More Filipinos want impeachment case against Arroyo revived — Pulse Asia

PULSE Asia today reported that more Filipinos now believe that the impeachment complaint against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo should be pursued, compared to the proportion found by its similar survey three months ago.

In its July 2006 survey, the Pulse Asia said 56 percent of respondents want the impeachment complaint to be revived; in March, only 53 percent of them said so.

This sentiment is shared across economic classes and the country’s geographic areas, except in Visayas, where over six of every ten held the contrary view.

The impeachment process, majority of the respondents said, will reveal the truth behind the accusations hurled against the President.

Over the month of June, about 200 opposition and civil society leaders have filed identical impeachment complaints against the President. They have mainly accused Arroyo of abuse of power, corruption, and human rights violations. The eighth and the latest complaint was filed just last week.

In last year’s impeachment, members of the opposition in the House of Representatives failed to muster the needed number of signatures to transmit the complaint to the Senate.

Of the 1,200 respondents surveyed from June 24 to July 8, the Pulse Asia said only 43 percent did not agree that the impeachment complaint should be revived.

Those who disagreed that impeachment must push through reasoned that the issue was already settled last year; reviving it “will simply be a waste of time.”

A number of those respondents also said that the impeachment issue distracts attention from the “more critical” concerns of the country and that it is just being used by destabilizers to grab power. Meanwhile, 14 percent of them said the complaint is going to be decided on by the same members of Lower House anyway.

Of those who agreed that the impeachment must be revived, they stressed that an impeachment process is needed to finally ascertain the legality of the President’s victory. Settling this issue, they said, will allow the country the “effectively address” other problems. A number of them likewise believe that the decision of the Lower House to reject the complaint last year was “partisan.”

In the Pulse Asia October 2005 survey, 53 percent of Filipinos said the House committee on justice should have discussed the impeachment complaint more fully and allowed for evidence to be presented before it dismissed the complaint in September.

Read the Pulse Asia survey.