Rio de Janeiro, Mar 25 (EFE).– Brazil’s military will abide by the nation’s constitution and laws amid its severe ongoing “political, economic and ethical-moral” crisis, army commander Gen. Eduardo Villas Boas said.

The senior military officer said in an interview posted Thursday by the army on social networks that its actions would be guided by the three pillars of stability, legality and legitimacy.

He added that any military intervention must be requested by one of the branches of government, as provided under the nation’s charter.

The video, which makes no specific mention of any of the country’s political or economic problems, was posted at a time when impeachment proceedings are underway in Congress against President Dilma Rousseff, who is accused of using accounting trickery to hide the true size of the nation’s budget deficit in 2014 and 2015.

Rousseff has said she did nothing illegal and that her conservative opponents are plotting to oust her from office via a coup after losing to her twice at the ballot box in 2010 and 2014.

The fight over Rousseff’s political fate comes amid mass street demonstrations involving the president’s supporters and opponents and a giant corruption scandal centered on state-controlled oil company Petrobras that has ensnared top company executives and dozens of politicians, including both allies and enemies of the president.

Prosecutors say executives at the oil giant accepted bribes from large construction companies in exchange for approving inflated contracts and funneled some of the money to politicians, a scheme that allegedly ran from 2004 to 2014.

But despite being Petrobras’ chair when much of the corrupt activity at the oil company took place, Rousseff has not been implicated in the scandal.

The impeachment battle also comes amid severe stagflation in Brazil, which suffered a 3.8 percent drop in its gross domestic product in 2015 – its worst result in 25 years – and is enduring its highest inflation and jobless levels in many years.

The army commander said his institution clearly understood its role in times of crisis, “like the one we’re experiencing and which has three important components: the political, economic and ethical-moral, which are linked to one another.”

Villas Boas added that the army was “certain that it’s a matter of time before Brazil is able turn this situation around and rediscover its path to development, as a country with great international responsibilities.” EFE