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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider 2 Marcos impeachment raps junked by House justice panel

2 Marcos impeachment raps junked by House justice panel

Published Feb 4, 2026 03:15 pm

At A Glance

  • Just like that, the impeachment complaints against President Marcos have been defeated at the committee level. This, after the House Committee on Justice declared on Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 4 the two verified and endorsed impeachment complaints against the Chief Executive as both insufficient in substance.
President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. (PPAB)
President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. (PPAB)


Just like that, the impeachment complaints against President Marcos have been defeated at the committee level.
This, after the House Committee on Justice declared on Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 4 the two verified and endorsed impeachment complaints against the Chief Executive as both insufficient in substance.
Batangas 2nd district Rep. Gerville "Jinky Bitrics" Luistro, chairperson of the committee, made separate declarations to this effect after holding separate and rather lopsided votings among the members.
It took the justice panel only three hearing days to finish the impeachment proceedings against the sitting President.
The first complaint was filed by lawyer Andre de Jesus. It sought to impeach Marcos on three grounds: Graft and corruption, culpable violation of the Constitution, and betrayal of public trust.
The second complaint, filed by militant group leaders and former Makabayan bloc congressmen led by Liza Maza, sought to impeach Marcos on the lone ground of betrayal of public trust.
Both complaints were deemed sufficient in form during the Luistro panel's first hearing on Monday, Feb. 2. However, they had to pass the sufficiency test on substance for them to move forward in the House.
Assistant Majority Leader San Juan lone district Rep. Ysabel Maria Zamora made the motion to declare the De Jesus complaint as "insufficient in substance". The ensuing result in voting for this motion was 42-1-3 (yes-no-abstain).
Just minutes later, a result of 7-39-0 (yes-no-abstain) was achieved after Senior Deputy Minority Leader Caloocan City 2nd district Rep. Edgar "Egay" Erice moved to declare the Maza, et al complaint as "sufficient in substance".
In essence, both complaints failed to be deemed sufficient in substance, which basically meant that the allegations or arguments stated in the two documents can't hold water.
'Supermajority vote'
Luistro, in a press conference right after the hearing, described the result as a "supermajority vote".
The justice panel, like the entirety of the 300-plus strong House of Representatives, is teeming with Marcos administration allies. Technically, the impeachment proceedings against Marcos were initiated only last Jan. 26, when plenary referred the two complaints to the committee.
Tuesday's hearing was focused on the determination of sufficiency in substance with the first complaint. While the solons' comments generally called for the complaint's outright junking, Luistro suspended the voting to coincide with Wednesday's hearing.
The Maza, et al complaint was also similarly assailed by panel members during Wednesday's deliberations.
The two complaints had two main shared arguments for Marcos' impeachment: 1.) the respondent supposedly failed to veto unprogrammed appropriations (UA) in the national budget, and 2.) the respondent's alleged complicity in budget insertions and the flood control projects corruption scandal.
These, among others, were found lacking in merit by the panel members.
One of them, Manila 3rd district Rep. Joel Chua, denied allegations that the dismissal of the twin complaints was railroaded. He pointed to the exhaustive discussions of the committee since Monday as proof.
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