Sara Duterte trial recap, July 13: 'Real' threat finding, typos galore
MANILA, Philippines — The official who led the National Bureau of Investigation's probe into Vice President Sara Duterte's alleged death threats told the impeachment court Monday that, in the bureau's assessment, she committed a crime.
NBI regional director Jeremy Lotoc, who headed the cybercrime division that opened the investigation the day of Duterte's Nov. 23, 2024, online press conference, testified as the prosecution's second witness on the grave-threats article.
Duterte, as she has since the trial began, did not attend.
The fourth day ran markedly longer than the first three, stretching past 8 p.m. after the prosecution's direct examination and the defense's cross.
Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri manifested that the senator-judges were struggling to follow the proceedings given the hour and moved for the trial to adjourn. At that point, the defense said they were only just halfway through their cross of Lotoc.
The trial's slow pace has been a running concern by the court since the first day. Sen. Ping Lacson warned over the weekend that at one witness a week, the proceedings could stretch past Christmas.
1. 'The threat was real'
Lotoc walked senator-judges through how the NBI analyzed Duterte's remarks and concluded she had the "intent, motive and capability" to carry out her alleged threat to have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and then-Speaker Martin Romualdez killed.
To argue the remarks were deliberate rather than a one-off outburst, Lotoc referenced two instances: Duterte's Oct. 18, 2024 press conference, where she said she imagined "cutting his head," referring to Marcos, and her Nov. 23 remarks, where she declared she did "not recognize anybody above me" and warned the country would "go to hell." A clip of the October remarks was replayed before the court.
He described the vice president as “furious and fuming mad,” saying she used profanities against the three roughly eight times during the livestream. He said the bureau found her statements "serious" and the threat "real and actual."
At least seven different clips of Duterte shouting profanities during her infamous Zoom press conference were played before the court.
Asked directly by presiding officer Sen. Chiz Escudero whether there was any basis to charge her, Lotoc said the bureau believes Duterte "committed the crime of grave threats and inciting to sedition," to the standard of prima facie evidence with reasonable certainty of conviction.
The NBI recommended three counts of grave threats and one count of inciting to sedition against Duterte in a Feb. 10, 2025 affidavit of investigation, Lotoc said.
Pressed by Sen. Erwin Tulfo, Lotoc said he believed the case was airtight.
Answering Sen. Risa Hontiveros, Lotoc rejected the argument that Duterte was merely exercising free speech, saying excusing such remarks as protected expression would invite "anarchy."
And in response to a question by Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian, he testified that Duterte had allegedly arranged the hit even before her chief of staff Zuleika Lopez was detained at the House.
This means, in the NBI's reading, the threat was not a spontaneous reaction to that incident but predated it. He cited her own words: "Wag ka mag-alala, ma'am, may kinausap na ako."
What made Duterte's words dangerous, Lotoc said, was that they could be "taken advantage of" by other groups.
Because Duterte's instruction was tied to her own death, Lotoc testified, harm coming to her could "trigger" her instructions. In the event Duterte is harmed, other groups could stage an attack on Marcos, the first lady and the former House speaker.
2. Witness' division looked into a threat against Duterte's life and found nothing
Under questioning from senator-judges, Lotoc also disclosed the limits of what his NBI division actually confirmed.
Lotoc said his division never identified the person Duterte claimed to have hired. The cybercrime division examined only her statements, and whether she truly contracted anyone falls to the NBI's intelligence service and director, who convened a separate task force Lotoc not part of.
Notably, the NBI also looked into the reverse: the alleged threat against Duterte's own life that her camp had invoked to explain her remarks.
Lotoc said the bureau invited Duterte to submit information that could help it investigate the threat to her own life, which her camp says is contained in a plan called "Operation Romanov." However, Duterte did not heed the NBI's summons in 2024, sending a lawyer instead to relay her reason for not attending the hearing.
An open-source check did not surface any proof of an alleged plot on the vice president's life, Lotoc said. What they found instead were just reports of the removal of 75 members of her security detail.
Sen. Bam Aquino pressed the defense on whether Duterte had ever denied actually hiring a hitman. Defense counsel Mark Vinluan said their camp has done so through a formal answer to the impeachment complaint.
3. Defense zeroes in on errors in the NBI's filings
On cross-examination, Vinluan trained several of his questions on inconsistencies in the NBI's paperwork, such as clashing dates, an "altered" receiving stamp and mismatched docket numbers across the bureau's affidavits and its transmittals to the Department of Justice.
Escudero repeatedly ruled Lotoc could not answer for documents controlled by the DOJ and told the defense to take those questions to a DOJ witness, at one point noting the court had been on the same line "for quite some time."
The errors also drew the attention of the senator-judges themselves. Sen. Imee Marcos and Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano earlier flagged mistakes in the NBI's affidavit and subpoenas, including a subpoena dated before the press conference it concerned and a line stating Duterte had resigned as justice secretary, when she headed the education department.
"Typo na 'yung affidavit, typo pa 'yung subpoena?" Escudero asked.
Before adjourning, the court settled the schedule for NBI Director Melvin Matibag, who had asked to testify early to attend an FBI-organized summit on transnational crime in Bangkok on July 21 and 22.
On a motion by Gatchalian, the impeachment court approved a subpoena for Matibag to appear Monday, July 20 at 2 p.m. Escudero noted that if his testimony runs long, direct and cross examination will continue on the next trial date.
The trial resumes Tuesday, 2 p.m., with the defense set to continue its cross-examination of Lotoc.
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