(Eagle News) — Today, May 2, when Congress opens, critics of Vice President Leni Robredo are all set to file the impeachment complaint against her with the House of Representatives despite the earlier call of President Rodrigo Duterte not to pursue such a move.
Lawyer Bruce Rivera said that they have already prepared the impeachment complaint, and they hoped to get it endorsed by lawmakers.
Rivera said they would be filing the complaint at the House at 1 p.m. Tuesday, May 2.
The group of Robredo critics composed of lawyers, professors and social media users is also supported by Interior and Local Government Assistant Secretary Epimaco Densing III.
Atty. Barry Gutierrez, legal adviser of Robredo, downplayed the complaint to be filed, saying that their camp was “completely confident that there is utterly no basis” for the impeachment complaint.
But he said that their camp was “prepared to take this on.”
Supporters of President Duterte also took to social media to express their support for the filing of the impeachment complaint.
One of them, a Davao City resident, Chito Fuentes said “May 2, 2017 is a red-letter day for Filipinos tired with the confusion and mayhem heaped on them by a self-righteous minority.”
“On that day, lawyer Bruce Rivera, one of the most outspoken defenders of President Rodrigo Duterte and of the rule of law, has vowed to file impeachment proceedings against Vice President Leni Gerona, the woman they love to call Robredo but who fancies herself holy,” Fuentes said in a Facebook post.
Robredo’s critics who are preparing to file the complaint have put up a Facebook page called “Impeach Leni Movement.”
In an earlier press conference in March when they announced their plan to file an impeachment complaint, Rivera said Robredo’s actions were against the interest of the Filipino nation, accusing her of “peddling lies and distorting reality.”
Robredo’s video message at a side-event of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs annual meeting in Vienna on March 16 stepped up the ante, Rivera said, by misrepresenting facts and figures on the government’s war on drugs.
Their group said Robredo may have violated the 1987 Constitution and betrayed public trust, when she gave the wrong figure of 7,000 drug suspects allegedly killed in the drug war in her video message played in an international event.
