House panel rejects admission of substitute verification for impeachment complaint vs. Bautista

The House justice committee on Wednesday rejected the admission of the substitute verification form for the impeachment complaint against Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Andres Bautista.

This, after 27 the members of the panel voted against the motion of Kabayan party-list Representative Harry Roque to approve the motion to admit substitute verification filed by former Negros Oriental Representative Jacinto Paras and lawyer Ferdinand Topacio, the complainants for the case.

Only two panel members voted in favor of Roque's motion.

During the hearing, Roque said filing a substitute verification is not prohibited and defects of the original complaint can be corrected.

"If the substitution is allowed and defects can be rectified, why not allow substitution?" he said.

Roque, one of the endorsers of the complaint, also pointed out that the complaint should be heard as "it is the very integrity of the democracy [that is] at stake."

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

But House panel chairman Reynaldo Umali said the original form for the impeachment complaint against Bautista was "similar" with that of the complaint filed by Dante Jimenez and lawyer Eligio Mallari against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, which was dismissed for failing to pass the sufficiency in form test.

Jacinto and Topacio on September 13 filed a motion to admit the substitute verification, along with the actual document itself.

LOOK: Motion to admit and substitute verification form for the impeachment complaint vs. Bautista. pic.twitter.com/wJLpx369TY

— Erwin Colcol (@erwincolcol) September 20, 2017

In the original version of the verification, the complainants said the allegations were "true of our knowledge and belief."

In the substitute verification, however, the complainants replaced the original phrase and stated that the allegations are "true and correct of our own knowledge or based on authentic documents."

Deputy Speaker Fredenil Castro, in opposing Roque's motion, said the panel has decided that the "exercise of liberality" would be made for the last time in the impeachment complaint filed by Magdalo party-list Representative Gary Alejano against President Rodrigo Duterte.

"[It is] a clear prohibition that the next time, the committee will no longer entertain any complaint defective in form," he said.

Albay Representative Edcel Lagman, meanwhile, said that the filing of a substitute verification has no legal basis.

"There is no specific rule granting a party the right to amend," he said.

"Since the Paras-Topacio complaint has been referred to the committee, any determination with respect to form must be based on the original verification," he added.

Lagman also said that the complainants' attempt to file a substitute is a clear admission that the original was effective.

Jacinto and Topacio 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 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." — RSJ/KVD, GMA News