MANILA, Philippines — Retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio believes that President Rodrigo Duterte’s pronouncements regarding the West Philippine Sea (WPS) are an impeachable offense as these can be considered a betrayal of public trust and national interest.
“I would agree completely,” Carpio said in an interview with the ANC program “Headstart” on Monday when asked whether Duterte’s actions could be used as a basis for his impeachment.
But he admitted that the move may not prosper since impeachment was a “numbers game” and Congress was under the President’s control.
“He has the majority, [so] it will never prosper. So, that’s a problem because there is a failure in the checking mechanism. Congress should check the President but Congress isn’t doing its job,” Carpio said.
He said Duterte’s statement that the arbitral ruling in favor of the Philippines was a scrap of paper meant to be thrown in the wastebasket was dangerous and could actually jeopardize the country’s interests.
“The head of state, the President, or even the foreign minister can bind the country with his pronouncements and if these pronouncements are adverse, admissions against interest, this will bind the country if accepted by the other party. And that’s why it’s very dangerous,” Carpio explained.
Retract all statements
He said the Filipino people must demand that the President retract all his statements, including the one in which he referred to China as being in possession of WPS.
“Legally, China is not in possession. If he says that, what happens to our fishermen, what happens to the service contractors? They will not get the gas,” Carpio pointed out, adding that Mr. Duterte must also stop the Chinese from fishing in the disputed waters.
He said he had been looking forward to a debate with the President to best explain the issue to the public.
“I’m sad that he withdrew but that’s his privilege,” he added.
Duterte on Friday backed out of the face-off he himself had proposed to Carpio and instead tapped his spokesperson, Harry Roque, to debate with Carpio.
This prompted Sen. Leila de Lima, the President’s toughest critic, to say that “from now on, Duterte will no longer just run around like a headless chicken. He is simply a chicken.”
“The Duterte mythos of the ultimate siga (bully) is now shattered, leaving nothing but a castrated caricature of the feared figurehead of Davao,” she said.
But Roque said the President has nothing more to prove after #DuterteDuwag became a top trending topic on Twitter.