House panel junks impeachment complaint vs. Bautista

The House justice committee on Wednesday dismissed the impeachment complaint lodged against Commission on Elections chairman Andres Bautista.

This, after 26 members of the panel voted against Deputy Speaker Gwen Garcia's motion to declare the impeachment complaint filed by former Negros Oriental Representative Jacinto Paras and lawyer Ferdinand Topacio sufficient in form.

Only two committee members voted for Garcia's motion.

During the hearing, Albay Representative Edcel Lagman opposed the motion and noted that the verification for the complaint against Bautista was "identical" to the complaint filed by Dante Jimenez and Atty. Eligio Mallari against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

The House panel dismissed the Jimenez-Mallari complaint against Sereno for failing to pass the sufficiency in form test.

"If the Jimenez complaint was found insufficient, the same ruling must apply to the Paras-Topacio complaint," Lagman said.

Oriental Mindoro Representative Salvador Leachon, for his part, said there is no point to discuss Garcia's motion anymore as the committee had earlier voted not to admit the substitute verification for the complaint, which should have corrected its form.

"There's no leg to stand [on] considering that the motion to admit the substitute verification is denied," Leachon said.

Following the finding of insufficiency in substance, Umali declared the impeachment complaint against Bautista "deemed dismissed."

With the dismissal, no other impeachment complaint may be filed against Bautista until Sept. 7, 2018, or one year after the Jacinto-Topacio complaint was referred to the House justice committee.

Paras and Topacio filed the impeachment complaint against Bautista with the House of Representatives on August 23.

The complainants accused Bautista of betrayal of public trust due to his failure to address the hacking of the Comelec website in March 2015 and for failing to properly disclose his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth.

Aside from this, the complainants said Bautista betrayed public trust for admitting that he had received referral fees from the Comelec's technology provider Smartmatic through the Divina Law Office, and for obstructing justice in saying that, pending investigation, the script tweak of the transparency server during the 2016 elections was "merely cosmetic."

On Tuesday, House justice panel chair Reynaldo Umali and Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman both said they thought the complaint against Bautista would be dismissed.

The Office of the Ombudsman, meanwhile, has already started its fact-finding investigation regarding Bautista's alleged non-declaration of assets and accumulation of ill-gotten wealth. — MDM/RSJ, GMA News