Impeachment of Merceditas Gutierrez

Impeachment of Merceditas Gutierrez
The Ombudsman building
Accused	Merceditas Gutierrez, Ombudsman of the Philippines
Proponents	Former Senate President Jovito Salonga, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan and 31 civil society leaders
Date	March – April 2011
Outcome	Resigned on April 29, 2011
Charges	Betrayal of public trust and/or culpable violation of the constitution
Legislative votes by the Congress of the Philippines
Impeachment vote (March 22, 2011)
Votes in favor	212
Votes against	46
Not voting	4
Result	Articles of impeachment approved by the House of Representatives

The Philippine Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez was impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of the office's alleged underperformance and failure to act on several cases during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. She became the second official after President Joseph Estrada in 2000 to be impeached.

While the first impeachment complaint against her was filed in 2009, it was dismissed later in that year in a 14th Congress dominated by Arroyo's Lakas Kampi CMD party. In 2010, with the election of Benigno Aquino III of the Liberal Party as president and the concurrent elections to the House of Representatives and the subsequent political realignment, two impeachment cases against her were voted as sufficient in form, substance and grounds, and the House of Representatives Committee on Justice had found probable cause on alleged betrayal of public trust as based on the two complaints.

On March 22, 2011, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Gutierrez, sending the committee report as the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, which would have acted as an impeachment court. A vote of at least two-thirds (16) of all senators (24) was required to convict Gutierrez and remove her from office. Gutierrez, however, resigned on April 29, 2011, thereby canceling the impeachment trial in the Senate.