House keeps impeach cards close to chest

The planned protest march by Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) members aimed at halting efforts to oust Vice President Sara Duterte will be respected by those pushing to impeach her in the House of Representatives.

As this developed, a ranking lawmaker said on Thursday that talks among his House colleagues on whether or not to impeach Duterte remained off the table.

House Majority Leader Paolo Ortega maintained that the supermajority coalition in the House has refrained from commenting on the impeachment amid speculation that external groups, including religious organizations, have influenced House members on the controversial issue.

The INC announced late Wednesday that they would hold a rally in support of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s call for Congress to refrain from initiating efforts to remove Duterte from office.

The influential INC religious sect endorsed the Marcos-Duterte tandem in 2022.

“The INC is for peace. We don’t want any kind of turmoil coming from any side,” a television host said, reading from the statement of the religious group.

Despite a broken alliance with Duterte, Marcos confirmed that he had asked his allies in the House not to file an impeachment complaint against the Vice President, stating that it would be a “waste of time” and that “none of this will help improve a single Filipino life.”

In a span of only two days, Duterte was hit with two impeachment complaints filed by a coalition of various organizations and endorsed by minority lawmakers, including Akbayan Rep. Percival Cendaña and Representatives France Castro, Arlene Brosas, and Raoul Manuel of the Makabayan bloc.

The Makabayan bloc announced they have started gathering the required one-third of signatures of House members to support the impeachment resolution, which would expedite the proceedings and lead to its eventual transmittal to the Senate. They need 106 members of the House to sign up.

However, Ortega said the majority bloc, which includes some members who are critical of Duterte, has not yet discussed whether they will support or oppose the petitions. This comes despite the ongoing House investigation into the Vice President’s use of confidential funds, which has exposed potential impeachable offenses.

“The majority has not made any moves, and the majority has not discussed anything about supporting the impeachment,” Ortega said in Filipino. “I will support whatever the decision of the majority is, but we are also not ignoring what Makabayan is doing.”

“We’ve been very focused on the hearings. That’s still the goal, that’s still the thread of our focus in the majority. As I said, many impeachable offenses have come out during the hearings, but we have not discussed it in the majority up to now,” added the La Union lawmaker.

Earlier, Malacañang confirmed that the President met with members of the House for a “fellowship.” The closed-door meeting followed Marcos’s plea to lawmakers not to impeach Duterte.

More than 200 House members were reportedly present at the gathering.

Ortega said the meeting had been in the works for nearly two years but faced repeated delays due to scheduling conflicts. He denied that it had political undertones and stressed that no discussions on Duterte’s impeachment took place.

Duterte is under scrutiny amid allegations of irregularities in her use of P650 million in confidential funds, which were allegedly supported by fictitious acknowledgment receipts.

The complainants in the impeachment petitions seek to have her indicted for graft and corruption, bribery, betrayal of public trust, culpable violation of the Constitution, and other high crimes — all grounds for impeachment, except for treason.