Fifteen Liberal Party (LP) lawmakers from a pro-Duterte coalition of parties in the House of Representatives met with Vice President Leni Robredo on Wednesday, agreeing to block all attempts to impeach her, one of the LP members said yesterday.

Deputy Speaker Miro Quimbo, a ranking LP leader, said the consensus was reached when the LP members met with Robredo at her office in Quezon City.

He said the LP members also had pledged their “strongest commitment of support” to Robredo, currently LP chair.

Robredo had drawn the ire of supporters of President Rodrigo Duterte after she sent a video message to a United Nations event raising alarm over extrajudicial killings linked to Mr. Duterte’s war on drugs.

Quimbo said the threat of impeachment hanging over Robredo and Mr. Duterte was among the topics of the meeting at Robredo’s office.

In a statement, Quimbo said devoting the House’s time to “any impeachment complaint today will only be divisive.”

“It will only serve to distract us from the many important matters that Congress should be giving priority to,” Quimbo said.

He said the LP members “categorically took a position that we will not support any of the impeachment complaints filed against the leaders of the land.” Quimbo did not mention Mr. Duterte’s name in the statement, though.

At least 32 House members still belong to LP, the party in power during the Aquino administration. Five of them had formed an independent opposition bloc.

In March, an impeachment complaint was filed against Mr. Duterte by Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano, accusing the President of the mass murder of thousands of drug suspects, amassing P2.2 billion in unexplained wealth and absconding on his duty to defend Philippine territory against China.

Robredo’s video message to the annual meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotics Drugs became public on the same day Alejano’s complaint was filed.

Marcos loyalists, led by lawyer Oliver Lozano, filed an impeachment complaint against Robredo at the Speaker’s office for endorsement. Another group is building a case against her.

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, a bosom buddy of Mr. Duterte, expressed support for the impeachment complaint against Robredo.

Robredo confirmed the meeting with the 15 LP members.

“They said they agreed among themselves that they will protect me,” she said in a transcript of an interview sent by her staffers.

Robredo said she would discuss the matter with more LP members soon but said there is no plan, yet, for LP members to bolt the pro-Duterte coalition in the House. </s> An opposition lawmaker who sought the impeachment of President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday welcomed the filing of a complaint before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague against the chief executive, and said this could signal the way to hold him accountable for his brutal war on drugs.

In a statement, Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano said he respected the decision of Atty. Jude Sabio, counsel of confessed Davao Death Squad hitman Edgar Matobato, to take to the ICC Duterte’s alleged involvement in extrajudicial killings, which was also the main crux of Alejano’s impeachment complaint against the president.

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“I respect the action of Atty. Sabio to file a case of crime against humanity committed by President Duterte before the ICC. This is the same issue and one of the basis embodied in the impeachment complaint I filed against Duterte last March 16,” Alejano said.

Alejano said the complaint before the ICC is an opportunity for Congress to show it is partial from the president.

“This is an opportunity for Congress to show to the world that it is independent from the influence of the President and prove that it is able and willing to make him accountable of crimes he has committed to the Filipino people,” Alejano said.

In his 77-page complaint, Sabio cited the “continuing mass murder” in the Philippines due to the thousands of Filipinos killed in Duterte’s anti-drug campaign that started when he was Davao city mayor and continues now that he is president.

READ: Duterte, 11 others accused of crimes against humanity before ICC

“Your favorable action on this matter would not only serve the noble ends of international criminal justice, but would also be the beginning of the end of this dark, obscene, murderous and evil era in the Philippines,” Sabio said.

Sabio said the 7,000 drug-related killings in the Philippines in the past seven months have surpassed the 3,000 killings during the two-decade martial law regime of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

The police has contested the 7,000 figure, noting that only around 2,600 drug pushers and users were killed in legitimate police operations.

Sabio’s client Matobato has testified in a Senate inquiry about Duterte’s alleged order for the vigilante group Davao Death Squad to kill drug criminals in Davao city.

Also included in the complaint are Duterte’s closest allies – Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre, Philippine National Police chief Ronald Dela Rosa, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, Senators Richard Gordon and Alan Peter Cayetano, Solicitor General Jose Calida, and former Interior secretary Ismael Sueno, among others. IDL
Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte accuses the Liberal Party of former president Benigno Aquino III and their allies of orchestrating an impeachment complaint against him regarding his anti-drug campaign.