Speaker Davao Del Norte Rep. Pantaleon “Bebot” Alvarez and Senator Leila de Lima. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS
Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez on Thursday called Sen. Leila de Lima “stupid” for her comment that President Duterte should be impeached for admitting he had personally killed drug suspects in Davao City when he was mayor.
“She is not only a liar, but also stupid,” the House leader said in Filipino.
“You cannot just impeach an official for mere words. You have to prove the offense. What if the President will say ’I was only joking’?” he added.
Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas said the President could not be impeached by his words alone.
“The President could only be impeached by acts or omissions committed as President!” he said.
The two were reacting to De Lima’s remarks in an interview on CNN saying Mr. Duterte should be impeached for admitting at a business forum that he personally killed drug suspects in Davao City.
“In Davao, I used to do it personally. Just to show [the policemen] that if I can do it, why can’t you?” the President told businessmen on Monday night, adding that he would roam the streets of his city “looking for an encounter to kill.”
In the CNN interview in Washington, D.C., where she received an award from Foreign Policy magazine for standing up to Mr. Duterte, De Lima said the President should be held responsible for his confession.
“I should say that that is an impeachable offense. That is a culpable violation of the Constitution. That is betrayal of public trust, and that constitutes high crimes,” she said.
“Because these are mass murders. Mass murders certainly fall under the category of high crimes, and high crimes is a ground for impeachment under our Constitution,” De Lima said.
Mr. Duterte has openly accused De Lima of receiving payoffs from suspected drug lords when she was justice secretary, an accusation that she has denied.
The House justice committee filed an ethics complaint against her in the Senate, and criminal charges in the Department of Justice for allegedly advising her former aide to skip the committee’s inquiry into the drug trade.
Opposition House lawmakers, however, were noncommittal about the seriousness of Mr. Duterte’s remark.
Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said the President’s statement could be another case of hyperbole.
“I think there should be more caution and discretion on any statement from a ranking member of the official family,” he told reporters.
Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice said: “We should not believe the President’s statements as it is.”