The malversation of JDF funds and the Impeachment of Hilario Davide, PART 2

I guess what really made the House members more determined to pursue the impeachment case against Hilario "P120,000/chair" Davide was the chief justice's ARROGANCE and his blatant efforts to "obstruct justice" by deliberately refusing to provide the necessary documents needed by the House for it's inquiry on the JDF funds.

Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. and his associate justices may be guilty of obstruction of justice, for deliberately refusing to provide the House of Representatives documents it seeks in an inquiry involving the expenditures of the fiduciary funds.

All clerks of courts and other court personnel have been officially forbidden by the SC chief justice, with the associate justices' approval, to release any and all documents pertaining to the Judiciary Development Fund (JDF).

This was learned yesterday by the Tribune, after having obtained a copy of a signed memorandum dated Oct. 2, 2003, from court administrator Justice Presbiterio Velasco, with an attached en banc resolution from the court, signed by Clerk of Court Luzviminda Puno.

Davide's ARROGANCE backfired because more and more signed the impeachment complaint vs. Davide because House members felt that the Chief Justice was not being transparent about his misuse of public funds.

Then history was made when 88 House members (initial number) voted to impeach Hilario Davide "on charges of graft and corruption, betrayal of public trust and culpable violations of the Constitution." The pro-administration paper Phil. Daily Inquirer tries hard to portray the impeachment of Davide as Danding's Revenge against the Chief Justice, but I must say, this impeachment complaint would have never passed without the support of non-NPC 43 House members. Out of 88 signatures, 45 came from NPC, and 43 came from other parties and independents.

There were only 45 members from the Nationalist People's Coalition who affixed their signatures in the complaint, with 17 from Lakas; 11 from the LDP; two from Reporma; three from PMP, two from the Liberal Party, three Independents; four from the party-list and one from the People Power Coalition.

Without the huge support form Lakas and other groups and individiuals like LDP, Reporma, PMP, LP, independents, PPC and party-list members, the impeachment complaint would have never gathered enough votes to pass. So unlike the Erap impeachment charade, ano?

(the number of signatories increased to 93 members at one point. Although 6 endorsers backed out, the initiative gained 5 additional signatories.)

Fuentebella said the five more signatories are minority leader Carlos Padilla (LDP, Nueva Vizcaya) and Genaro Alvarez (Lakas, Negros Occidental), Vincent Garcia (Lakas, Davao City), Eduardo Veloso (Lakas, Leyte) and Tomas Dumpit (Lakas, La Union).

The five congressmen brought to 92 the total of endorsers after losing Ernesto Nieva (LP, Manila), Edgar Erice (LP, Caloocan), Mauricio Domogan (Lakas, Baguio), Ruffy Biazon (LDP, Muntinlupa), Renato Magtubo (PM) and JV Bautista (Sanlakas).

The Impeachment complaint was supposed to be trasmitted to the Senate yesterday, but our rotten Supreme Court, in concert with pro-Davide Tongressmen, used every DIRTY TRICK in the book to stop the impeachment process cold.

I'll have more on this later.