(Eagle News) — The top officials of the Department of National and Defense and the Armed Forces of the Philippines are ready to participate in the ongoing oral arguments on President Rodrigo Duterte’s declaration of martial law in Mindanao.
AFP spokesperson Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla on Wednesday, June 14, said that Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Eduardo Año are willing to cooperate as the High Court begins the oral arguments.
“We support whatever process that is currently ongoing and if we need to be resource persons elsewhere, including the Supreme Court, we will be there,” Padilla said.
“The government, I think, is all one in this that whatever is required of us, we will provide,” Padilla added.
Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno had earlier asked Lorenzana and Año to attend the oral arguments on the petitions seeking to invalidate the President’s proclamation of martial law in the province of Mindanao.
“If (they are) requested by the Supreme Court, I guess the chief of staff himself and the secretary of national defense will be there and talk about whatever it is the justices want to clarify,” Padilla said.
The DND secretary and the AFP chief are the principal martial law implementors of Duterte’s Proclamation No. 216.