Official end to Marcos impeachment proceedings within reach
At A Glance
- The impeachment proceedings against President Marcos moved one step closer to its expected final destination Monday, Feb. 9 after the House Committee on Justice overwhelmingly voted to adopt its committee report on the two junked complaints.
The House of Representatives (Ellson Quismorio/ MANILA BULLETIN)
The impeachment proceedings against President Marcos moved one step closer to its expected final destination Monday, Feb. 9 after the House Committee on Justice overwhelmingly voted to adopt its committee report on the two junked complaints.
With this, the justice committee is set to endorse to the House plenary the committee report and accompanying resolution dismissing the two impeachment complaints against the Chief Executive for lack of substance.
Once the committee report gets adopted via nominal voting in plenary, it will have marked the official death of this year's impeachment proceedings against President Marcos.
The matter, however, wasn't taken up during plenary session Monday night. There will still be plenary sessions on Tuesday, Feb. 10 and Wednesday, Feb. 11.
Because of the one-year bar rule, the next time that the House of Representatives can accept new impeachment complaints against President Marcos is on Jan. 27, 2027.
Batangas 2nd district Rep. Gerville "Jinky Bitrics" Luistro chairs the Committee on Justice.
In its hearing earlier Monday, the panel voted 39-4-0 (yes-no-abstain) to adopt the committee report.
It covered the two impeachment raps filed against the President last month. 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.
Last week, three successive hearings were held wherein the panel members determined that the complaints were sufficient in form, but insufficient in substance. The complaints cannot move forward with this deficiency.