PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Friday said he already accepted the resignation of Commission on Elections Chairman Andres Bautista even before Congress decided to impeach him.
The President admitted he was surprised when the House overturned the resolution of the committee on justice, which earlier junked the impeachment complaint against Bautista.
He said the impeachment complaint could be deemed moot, since “by resigning, he [Bautista] has removed himself” from office.
On Wednesday, with a vote of 137-75 and 2 abstentions, the House voted to impeach Bautista, overturning a justice committee resolution.
Bautista came under fire after his estranged wife Patricia accused him of amassing up to P1 billion in ill-gotten wealth that was not included in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth.
On Friday, Patricia’s lawyer, Lorna Kapunan, said if Bautista resigns or is ousted through impeachment, he would still be facing a plunder complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman.
Kapunan said they will also file criminal cases against the poll chief, his mother, sister, brother, lawyer Nilo Divina, the Smartmatic, Luzon Development Bank, among others, for plunder, bribery, graft, corruption, money laundering, recovery by the government of ill-gotten wealth and tax evasion.
“Yes we will file the plunder case,” she said. “The impeachment will only remove him from his position.”
On Wednesday, Bautista announced that he will resign by the end of the year.
But shortly after his announcement, the House of Representatives voted 137-75-2 to impeach Bautista.
Kapunan said, in the meantime, they are awaiting for the results of the probe being conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation against Bautista.
Earlier, all six Comelec commissioners called on Bautista to either take a leave of absence or resign, saying he “can no longer effectively lead the commission”.
Bautista was appointed by former President Benigno Aquino III as Comelec chairman on April 28, 2015. His term was supposed to expire Feb. 2, 2022.
The House committee on justice on Friday said it will conduct a case build-up to ensure a solid impeachment case against Bautista.
Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali, the committee chairperson, said the committee would want to elevate to the Senate a credible Articles of Impeachment against the poll chief, who said he could explain the allegations of alleged ill-gotten wealth.
“I will call for a hearing to prepare the articles of impeachment and strengthen the case. We will have to do a case build-up and organize ourselves into the panel of prosecutors,” Umali said.
Umali said the committee must have an airtight case against Bautista to help the soon-to-be created 11-man House prosecution panel succeed in impeaching Bautista.
“We will call for a meeting to craft the Articles of Impeachment. Of course we may have to subpoena some people or some documents so that we will have them ready before we start with impeachment trial in [the] Senate,” Umali said.
He said the House leadership will appoint a spokesman and lawyer-lawmakers to form the 11-man prosecution panel.