Speaker Alvarez ready to impeachment case Leni Robrdo

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez seems hell-bent on impeaching Vice President Leni Robredo, suggesting he’s prepared to defy President Rodrigo Duterte’s directive to his allies t

o “let her be,” and describing her as a thick-skinned official who has betrayed the public trust.

“We respect the opinion of the President, but we are mandated by the Constitution to process any impeachment complaint that is submitted to the House of Representatives,” Alvarez said in a television interview on Thursday. “We have separation of powers.”

Marcos loyalists Oliver Lozano and Melchor Chavez earlier submitted to the Speaker’s office an impeachment complaint alleging that Robredo betrayed the public trust when she submitted a six-minute video criticizing the Duterte administration’s bloody war on drugs to the 60th United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs annual meeting in Vienna last week.

Any citizen may file an impeachment complaint provided it is endorsed by a member of the House so the case against Robredo is not yet considered filed.

Careful study

“We are still studying it carefully, because this is not just a numbers game. We need substance, meaning to say the complaint should be complete with evidence, so that it can stand trial in an impeachment court. That’s it,” Alvarez said.Mr. Duterte also slammed his archcritics—Senators Antonio Trillanes IV and Leila de Lima—who were likewise booed.

Trillanes, he said, was collecting money from big businessmen. “That’s true. Big businesses are afraid of him,” he said.

The President again cited how the narcotics trade boomed when De Lima was justice secretary.

He said the senator, whom he said went into drug trafficking, also wanted to oust him. De Lima, who is detained on drug charges, has denied wrongdoing.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson urged Mr. Duterte’s allies to heed the call of the President.

He noted that Mr. Duterte was also facing an impeachment complaint from Trillanes’ Magdalo associate in failed coup attempts against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

“Both of them are facing impeachment complaints with probably different motives but the impact on our democratic exercise may be the same since they just got elected nine months ago,” Lacson said in a text message.

Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III conceded that impeachment was “divisive and time consuming” and that it “distracts from other important work.