Enrile: No charge may be filed vs. Sara at this time for conditional threat

No criminal charge may be filed against Vice President Sara Duterte over her remark that she had ordered someone to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Marcos, and Speaker Martin Romualdez if anything happened to her, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile has said.

Enrile thus said while warning the two sides that third parties could take advantage of the situation.

“Although no criminal charge could be made at this time against Sara for her aforesaid statement because it is conditional, care must be taken by both sides to prevent evil third parties from taking advantage of it for their personal benefits, whatever these are," Enrile said on Facebook.

"This is a humble suggestion,” he added.

Enrile, a former Secretary of Justice, said Sara’s kill threat had serious implications, saying that every crime has a “guilty mind” and “guilty act.”

Enrile said Duterte’s threat “carries the key principle elements of the criminal case--which says in  Latin: ‘Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea,’”

“In the aforesaid statement of Sara, the guilty act is the command-- ‘patayin mo si BBM. si Liza Araneta, at si Martin Romualdez.’ And the guilty mind is to avenge Sara's killing, should it happen,” he said.

Enrile said that if the attempt against Duterte’s life should happen but did not succeed, the First Couple and the Speaker would be the immediate and direct suspects, even though they are innocent.

He said this would further widen the political disruption between the two parties.

“On the other hand, evil and vicious third parties could merrily take advantage of the situation and weaken, if not destroy, the two sides of the political divide,” Enrile said.

“Even some ambitious members of each political group could take advantage of it to strengthen and promote their personal interest, whatever that is,” he added. –NB, GMA Integrated News