No punishment for Tiangco, our focus on ‘priority measures’—Belmonte

MANILA, Philippines—What will happen to Navotas Representative Tobias Tiangco?

House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. on Thursday said they are not punishing Tiangco for defying the House and testifying for Chief Justice Renato Corona at the impeachment trial.

Belmonte, along with House majority leader Neptali Gonzales II, told reporters during an interview that they would take no action over Tiangco’s testimony.

Tiangco on Monday narrated to the impeachment court a December 12 caucus at the House of Representatives wherein lawmakers tackled and signed the impeachment complaint on the chief magistrate.

Belmonte, reacting to questions about lawmakers not being allowed to ask questions on the complaint before signing it, said that they in fact entertained questions after the signing. He said that they only allowed questions after the signing “to give people a chance to sign… common sense lang, if you allow someone to [ask questions] hindi na matatapos.”

However, none of the members of the House who signed the complaint posed questions, he added.

Gonzales further denied that none of the lawmakers knew of their agenda for the said caucus, explaining that the caucus was done after several informal ones by those in the majority. “There was already a decision [and] more than 95 [lawmakers] alam na ang pag-uusapan. We had enough numbers,” he said, pointing out that roughly one-third of the House had already agreed to sign by then.

He added that the PowerPoint presentation on the complaint that was shown before the signing took place was prepared for those who may not have been privy to the prior informal caucuses.

Gonzales said they had “priority measures,” which they needed to focus on instead of thinking of ways to punish Tiangco. “What we don’t want is to be distracted by side issues which have nothing to do [with the impeachment trial].”