Philippine lawmakers find bid to impeach Marcos to be ‘insufficient in substance’
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine lawmakers on Wednesday rejected two impeachment complaints against him. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. There were charges accusing him of a range of crimes, including involvement in large-scale corruption, all of which were declared “intrinsically inadequate”.
Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte were facing separate impeachment complaints before the House of Representatives, where the president’s allies are in the majority. At least two impeachment complaints have been filed against Duterte, mostly over allegations of corruption, but it is unclear when they will be addressed.
The two leaders were former allies and later became embroiled in civil war. annoying political debatesDeepening divisions in one part of Asia most cumbersome democracies.
After days of deliberations, the House judiciary committee voted to reject impeachment complaints against Marcos filed by left-wing activists and a lawyer. A majority of 46 members argued that most of the allegations would either be difficult to verify, did not directly implicate the president, or did not fit the constitutional grounds for direct impeachment, and rejected them “for lack of substance.”
One of the allegations referred to former House lawmaker Zaldy Co, who accused the president of taking money. big commissions of flood control projects in videos he posted on Facebook. Co, who was involved in the corruption scandal, could not be located. He denied any wrongdoing but was wanted by police at home and abroad after an anti-corruption court issued an arrest warrant for him last year.
Marcos welcomed the decision. “We are happy that the process was followed and legislators realized the real truth,” Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro said.
Renato Reyes, one of the complainants from the left-wing political alliance Bayan, said the Assembly’s decision “derailed accountability.”
“We were ready to present evidence at the next level,” Reyes said. “All that was required at this stage was a repeat of the offenses that constituted a betrayal of the public trust.”
Under Philippine law, opponents seeking to impeach any senior official will have to wait a year before being allowed to attempt a new impeachment.
Parliament last year voted to impeach The vice president sent the case to the Senate for trial.
Supreme CourtBut he later ruled that the House had violated the constitutional rule that only one impeachment trial can be heard in a year.
Duterte survived last year’s impeachment attempt due to legal technicalities. The two rival groups later re-applied separately impeachment complaints A case was filed against him on Monday after the one-year ban ended.
The complaints focused on allegations that he illegally used and mishandled 612.5 million pesos ($10.3 million) in secret funds from the vice president’s office as well as from his time as Marcos’s tenure as education secretary. He has generally denied any wrongdoing but has refused to provide detailed explanations in past congressional investigations.
Duterte’s threat in an online press conference in November 2024 that he would be killed by an assassin if the president, his wife and the speaker of the House of Representatives were killed amid their disagreements was also included in one of the impeachment complaints.
The vice president is the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, who oversaw a bloody crackdown on drugs while in office from 2016 to 2022. Duterte was arrested and detained by the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands last year on allegations of crimes against humanity.
