By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: October 17, 2007
MANILA: President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has ordered an investigation of an alleged attempt to bribe members of the House of Representatives and provincial governors with cash in exchange for blocking her impeachment, her spokesman said Wednesday.
According to Eddie Panlilio, a Roman Catholic priest who is governor of the president’s home province of Pampanga, he and other politicians were given bags containing up to 500,000 pesos, or $11,300, last week by Arroyo administration officials inside the presidential palace. The president herself was not present, he said at a news conference Monday.
The administration has denied any wrongdoing. The spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, said allegations of using public funds to buy the loyalty of officials were “totally absurd,” noting that Arroyo’s political party overwhelmingly dominates the House of Representatives.
He said the investigation, to be conducted by the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission, would “focus on who gave these supposed cash gifts to the congressmen and governors.”
“Nobody in Malacanang,” he said, referring to the presidential palace, “can just disburse or distribute any funds without the proper budgetary allocation and standard auditing procedures.”
Several congressmen have told local news media that they received the bags of money. At his news conference, Panlilio showed the bundles of cash given to him.
“Since the money came from Malacanang, I believe it is public money,” he said. “So I should be accountable for it and be transparent about it.”
The bribery allegations follow attempts by the political opposition to file an impeachment complaint against the president for her suspected role in the awarding of contract for a broadband project to the Chinese company ZTE Corp. Arroyo canceled the contract last month following accusations, first lodged by a company that lost in the bidding, of payoffs to Filipino officials.
Early this month, a lawyer filed an impeachment complaint with the House of Representatives against the president that the political opposition charged was deliberately “too weak” and intended to fail. If an impeachment complaint is voted down, under the Constitution the president becomes immune from impeachment for the next 12 months.
Arroyo has faced several impeachment complaints since she was accused of rigging the 2004 presidential elections, but each time her allies in Congress have blocked it.
The influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines issued a statement Tuesday decrying what it called the “moral bankruptcy disappointingly being shown by our leaders.” The Senate has also scheduled an investigation into the bribery allegations.
