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DOJ, SolGen: Impeachment complaint vs President Duterte baseless
The government’s top legal counsels on Thursday said that the impeachment complaint filed by Magdalo Party-list Rep. Gary Alejano against President Rodrigo Duterte at the House of Representatives has no legal basis. (Photo: ACE MORANDANTE/Presidential Photo)
MANILA—The government’s top legal counsels on Thursday said that the impeachment complaint filed by Magdalo Party-list Rep. Gary Alejano against President Rodrigo Duterte at the House of Representatives has no legal basis.
”The impeachment complaint has no factual and legal basis. The allegations in the complaint are not anchored on concrete or solid evidence that would support findings of any of the enumerated grounds for impeachment. Mere allegations without proof are not evidence,” Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said.
The DOJ Secretary said the Duterte administration is not at all alarmed by the said act, adding that the President will continue doing what is good for the country and the Filipino people.
He said the complaint could be part of a wider plot to destabilize the administration though he did not provide details of the supposed plot to oust the President.
”That’s just part of efforts to destabilize the Duterte administration,” Aguirre said, who served as a private prosecutor in the historic impeachment trial of the late Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona.
For his part, Solicitor General Jose Calida said that Alejano is acting like a “puppet” of Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, a staunch critic of the President.
“Representative Alejano is a toady of his braggart patron, Senator Trillanes. They are not even in the league of Don Quixote so this impeachment won’t fly. It will crash like a rudderless plane flown by witless pilots,” Calida said in a statement.
Alejano, in his complaint, said the President has committed culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption and “other high crimes”.
President Duterte holds majority support in the Lower House, where a vote of one third of all members is needed to transmit the complaint to the Senate for trial.
