NBI official: Sara Duterte betrayed public trust with death threats vs. Marcoses, Romualdez

Vice President Sara Duterte betrayed public trust when she threatened to have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House Speaker and Leyte Representative Martin Romualdez killed, a National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) official testified before the Senate impeachment court on Monday.

Atty. Jeremy Lotoc, NBI regional director for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and former chief of the NBI Cybercrime Division, was referring to the Vice President's statements during a late-night online press conference:

"Huwag kang mag-alala, Ma'am, sa security ko, kasi may kinausap na ako na tao. Sabi ko sa kanya, kapag pinatay ako, patayin mo si BBM, si Liza Araneta, at si Martin Romualdez."

(Don't worry about my security because I have already spoken to someone. I told that person that if I am killed, kill BBM, Liza Araneta, and Martin Romualdez.)

She further said: "No joke, no joke. Nagbilin na ako, Ma'am. 'Pag mamatay ako, sabi ko, huwag ka tumigil hanggang hindi mo mapatay sila. And he said yes."

(No joke. I already gave instructions that if I die, I told him not to stop until he had killed them. And he said yes.)

When prosecutor Amando Ligutan asked whether Duterte's statements constituted a betrayal of public trust—one of the grounds cited in the impeachment complaint against her—Lotoc replied, "Yes."

Lotoc disagreed with the Vice President's earlier assertion that her remarks were protected by the constitutional right to freedom of speech, saying Duterte's statements were dangerous and did not qualify as protected speech.

"If the second highest official of the land openly declared in public that she had already contracted someone to kill the President, the First Lady, and the former Speaker, and that she instructed that person to be relentless in carrying out the killings, we fail to see how those utterances are protected by freedom of speech," Lotoc said.

"Should we allow that kind of argument to become the norm in society? What would prevent anyone else from doing the same? Imagine the chaos and anarchy," he added.

Lotoc also testified that the Vice President's remarks met the elements of the crime of grave threats.

"Freedom of speech protects lawful expression. It does not protect utterances that satisfy the elements of a criminal offense such as this," Lotoc said.

The two-day cross-examination by defense lawyer Mark Vinluan on Lotoc included questions on whether the comments of the Vice President constitute a crime, high crime, felony, the punishment each crime carries, among others.

But for Senator-judge Vicente "Tito" Sotto III, all these discussions are irrelevant to the matter at hand because an impeachment case is not a criminal case.

"Naliligaw doon sa discussion of grave threats and inciting to sedition. Ang naka-file dito sa impeachment court ay betrayal of public trust and other high crimes, hindi grave threats at inciting to sedition. Naliligaw ako eh,” Sotto said, referring to grounds for impeachment.

Private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan later agreed with Sotto that the defense pounding on the criminal complaints against the Vice President over her 2024 statements pending before the Justice Department are just meant to confuse everybody rather than defend the Vice President from impeachment allegations.

These three pending criminal complaints filed by the NBI before the DOJ include one count of inciting to sedition and three counts of grave threats.

"This is not a criminal case. We are talking about the fitness of a public official who makes statements like that, who has shown her emotional instability, who has shown how she can and is capable of carrying out her threats,” Kapunan said in a press conference. — MCG/NB, GMA News