Sara camp calls impeach evidence ‘curated, spliced’

MANILA, Philippines — The presentation of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on alleged inciting to sedition and grave threats during the House committee on justice hearing “publicly revealed the paucity of the charges” against Vice President Sara Duterte, according to her legal counsel yesterday.

Lawyer Paul Lawrence Lim was reacting after the NBI confirmed that the Vice President had contracted an assassin to carry out her threat to kill President Marcos, his wife and cousin.

Senior NBI agent Jeremy Lotoc made the confirmation in answer to questions raised by Akbayan party-list Rep. Chel Diokno during the House committee on justice impeachment hearing on Wednesday.

“Evidence is curated, even spliced. Context is ignored. Opinion is substituted for facts. Guesswork is presented as investigation results. These cannot be the foundation for probable cause, much less a prima facie case with reasonable certainty of conviction. Simply repeating a conclusion, no matter how vehemently, does not make it true,” Lim said in a statement.

The hearing focused on the Nov. 23, 2024 televised assassination threats made by the Vice President against the President, First Lady Liza Marcos and then speaker Martin Romualdez, Marcos’ cousin.

“Similarly, the attempt to create a causal link or relationship between the Vice President and alleged comments against the President demands a gigantic leap in logic and abandonment of basic evidentiary principles. The non-existent connection to the Vice President is posed as a mystery still under investigation with no immediate answer, but strategically implies guilt. This excites judgment without evidence,” Lim added.

The committee played the video of Duterte’s meltdown, which the NBI also authenticated.

The NBI agent outlined the verification process, which included coordination with Meta Platforms to preserve the original URL, screen recording of the livestream and hash value computation to detect any alteration.

“If there is anything that was proved by yesterday’s proceedings, it is to confirm that it is and has always been a fishing expedition aimed at giving a semblance of substance to the defective impeachment complaints,” Lim said.

In two separate unanimous votes by all the 53 members present, the House committee on justice declared yesterday that there is probable cause in the Saballa and Cabrera impeachment complaints against Vice President Duterte.

The committee also granted the manifestation of House senior deputy minority leader and ML party-list Rep. Leila de Lima to consolidate the two impeachment complaints against Duterte to prevent duplication.

VP won’t attend May 4 House hearing

Duterte will not attend the House committee hearing on May 4, spokesperson Michael Poa of her 16-man legal team said as he insisted she will answer all the allegations once the impeachment complaint reaches the Senate.

“We think the things being discussed in the committee should be in the impeachment trial. Right now, it is unlikely that our Vice President will even attend because we have to be consistent with our position,” Poa said over dzMM.

“We have to be really forthright here. We need to be consistent with our petition before the Supreme Court. We are saying that the hearing is unconstitutional because it goes beyond the initiation of impeachment,” Poa noted.

Like in the previous hearings, House committee on justice chair and Batangas 2nd district Rep. Gerville Luistro ordered the committee secretary to call the respondent Vice President repeatedly to show proof that she has been accorded due process despite her absence.

“I haven’t spoken with the Vice President since the decision was made, although even to her, it didn’t surprise her because yesterday, as you know, our Vice President attended several Office of the Vice President events,” Poa added.

Duterte was seen in Laguna on Wednesday attending a pop-up exhibit.

“I am sure we will be talking in the next few days but not really in reaction to the decision but more on our strategy moving forward,” Poa said.

‘Not a thief’

Duterte’s sister Kitty Duterte on Thursday defended her, saying “she’s not a thief,” after the House committee on justice found probable cause to impeach the Vice President.

“But I know my sister, I know that she can be many things, but she’s not a thief, she’s not dishonest. So, I know that she can withstand what she’s going through right now because she has her truth. And at the end, that will prevail,” Kitty said in an interview posted on Alvin and Tourism Facebook page.

According to Kitty, she did not mention the decision of the House committee on justice to the former president. “That, I haven’t discussed with my father also because we don’t want to add to his burdens,” Kitty added, referring to former president Rodrigo Duterte following her visit inside the detention cell in The Hague, Netherlands.