Senator Panfilo Lacson said that Liberal Party’s alleged plan to oust President Rodrigo Duterte in favor of Vice President Leni Robredo is farfetched and baseless.
Lacson said this after Senator Alan Peter Cayetano accused that the Senate committee on justice and human rights’ probe into the alleged extrajudicial killings committed by the Davao Death Squad and the killings linked to the government’s war on drugs could be LP’s “Plan B” to remove Duterte from the presidential seat.
“Gusto ko ipakita na merong posibleng motibo ng paninira sa ating Pangulo dito. I’m asking about you (Senator Leila de Lima), your motive, and the motive of your party in this hearing. I am testing whether (the witnesses are credible) or is this part of the Plan B of the Liberal Party para makuha ang Malacañang at manira lang,” Cayetano said on September 15 during the third Senate hearing investigating the killings linked to Duterte’s campaign against drugs. This was the same hearing when self-confessed hitman Edgar Matobato surfaced and accused the president of ordering the killing of criminals and aides of political rivals.
Lacson is also critical of the way Senator Leila de Lima carried on with the senate committee hearings, he said that he did not buy Cayetano’s conspiracy theory.
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“With all due respect to Alan Peter Cayetano, I think his projection is quite a stretch. I believe it has no basis. I know VP Leni personally. I am not that close to her, but I don’t see her as one who would go through that just to assume the presidency,” Lacson said.
Robredo, de Lima, and their LP party mates in the Senate have denied allegations that they are trying to remove Duterte from the presidency.
“It seems out of bounds, for lack of a better description. Out of bounds because the speculation was not supposed to be made during such a hearing,” Lacson said.
During the hearing, Cayetano kept prodding Matobato whether he knew Vice President Robredo is an LP member and so were de Lima and Drilon, who were also at the hearing.
Robredo said that she felt “offended” by Cayetano’s accusations. “As I have reiterated time and again, it is not good for the country to go through another upheaval, where the common Filipino will suffer the most,” she said.
Sources: (philstar.com, cnnphilippines.com)
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