‘Impeachment mania LP’s dose of own medicine’

MANILA, Philippines — The Liberal Party (LP) and its allies have no business talking about the “dictatorship” under President Duterte because the previous administration did the same things that the Duterte government is being criticized for now, Sen. Francis Escudero said yesterday.

Escudero said the LP should look back at the time when they were in power and they threatened to impeach then ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, who resigned, and successfully impeached the late chief justice Renato Corona in 2012.

“Nobody said that we were headed to a dictatorship then,” he added.

Now, Duterte has been critical of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales and his allies have responded by initiating moves to remove them through impeachment.

The LP said these moves to impeach the heads of democratic institutions could lead to a dictatorship.

But Escudero said the threat of impeachment against Carpio, the filing of an impeachment complaint against Sereno and the incarceration of Sen. Leila de Lima are “parallel to, the same, and as if copied from what happened in the past.”

“And we did not hear such an allegation then just like the allegations being thrown at the administration now,” Escudero said.

“It’s difficult for one to complain especially if you were part of the previous administration because they did the same things during their time,” he added. 

‘Revolutionary gov’t unlikely’

Meanwhile, veteran lawyer Romulo Macalintal believes Duterte is unlikely to allow other groups to overthrow his government and declare a revolutionary government as he threatened to do.

Macalintal said the President is fully aware that a revolutionary government is the result of a revolution where the existing legitimate government is completely overthrown by a new group of leaders that establishes its own government.

Macalintal also said the public should not take seriously Duterte’s statement that he would declare a revolutionary government because Duterte’s “most controversial statements were merely hyperbole or rhetoric.”

“For sure, Duterte would not allow any group to topple down our existing government as this will greatly disappoint the more than 16 million voters who elected him as President,” he added.

The lawyer also noted that Duterte cannot revolt against the government and would definitely resist any move to cause its collapse into the hands of a revolutionary cabal.

The late president Corazon Aquino became president under a revolutionary government after the 1986 People Power Revolution.

“But what happened during the time that we were under a revolutionary government taught us the lesson that a revolutionary government is not a guarantee or sure-fire formula for our nation’s quest for a truly successful government. In a word, it seems that our problem is not the system of government but the people who are running the system,” Macalintal said.

The second people power in 2001 that ousted former president Joseph Estrada did not establish a revolutionary government because he was succeeded by then vice president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo pursuant to the 1987 Constitution.  – With Mayen Jaymalin