Incoming Mamamayang Liberal party-list Rep. Leila de Lima believes Vice President Sara Duterte is “scared” of a full-blown impeachment trial, and of all of the pieces of evidence against her to come out.
Interviewed over dwIZ, De Lima said “you can say, they’re really scared. I mean VP Sara is scared.”
The seasoned lawyer said such fear explained what she described as a coordinated strategy to delay or derail the Senate proceedings, including the filing of multiple legal motions, overseas trips and possible use of the Ombudsman ruling to preempt the trial.
“This is really cause for concern since the main objective is, as much as possible, is not to have a trial proper, and the evidence not to come out,” De Lima said.
Ombudsman Samuel Martires, an appointee of former President Rodrigo Duterte, earlier ordered the Vice President to respond to plunder, technical malversation and other charges based on a report adopted by the House committee on good government and public accountability.
Should the Ombudsman dismiss the complaint, it could be used to weaken the prosecution’s case against the Vice President, De Lima said.
The sequence of actions from the Ombudsman’s sudden move to require a counter-affidavit to the pending petition before the Supreme Court questioning the impeachment’s transmittal has suggested a pattern, she said.
“All of those things match. These could really (be) part of the strategy. That is what we see and read,” she noted.
De Lima criticized the Vice President’s frequent travels amid the escalating legal proceedings.
“This is what she has been doing now. We do not know if she is working as a Vice President since she is always leaving for abroad — meeting their supporters. The latest is that, I think, she’s going or she left already for Australia to meet up and to have again there some sort of a rally. That’s to bring the former President back home,” she said.
“So, they’re doing everything. On the legal side, of course, hiring a big firm and having 16 lawyers. And then her foreign trip blitz as part of propaganda,” she added.
The incoming party-list lawmaker said the pro-Duterte senator-judges must have clear basis to inhibit, but the decision still must be voluntary.
De Lima will officially join the House of Representatives at noon on June 30. She is also poised to serve as one of the members of the prosecution panel should the impeachment trial of the vice president formally transition to the 20th Congress.