Palace: Sara Duterte's threat vs Marcos neither hypothetical nor conditional
MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang said the assassination remarks uttered by Vice President Sara Duterte were neither hypothetical nor conditional, adding that the Duterte camp's justification of the alleged grave threat amounted to an admission.
Palace Press Officer Claire Castro made the comments in response to former President Rodrigo Duterte's spokesperson, Salvador Panelo, who earlier described the alleged grave threats case as "hypothetical and conditional" because there was no evidence to prove it.
“Ang isyu doon, ‘yun bang mga sinabi niya, ‘yung ba impeachable offense o hindi…Yun ba ay talagang banta? Hindi nga banta kasi number one hypothetical, number two conditional,” Panelo said Wednesday, July 8, after attending Day 3 of the trial at the Senate impeachment court.
(The issue there is, were her statements an impeachable offense or not… Was that actually a threat? That's not actually a threat because, number one, it was hypothetical; number two, it was conditional.)
In response, Castro stressed that Duterte herself said she was "not joking" when she uttered the assassination remarks against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
“Ang pagbibigay po ng salita na kumausap na siya ng tao para patayin ang pangulo, ang unang ginang at ang dating House speaker, hindi po ito hypothetical. Nakita po ito. Hindi po ito gawa-gawang isip,” Castro said on Thursday, July 9.
(Saying that she had already spoken to someone to kill the president, the first lady and the former House speaker was not hypothetical. It happened. It was not imaginary.)
Castro also refuted Panelo's claim that the case was conditional by citing the Supreme Court's 2009 ruling in Caluag v. People, which clarified the elements of grave threats under Article 282 of the Revised Penal Code.
“Caluag vs People ruled that in grave threats, the wrong threatened amounts to a crime which may or may not be accompanied by a condition,” Castro said.
The alleged grave threats case has been the focus of the first 11 trial days out of the scheduled 92 trial days in Duterte's impeachment case.
During the first three days, National Bureau of Investigation Senior Agent John Mark Calilung, who investigated the authenticity of the video recording of Duterte's 2024 online press conference where she made the assassination remarks, was presented as the first witness.
Duterte is facing four Articles of Impeachment, including the alleged grave threats, misuse of confidential funds, unexplained wealth, and graft and corruption.
A guilty verdict on any one of the articles is enough to convict Duterte and remove her from office.
The conviction, however, requires a two-thirds vote of the senator-judges.
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