‘Para magkaalaman na!’ Teodoro dares critics to prove Maltese passport claims

Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. challenged the complainants who accused him of holding a Maltese passport to prove their allegations, saying he had long addressed the issue before they filed a case against him. Teodoro brushed off the issue and said he would let the legal process run its course. “If a case has been filed, then we will see how it turns out. It is a case, so we will see,” the defense chief said on the sidelines of the Philippine Air Force's 79th founding anniversary at Villamor Air Base in Pasay City on Wednesday, July 1. The complaint filed last month stemmed from allegations that Teodoro possessed a Maltese passport issued in 2016 and may have misrepresented his citizenship status. The petitioners, led by lawyer Russel Miraflor, asked prosecutors to investigate the matter. “I clarified that a long time ago. They do not want to believe it, so let them prove it. They are the ones who filed the case. They should prove it,” Teodoro said when asked about his reaction to the complaint. The DND earlier came to Teodoro's defense and dismissed the complaint as “baseless.” DND Assistant Secretary Erik Dy, chief of the Legal and Legislative Affairs Service of the defense department, said the allegations were unverified and unsupported by evidence. He argued that the complainants were trying to shift the burden of proof to the government instead of substantiating their own claims. “The complaint filed against the Secretary of National Defense appears to be built on unverified allegations, and attempts to shift the burden of proof to the State by requesting the Office of the Pasay City Prosecutor and other government agencies to establish the very facts the complainants themselves failed to prove,” Dy had said. Teodoro has consistently maintained that...