SWS poll: 79 percent want GMA impeached

Seventy-nine percent or Filipinos wanted President Arroyo impeached over alleged poll rigging and bribery, according to a survey released Saturday.

The third-quarter survey by the pollster Social Weather Stations had 1,200 respondents and was made just before the House Committee on Justice voted to dismiss all three impeachment complaints against the President.

“Anti-Arroyo feelings ran very high in the last few days of the recent hearings of the House Committee on Justice,” said the survey, which had a 3-percent error margin.

The poll found 79 percent of the respondents wanted Mrs. Arroyo impeached because of the prevailing sentiment that her telephone conversation with an election official was tantamount to cheating.

“Most Filipinos [believe that Mrs. Arroyo’s] admitted phone calls to a [Commission on Elections] official amounted to instructing him to cheat in the 2004 election and were not merely meant to protect her votes as she claimed in her June 27 apology,” the SWS said in a statement.

Presented other exit options for Mrs. Arroyo, 64 percent said they wanted her to resign, and another 51 percent said she should be removed through a people-power revolt.

The results of the survey disputed claims by 158 lawmakers, in voting to throw out all three impeachment cases against the President, that their position reflected the sentiments of their constituents.

Refusing to accept defeat, the advocates of impeachment said they would resurrect the case by filing a motion for reconsideration once Congress resumes session on September 19.

Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano of Taguig-Pateros said the proimpeachment group needs only one congressman who voted to dismiss Oliver Lozano’s complaint as lacking in substance to file the motion during the plenary session.

He said once the “yes” congressman files the motion, it will be seconded and put to a vote. But the impeachment advocates need 27 more endorsers to complete the 79 to be able to send the complaint to the Senate. Cayetano said this is allowed under House rules.

The proimpeachment lawmakers decided not to file a case before the Supreme Court to question the House’s dismissal of the impeachment complaint. Instead they will bring the case directly to the people through demonstrations and rallies.

The 236-seat House voted to dismiss the cases against Mrs. Arroyo at the end of a 23-hour session on Tuesday.