Lawmaker mulls impeachment complaint vs Duterte

MANILA, Philippines — For admitting having allowed a foreign government to eavesdrop on phone conversations of Filipinos, President Duterte may have committed an impeachable offense, Rep. Gary Alejano of party-list group Magdalo said yesterday.

He told reporters the President’s statement that he got his information on a supposed conspiracy to oust him from a foreign government could be the basis for an impeachment petition.

When asked if he would file an impeachment complaint against the President, Alejano said, “That will come at the proper time.”

He said if Duterte’s claim is true, “then he is allowing a foreign government to monitor the telephone conversations of our citizens.”

“He is as guilty as his foreign source of violating our anti-wiretapping law, which is an impeachable offense,” he said.

In May last year, the House of Representatives threw out the first complaint Alejano filed against the President, whose one-year protection against any other impeachment had expired.

In his nationally televised one-on-one interview with his chief legal counsel Salvador Panelo, the President said a foreign government informed him of a supposed conspiracy among the “yellows,” Magdalo, and communist rebels to remove him from office.

“We have the conversation provided by a foreign country sympathetic to us… I asked that it be declassified at ipakita nila sa lahat. Nahihigop lahat. So they were in constant communication,” he said.

Former Ateneo law dean Tony La Viña said Duterte’s statement meant that the Chief Executive allowed his unnamed foreign source to spy on his political enemies.

“Any violation of the law by a President is a violation of the Constitution,” he said. Alejano urged Duterte to name his source.

“If it is true that it is a foreign government, he should identify them; otherwise, his information just came from the barber shop,” he said.

He noted that the President once claimed that Chinese leaders have assured him that they would not allow his ouster.

The former Marine captain-turned lawmaker denied that Magdalo is conspiring with communists to oust the President. He said soldiers would never collude with their enemies.

Alejano said he was disappointed with the President’s TV interview with Panelo.

“We were expecting him to say something very significant about inflation and insufficient food supply. Instead, he sounded insecure, asking why many soldiers are loyal to Senator (Antonio) Trillanes, even egging them to mount a coup against him,” he said.

He said the President asked what Trillanes, a former Navy officer, had done for his ex-colleagues in the military.

He noted that the President, as if comparing himself with the opposition senator, then proceeded to enumerate what he himself has done for soldiers, including the hundreds of millions he has released for their benefit.

“Those are public funds, for which he should not demand personal loyalty from the military, which is supposed to be impartial and apolitical. He should not compare himself with Senator Trillanes because he is the President and commander-in-chief,” Alejano said.

He said he and Trillanes have been helping the military organization “as a matter of duty and we do not expect loyalty from them.”

For Malacañang, there is nothing wrong with a foreign country sharing intelligence information on political enemies of President Duterte and his administration.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque Jr. said such move should not be construed as foreign inference.

The other day, Duterte claimed getting information from “a country sympathetic to us” regarding a plot to oust and kill him. He had publicly accused spy agencies of other countries of listening to his phone conversations.         – With Christina Mendez