MANILA, Philippines — Batangas 2nd District Rep. Gerville Luistro defended the proceedings conducted by the Committee on Justice of the House of Representatives which found probable cause to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte.
Davao City 1st District Rep. Paolo Duterte posted on Facebook about an alleged effort to make lawmakers vote for impeachment. Allegedly, their district’s budget would be removed if they did not.
“In as far as I am concerned, I beg to disagree [with] that. I do not encounter anyone calling me or my chief of staff concerning the support to this impeachment process,” Luistro said in Filipino and English in an interview on GMA Network’s Unang Hirit on Thursday.
“And I wish to add that in my capacity as chairperson, we did not stand for either party. We stood for the process,” she said.
Luistro is the chairman of the committee.
“During the clarificatory hearing of the Justice committee, we were impartial, we were independent because we acted as investigators in a proceeding akin to a preliminary investigation. The mandate is very simple: to determine whether or not probable cause exists,” she said.