Aquino to lead street protests to demand Arroyo impeachment

MANILA, Monday (AFP) Former Philippine leader Corazon Aquino said Monday she would lead mass protests this week to demand the impeachment of President Gloria Arroyo for election fraud.

Aquino said opposition demonstrators would Tuesday converge on the House of Representatives, where lawmakers were to vote on finalising last week's justice committee decsion to throw out three impeachment complaints against Arroyo.

Aquino attended an opposition news conference Monday in Manila, where the group announced the march "to show our support for those who support impeachment".

"I'll also march," said the former president, who ruled the Philippines through a period of bloody military revolts after the downfall of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship in the 1980s.Allegations that Arroyo rigged her re-election last year have dogged her government since June, when the scandal broke, with around a dozen allies quitting her cabinet and the country enduring months of political turmoil.

But the House's justice committee, packed with Arroyo allies, dismissed all three impeachment cases against the 58-year-old US-educated economist last week.

Arroyo had hoped the committee decision would end the political turmoil ahead of her trip next week to the United States, where she was to address the United Nations General Assembly.

The House of Representatives set a plenary vote later Monday on the findings of its justice committee, but both Arroyo supporters and foes said they expected at least three days of debate before any vote takes place.

According to the constitution, 79 votes - one-third of the 236-member House - can overturn the committee report and send an impeachment complaint to the Senate, the upper house, for trial.

"We need 79 warm bodies on the floor to overturn this," said legislator Gilbert Remulla. The opposition has said it has as many as 73 lawmakers ready to vote for impeachment, and the president's foes are keen to delay the vote in order to have more time to drum up support.

The political crisis began with the leak of an audiotape on which a woman sounding like Arroyo told a man thought to be a senior elections commission official to fix the outcome of the May 2004 vote.

Arroyo said she made a mistake by calling an electoral official before the result of the voting had been announced but denied any wrongdoing and has resisted calls to step down.The justice committee decided that two of the complaints filed against Arroyo were illegal because the constitution allows only one impeachment motion against a single official within a year.The third complaint was dismissed because the evidence cited to back the complaint was illegally obtained through wiretapped telephone conversations.

Marcelino Libanan, a pro-Arroyo legislator, said the government "expects some protest rallies" if Congress finally upholds the justice committee votes.

But he added: "Except for people who really want to bring down this government, the middle class and the thinking people realise that there are more pressing problems that we have to face."

Manila police chief Vidal Querol said police were on full alert, with about 300 deployed around the House of Representatives complex and some 2,000 others on standby.