Joey de Venecia III knocks on House secretary general's office holding new impeachment complaint, October 11, 2008 (ABS-CBN News)

Jose "Joey" de Venecia III expressed disgust Saturday after failing to file a new impeachment complaint against President Arroyo for the scrapped but allegedly bribery-ridden and overpriced national broadband network deal of the government and China's ZTE Corp.

De Venecia, son of former speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., said he and other members of the opposition, including Bayan Muna Rep. Teodoro Casiño, failed to file the impeachment complaint because House Secretary General Marilyn Yap was not in her office.

The young de Venecia said Yap had flown to Switzerland.

Casiño, who was supposed to endorse the complaint, said Yap's trip abroad was dubious since their group had already announced Friday that they will file the complaint in the morning.

De Venecia said the group will return to the secretary-general's office on Monday to file the complaint.

The group had scheduled the series of filing from Saturday to Monday. The next filing was supposed to be on Sunday to coincide with the filing of last year's complaint while the last will be on Monday, October 12.

The first complaint accuses Mrs. Arroyo of betrayal of public trust after she approved the NBN deal. The young de Venecia testified in the Senate blue-ribbon committee that the deal was overpriced by at least $130 million.

The other complaints accuse Mrs. Arroyo of culpable violation for approving the Northrail rehabilitation project and numerous human rights violations; bribery for her role in the ZTE-NBN deal; and graft and corruption for her administration's involvement in various irregularities including the P728 million fertilizer scam, P2 billion swine scam and alleged ballot-switching in the 2004 presidential election.

Congressmen Satur Ocampo and Luz Ilagan will endorse the other complaints. Among those who signed the complaint are the leaders of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, Black and White Movement, Concerned Citizens' Movement, Filipinos for Peace, Justice and Progress Movement and various human rights groups.

Nograles: Not deliberate

Speaker Prospero Nograles meanwhile dismissed speculation that the unavailability officials in the House secretary general’s office when the young de Venecia tried to file the impeachment complaint was deliberate.

“The unavailability of any secretariat official to receive the impeachment complaint was not deliberate and not a delaying tactic,” said Nograles in a text message to ABS-CBN News Saturday.

Nograles cited the approval on second reading of the proposed 2009 national budget took until nearly 4 a.m. Saturday after an overnight marathon session.

“If they wanted to file they could have done so past midnight because that's already the next day and secretariat officials have been working overtime because of the budget deliberations,” said Nograles.

Nograles said the impeachment complaint may be filed on Monday.

“Anyway, the House is open on Monday and there's not much of a difference if they do it today or on Monday,” said Nograles.

A member of the Senate minority, Sen. Benigno Aquino III, meanwhile said on Saturday he hoped the impeachment complaint this time around would be fully discussed.

He however refused to comment further on the new complaint citing that the complaint may reach the Senate if it would be endorsed by the House of Representatives.

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