VACC lawyer who wanted Duterte DQ’d in 2016 appointed to anti-corruption body

VACC counsel Atty. Manuelito Luna INQUIRER.net file photo / Aries Joseph Hegina

The lawyer who sought for the disqualification of then mayor and now President Rodrigo Duterte from the presidential race has been appointed commissioner of the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC).

Duterte signed the appointment paper of Manuelito Luna Jr., a lawyer of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC), on April 17 but the documents were released only to the media on Thursday.

In December 2015, Luna, with his client Rizalito David, asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to declare Duterte’s substitution of Martin Diño as null and void.

READ: David wants Duterte DQ’d, too

Duterte, who was the Davao City mayor in 2015, replaced Diño as the standard-bearer of Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) for the 2016 elections.

Luna was among the lawyers who filed graft and corruption charges against  former president Benigno Aquino III and Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

Luna together with other lawyers has filed charges of inciting to sedition against  Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV before the Pasay City Prosecutor’s Office after he “encouraged the military to kill the President” in his privilege speech in October 2017.

READ: Lawyers to sue Trillanes over ‘kill Duterte’ remark

The Pasay City court had ealier decided to to approve the filing of inciting to sedition case against him. “

READ: Pasay prosecutor OKs inciting to sedition case vs Trillanes