anchorage. The execution of the deed of absolute sale by President Aquino on Sept. 16, 2011, in favor of the winning bidder and purchaser, SM Group, which fully paid the purchase price in 1997, was only confirmatory of the legal transaction and mandated by law,” said Lagman in a statement.