Senate President Koko dares LP senators to denounce impeachment raps vs. Duterte to show they’re not involved

Senate President Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III on Monday (Mar. 20) found himself in a word war of sort with members of the Liberal Party (LP) in the minority bloc who lashed back at him for saying that the impending impeachment complaint against Vice President Leni Robredo’s has a big chance of progressing in the House of Representatives.

Pimentel retaliated by challenging the LP senators to denounce the those behind the impeachment complaint against President Duterte if only to disprove the suspicions on them having a hand in ousting the Chief Executive from office.

“Let us say wala ngang hand ang LP sa filing of impeachment the impeachment process, kasi ang tanong dito sino ba ng unang sumuntok? Yun ang tanong dito sino ba ng unang nanuntok? Let say walang hand ang LP dito, I hope they denounce the people behind the impeachment process. They are not denouncing so kaya tumutuloy yung duda,” he said in an interview with reporters.

Pimentel said House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez cannot be blamed if he reacted strongly on the filing of impeachment complaint against Duterte.

“Ginising nila ang sleeping giant na si Alvarez. Kaya pana-react tuloy si Speaker and he has the numbers. That the problem ang ginising ninyo ay sleeping giant,” he said.

“If they are not really behind this impeachment they should denounce the impeachment against Duterte, denounce the people behind the impeachment (case),” Pimentel added.

Pimentel reiterated Monday his position, saying that he was speaking theoretically, given that of the current 294 lower house members, about 230 are part of the so-called super majority coalition and only about one-third or 100 congressmen are needed to back up Alvarez’ soon-to-be filed impeachment complaint against Robredo.

From their political party alone, the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), Alvarez commands a following of 109 congressmen, Pimentel noted.

“It is more than the threshold number of 100. But what I know is that the Speaker has 230 plus followers in the House of Representatives,” he added.

Alvarez’ planned filing of impeachment case against the Vice President stemmed from Robredo’s criticisms on the government’s war on drugs contained in a video message to the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs.