Palace links Robredo to impeachment try vs Duterte

Vice President Leni Robredo. ARNOLD ALMACEN/INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Malacañang on Friday linked Vice President Ma. Leonor “Leni” Robredo to the impeachment complaint filed against President Rodrigo Duterte, which it said was part of a destabilization plot against the Chief Executive.

“If it is not her personal intent, she may have played into the hands of those who wish to use her as a political animal. Either way it is a pathetic state of affairs for her,” Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said in a statement.

READ: Speaker: ‘Worried’ Robredo involved in move to impeach Duterte

Magdalo Party-list representative Gary Alejano on Thursday filed the first impeachment complaint against Duterte, citing  drug killings and graft as basis. The Palace dismissed it as just another attempt to discredit the Duterte administration.

Abella said the message of Robredo to the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs criticizing the administration’s war on drugs and the filing of an impeachment case against Duterte “seems too neat to be written off as mere coincidence.”

Duterte earlier ruled out that Robredo had nothing to do with what he called “destabilization” efforts against him.

READ: Duterte clears Robredo in ‘destabilization’ efforts

‘Well-funded destabilization’

The Palace official said the impeachment case against the President was “only the latest in an orchestrated effort of a well-funded destabilization campaign against President Rodrigo Duterte.”

“That Alejano filed his case on the last day of the congressional session, secures him a whole month and a half to malign President Duterte without being challenged by fellow legislators,” he said.

“This campaign has provoked abrupt reaction and unwarranted threats from the European Union, spooked by the so-called ‘rights reports’ from high-handed NGOs; and a video at the UN that baselessly pillories the Philippine National Police,” he added.

Abella said the “instigators of this cynical campaign include senators and higher officials who attack the very institutions fighting the crime and contraband that tripled during their term.”

“These are apparently desperate acts to protect their threatened vested interests,” he said. IDL/rga