National Security Council Assistant Director general Jonathan Malaya during a press conference at the PCG Office in Manila on March 6, 2024. Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News/File 

MANILA -- An official of the National Security Council (NSC) considers the impeachment plan against Vice President Sara Duterte as “political opportunism.”

VP Sara Duterte faces second impeachment complaint

 NSC Assistant Director General Jonathan Malaya believes the Makabayan bloc’s push for the impeachment of the vice president is an attempt to create political mileage ahead of the midterm elections in May 2025.

 “Makabayan’s call for impeachment left and right… very clearly, it is political opportunism and political mileage,” Malaya said in a press briefing ahead of the 6th founding anniversary celebration of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) at Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City on Friday.

Makabayan working to get votes to send VP Duterte impeachment reso to Senate

 Makabayan lawmakers endorsed the second impeachment complaint against Duterte filed on Wednesday, which was prepared by over 70 complainants from civil society groups.

 Minority leaders have also begun gathering support from the lower chamber of Congress, seeking to secure one-third of the over 300 representatives to sign the impeachment resolution against Duterte.

 This is an attempt to fast-track the impeachment case.

 Malaya slammed the Makabayan bloc’s earlier statement, claiming that the "NTF-ELCAC sees the impeachment plan as a destabilization". 

“We never said that the impeachment is destabilization,” Malaya said. “What we said was that the violent action by the left in Mendiola last Bonifacio Day is an attempt to manufacture a political crisis and create violence in the streets.”

 “Ang position ng NTF-ELCAC napakalinaw—we agree with the president. We agree that the Makabayan’s impeachment of VP Sara is a distraction from the urgent issues facing the country,” he added.

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 “The president is correct. It will tie down the Senate and the House. The president is just concerned with addressing the needs of the Filipino people,” the official further said.

 NO DESTABILIZATION

 The Armed Forces of the Philippines said there is no brewing destabilization move against the government amid the filing of impeachment complaints against Duterte.

 “We can assure the Filipino people that there are no such attempts and we assure that the military is always professional and remains loyal to the Constitution and to the Chain of Command,” AFP Public Affairs Chief Colonel Xerxes Trinidad told reporters on Friday.

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