Arroyo says she welcomes impeachment to refute vote fraud claim
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-05 21:43

Philippine President Gloria Arroyo said she would welcome impeachment so that she can refute opposition allegations that she cheated in last year's elections.

Philippine President Gloria Arroyo talks to Princess Quilana (L), an eight year old who is suffering from acute lymphocytic leukemia during a visit to the Philippine General Hospital Cancer Institute in Manila. [AFP]

Arroyo, fighting for survival amid a crisis that has roiled the financial markets, sparked street protests and triggered fears of military intervention, said through her spokesman she wants the nation to calm down.

"Hopefully, this move (impeachment) will quiet down the political environment," spokesman Ignacio Bunye said in a statement on Tuesday.

"The impeachment is uncalled for and will just be a waste of time," Bunye said.

"But if this move is the only way to put a stop to the prevailing political grandstanding and mudslinging, then we welcome the move of Speaker de Venecia..."

"Apart from the search for truth, there is nothing more pressing than an immediate return to normalcy under the rule of law."

House of Representatives speaker Jose De Venecia, an Arroyo ally, has said he will ask the House justice committee to tackle an impeachment complaint filed against Arroyo late last month for breach of public trust.

It follows the release of audiotapes in which the president can purportedly be heard talking to a senior election official.

She admits improperly calling a poll official during the vote count and has apologised to the nation but denies trying to fix the election.

Arroyo's allies have a majority on the justice committee and could vote to stop the complaint being sent to the full House.

Should they fail to do this, a one-third vote in the full House would send the charges to the Senate for trial.

Opposition legislator Francis Escudero has expressed wariness over the impeachment route, describing the complaint as flawed and a trap that would give Arroyo the opportunity to beat the rap.

Instead, the opposition has encouraged street protests apparently in the hope of persuading key sectors of society like the military, the dominant Roman Catholic church and the middle classes to withdraw support for Arroyo.

Academics on Tuesday joined calls for her to quit, with the Catholic-run De La Salle University saying she has lost the moral authority to lead the nation.

"We pray her to voluntarily relinquish power so that a constitutional process of succession may proceed," the university said in a statement.

The University of Santo Tomas said Arroyo's apology last week appeared to be "carefully worded" to evade the truth.

It called for an independent "truth commission" of bishops and academics to "ferret out the truth, establish culpability and impose sanctions and restitution."

"The crisis needs to be resolved quickly and effectively or else the nation will continue to hemorrhage, probably beyond reparation," it said.

Earlier, some members of the politically influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines also called for Arroyo to step down.

A House of Representatives committee probing the affair on Tuesday received what it said were the original audiotapes of the conversations.

Lawyer Alan Paguia a lawyer for deposed president Joseph Estrada said he received the tapes from a "client" he would not identify.

Legislators grilled him on the contents of the tapes as they debated whether they should be publicly played.

Arroyo came to power through a bloodless, military-backed popular revolt in 2001 that toppled Estrada, now on trial for corruption. Estrada had been impeached but escaped conviction when his Senate allies blocked the use of key evidence against him.

Arroyo ran against Estrada's friend Fernando Poe in last year's election, eventually beating him by over a million votes. In the supposed wiretapped conversations, a speaker sounding like Arroyo sought reassurance she would win a million-vote victory against Poe.

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