KARAPATAN and relatives of victims of rights violations are among those who signed the impeachment complaint filed by the Makabayan bloc against Vice President Sara Duterte.
Represented by its Chairperson Elisa Tita Lubi and Secretary General Cristina Palabay, KARAPATAN was joined by Atty. VJ Topacio, Hustisya National Board member and son of NDFP consultants Agaton Topacio and Eugenia Magpantay who were extrajudicially killed on November 25, 2020; Liezel Asuncion, wife of Bayan-Cavite coordinator Manny Asuncion who was shot dead in the Bloody Sunday Massacre on March 7, 2021; and Rosenda Lemita, mother of activist Ana Mariz Lemita-Evangelista who was extrajudicially killed with her husband Ariel in the same incident on March 7, 2021.
“As victims of human rights violations seeking justice and accountability,” said Palabay, “we signed the impeachment complaint to register our outrage at Sara Duterte’s gross abuse of power in misusing the confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs), her gross disregard of the principles of transparency and accountability, and her willful refusal to recognize the oversight functions of Congress during the budget deliberations.”
“Witnesses at the House of Representatives’ Quad Committee hearings have testified that the CIF of former Pres. Rodrigo Duterte was used to incentivize extrajudicial killings,” said Palabay. “On the other hand, a sizeable chunk of Sara Duterte’s CIF ended up in the hands of the military and was reportedly used to ‘purchase information,’ most likely payoffs to perjured witnesses against targeted activists,” she added. “Huge funds were also spent for the rental and maintenance of safe houses, which, in all likelihood, were used to detain, interrogate, torture or extrajudicially kill victims of abduction and enforced disappearance.”
“By these egregious acts,” said Palabay, “Sara Duterte has unequivocally betrayed the public trust and must be impeached, made to stand trial and removed from office,” she concluded.
