QUEZON City, Philippines (Eagle News) — Liberal Party senators defended their party’s titular head Vice President Leni Robredo, who figured in a video message shown in a United Nations side-event in Vienna that condemned drug-related killings in the country.
According to a statement of Liberal Party senators, it was Robredo’s prerogative to appraise the world of the abuses perpetrated during the administration’s drug war.
“(Vice President Leni) Robredo’s video message to a (UN) event is within her prerogative as an elective official and citizen of the country. The video message showed the world that the Philippines enjoy democracy where dissent is respected,” their statement said.
They also advised Senate President Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III to “focus on the numbers that matter: the thousands of unresolved murders, the rising prices of basic goods, and the 13-million hectare undersea region rich in minerals and biodiversity of Benham Rise.”
“These are the numbers that we should all be focusing on, not the 100 votes of congressmen on the impeachment case threatened by House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and Solicitor General Jose Calida on Vice President Robredo,” their statement said.
LP acting president Francis Pangilinan also said that the Senate should focus on the improvement of the lives of the people and the lives of the children.
“Instead of the life and death issues that confront our people every day like putting food on the table and our children’s safety, security, and future, politics is dominating the national discourse. Let us, the country’s elected national leaders, all return the focus on what the people sent us to the Senate to do: to improve their and their children’s lives,” their statement said.
The LP senators came to Robredo’s defense in the midst of a possible filing of an impeachment complaint against her based on an earlier pronouncement by Alvarez.
Pangilinan was very supportive of earlier Senate hearings on the alleged Davao Death Squad where surfaced DDS members surfaced to pin down President Duterte.
Eagle News Service