Former presidential legal adviser Salvador Panelo believes Vice President Sara Duterte will soon become a political martyr as “nobodies” and “insecure and power hungry lawmakers” in the House of Representatives push for her impeachment.
Vice President Sara Duterte (Photo from Inday Sara Duterte via Facebook)
In a statement on Monday, Sept. 30, the former Duterte administration official cited several incidents, which he said showed that the lower chamber is “hell bent on demolishing” the Vice President.
But he remained optimistic that despite a “looming impeachment rap,” Filipinos “will embrace her (Duterte) with sympathy and affection” because they are “sick of the brutish, wicked and vicious manner the second highest official of the land is being subjected to.”
“Regardless of the outcome of the impending impeachment, VP Sara is on her way to political martyrdom,” he added.
Panelo also expressed confidence that the 32 million Filipinos who voted Duterte to power “will react in righteous indignation — with those behind the mangling and mocking of the constitutional process receiving their comeuppance.”
“It will cement her claim to rightful and deserving succession to the highest gift that the sovereign people can bestow — and take her to the path that her father FPRRD (former president Rodrigo Duterte) treaded when he was catapulted to the presidency,” he stated.
The former official alleged that “young unknown lawmakers” who were instructed by “erstwhile allies of the Dutertes” laid the foundation of an impeachment charge against the Vice President.
He said that there was a “systematic assault on the integrity of VP Sara” by questioning her use of confidential funds perpetuated by the “old ones” in Congress and leftist party-list members.
“Taking advantage of the congressional hearings as a platform to pluck them out from anonimity, the nobodies in the lower house competed for media attention by slamming VP Inday Sara for refusing to attend the deliberations in the committee as well as in the plenary session — accusing her of not performing her duty and raising it to the level of a betrayal of public trust — which is an impeachable ground — and for good measure demanded her resignation, when the Constitution does not obligate her to attend congressional hearings,” he claimed.
Duterte refused to answer questions about her office’s use of confidential funds during the Aug. 27 congressional committee hearing on the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) proposed P2.037-billion budget for 2025.
She skipped the second hearing on Sept. 10 and two plenary debates regarding the OVP’s funding.
And while she made a surprise appearance during the first hearing of the House good government committee on the OVP’s alleged misuse of public funds, she refused to attend subsequent hearings of the committee and the lower house as a whole.
Panelo said the fate of an impending impeachment case against the Vice President will depend “on whether or not the 24 senator-jurors will be beholden to the occupant in Malacañang — who necessarily — by reason of the rupture of his relationship with his former teammate will prefer a forced departure from her office.”
“If the majority of the sitting senators acting as judges will remain independent and principled — and follow the constitutional path, there can be no other decision but an acquittal,” he said.
“Should they be cowed and intimidated by an expected and dreaded whirlwind of power descending on them risking their political fortunes, then it’s a conviction for VP Sara,” he lamented.