THE Magdalo party-list group on Thursday filed an impeachment complaint against President Rodrigo Duterte, accusing him of violation of the Constitution, bribery, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption, and other high crimes.
Magdalo party-list Rep. Gary Alejano, an opposition lawmaker, filed the complaint at the Secretary General’s Office at the House of Representatives, saying it could serve as a vehicle for the Filipino people to voice out their disgust over the Duterte administration’s alleged crimes and abuses.
“We believe he should answer for his crimes. We don’t want the people to accept that it is legal to kill in this country,” Alejano said in Filipino.
He added that the filing of the complaint would prove there is no destabilization plot, because impeachment is a constitutional process for ousting a sitting president.
“It is time for President Duterte to answer for his crimes against the country,” he added.
Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez laughed off the impeachment complaint.
“We are all entitled to our own stupidity,” Alvarez told a television interview.
Alvarez doubted that the complaint would prosper not only because of the composition of the supermajority coalition in the House, but because he believed the complaint was insufficient in substance.
“Let’s not talk about the numbers anymore. Let’s just talk about the substance. I don’t think this would pass in terms of substance,” Alvarez said.
In the 16-page impeachment complaint, Alejano said Duterte committed high crimes of bribery, multiple murder and crimes against humanity when he adopted a state policy of inducing policemen, other law enforcemet authorities, and vigilante groups into the extrajudicial killings of more than 8,000 persons who were merely suspected of being drug offenders.
Alejano said in his impeachment complaint that Duterte is not fit for the presidency for his alleged involvement in multiple murder as the alleged mastermind of the Davao Death Squad.
He also said that Duterte committed graft and corruption with the hiring of 11,000 ghost employees when he was still a mayor of Davao City.
Alejano said Duterte must be held answerable for his unexplained wealth and for allegedly having numerous secret bank accounts worth P2.207 billion and properties that he failed to declare in his statements of assets, liabilities and net worth.
Alejano said the impeachment complaint did not yet include the issue on Benham Rise.
Alejano, a a former navy officer, earlier said President Duterte could have committed an impeachable offense for allowing Chinese presence last year in Benham Rise, which is part of the Philippines.
“Having committed all these acts, respondent Rodrigo Roa Duterte has not only committed graft and corruption and other high crimes, which constitute specific grounds for his impeachment from office, he has also brought disrepute on the Presidency, and has acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law and justice, to manifest injury of the people of the Republic of the Philippines,” Alejano said in his complaint.
House Majority Floor Leader and Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas said “it has turned out that the Senate hearing on the alleged DDS was a preview or dry run of the impeachment complaint.”
“I cannot imagine how Representative Alejano can state under oath in paragraph 3 of the Verification of his complaint that ‘I/We hereby confirm and affirm that the material allegations made therein are true of my/our own knowledge and as culled from authentic records’,” Fariñas said.
“The allegations made in the complaint are obviously not of his own knowledge since most of them are palpably hearsay either from what he read or saw on the news or from tales of Senator [Antonio] Trillanes [IV].
“Finally, most of the allegations were allegedly committed when President Duterte was mayor or vice mayor. An official is impeached for acts committed in his present office. Since the allegations made while he was mayor were widely publicized and known by the voters when they elected him as President, the clear mandate given to him by the people has to be respected. This is the jurisprudence even with respect to elected or reelected local officials,” Fariñas said.