Leni unfazed by impeachment

The camp of Vice President Leni Robredo is unperturbed by threats of impeachment from allies of the Duterte administration, saying there is nothing new about the allegations hurled against her.

“We are not threatened because we are sure that the truth is on our side. There is nothing new with Speaker ( Pantaleon) Alvarez making threats,” Robredo’s spokesperson Georgina Hernandez said in an interview yesterday.

Hernandez said they have yet to consult their legal team, since no formal impeachment complaint has been filed against Robredo.

On Friday, Alvarez said he was considering filing an impeachment complaint against Robredo after the latter criticized the administration’s war on drugs in a recorded video message before a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Austria last week.

In the video, Robredo denounced unabated extrajudicial killings and talked about irregularities in the administration’s anti-drug war, including the alleged “palit-ulo” scheme.

Robredo’s camp, however, continued to defend yesterday her video message, stressing that it was not meant to embarrass the country or undermine the current administration.

“We don’t see it as a move to humiliate the country because this was not the first time the international community has heard of what is happening (in our country),” Hernandez said.

Hernandez maintained that the Vice President’s speech was “factual” and based on the accounts of the families of the victims of extrajudicial killings in the government’s war on drugs. She added that Robredo’s report to the UN was “part of her job as a public servant.”

For an official during the Arroyo administration and former delegate to the UN General Assembly (GA), Robredo “misrepresented” and “shamed” the Philippines.

“Robredo shames the nation by portraying the Philippines as a failed state, like Somalia, Eritrea or Liberia where the rule of law has totally broken down, and where the streets are littered with the corpses of the innocent killed by the police,” Rigoberto Tiglao, who served as spokesman for former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, said in a recent newspaper column.

Michael Francis Acebedo Lopez, a former delegate to the UNGA, said Robredo misrepresented millions of Filipinos when she addressed the UN commission, highlighting the alleged rights abuses in the administration’s drug war. Alvarez also tagged Robredo as among the instigators of the impeachment complaint filed against President Duterte by Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano, who filed the complaint last Thursday purportedly for betrayal of public trust, etc.

Hernandez, however, said that efforts to oust Robredo are more real than the supposed destabilization plot against Duterte.

“Every day, accusations thrown against VP Leni are becoming intense and enormous. I think VP Leni is the one facing (a) destabilization plan,” she said.

As for Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III’s statement on a greater likelihood of Robredo getting impeached than Duterte, Hernandez said that she remains hopeful that the lawmakers “will side with the truth.”

It takes only the signatures of 100 congressmen in the 295-member House to bring any impeachment complaint straight to the Senate and start the trial of any accused official.

University of Santo Tomas professor Edmund Tayao echoed Pimentel’s statement, noting that impeachment is a political process and that the Vice President is in the opposition.

The Duterte administration’s “super majority,” led by Alvarez, who is also secretary-general of PDP-Laban, dominates the House.

“We are not worried and threatened because we believe most of the members of the House of Representatives will stand by their principles, will be reasonable and will side with the truth,” Hernandez said.

Aside from a possible impeachment case, Robredo is also facing an electoral protest from her rival, former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Fairness based on facts

Meanwhile, Sen. Panfilo Lacson yesterday asked Robredo to double-check her figures on extrajudicial killings in the country that she cited in the video message to the UN, as she was being unfair to the law enforcement agencies waging the war on drugs.