‘Duterte not scared of impeachment’
Credit to Author: RALPH VILLANUEVA| Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 16:15:19 +0000
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte is confident that should an impeachment complaint be filed against him in relation with the China issue, it will not prosper because he has the support of Congress, Malacañang said on Friday.
Former Foreign Affairs secretary Albert del Rosario and Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, among others, had warned that Duterte might face an impeachment complaint for declaring that Chinese fishermen can fish in Philippines’ waters.
Palace spokesman Salvador Panelo said an impeachment complaint would not pick up steam because majority of the members of the House of Representatives support the President.
“How can a President be scared of an impeachment? An impeachment is a numbers game. We have a super majority in Congress. It will not even pass the [House] Committee on Justice,” Panelo said.
He added that members of Congress were “in awe” of Duterte’s actions.
On Thursday, Duterte slammed his critics and threatened to put them behind bars.
“You will impeach me? I will arrest all of you. You try to impeach me. Do that. I am challenging you to do it. Go on, file it. See and where it goes,” he said.
Panelo said the President was infuriated because “he cannot understand why these people who are against his policies cannot understand and even visualized that what he is doing is for the good of the country.”
Critics had raised the specter of impeachment after Duterte said Chinese fishermen could fish in Philippine waters because “we’re friends.”
Opposition politicians allege that this violates a provision of the Philippine constitution mandating the government to protect its marine wealth, including its exclusive economic zone, “and reserve its use and enjoyment exclusively to Filipino citizens.”
Duterte’s allies will hold the majority in the upcoming session of the legislature, which would be the authority in impeachment proceedings against any Philippine official.
On Wednesday, Duterte said he could not “prohibit” or “drive away” Chinese fishers because of an agreement between him and President Xi Jinping.
“Will you allow the Chinese to fish? Of course. That is our agreement before. Let us give and take. You can fish here, I will fish there,” he said.
China claims most of the South China Sea, through which billions in trade passes annually, and has rejected a 2016 international tribunal ruling that its claim was without basis in law.
A 1982 United Nations treaty on the law of the sea gives coastal states like the Philippines jurisdiction in exploring and exploiting marine resources over their exclusive economic zone, including waters extending 322 kilometers (200 miles) from the shore. With AFP
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