Philippine senators call for Duterte to be impeached
PHILIPPINES - Two Philippine senators have said President Rodrigo Duterte’s admission that he used to personally kill suspected criminals when mayor of Davao city is grounds for impeachment. Senator Leila de Lima, Duterte’s foremost domestic critic, and Senator Richard Gordon, who heads the senate justice committee, said the president’s comments provided a legal avenue for his ousting. “That is betrayal of public trust and that constitutes high crimes because mass murders certainly fall into the category of high crimes. And high crimes is a ground for impeachment under the constitution,” de Lima told CNN. Speaking to reporters, Gordon said: “When he says that, he’s opening himself up, so what’s the legal way, then go ahead and impeach him.” But Justice Minister Vitaliano Aguirre waved away Duterte’s comments as “hyperbole”. “He always exaggerates just to put his message across,” Aguirre said, adding that even if Duterte had killed, he did not necessarily break the law. “It could be done with a justifiable cause and justified circumstances as a public officer in order to arrest but if they resisted. He must have been forced,” he said. Any move to impeach Duterte is unlikely to succeed. Not only does he command huge domestic support for his bloody war on drugs, the firebrand nicknamed “the Punisher” also has allies in the lower and upper house of congress. Although only a one-thirds vote in the house of representatives is needed to start the process of of impeachment, conviction requires a twothirds vote in the senate.
The president’s anti-drug campaign has seen around 5,000 people killed during his first five months in office.
(theguardian/ reuters)