Metro Manila, Philippines – The counsel for Vice President Sara Duterte hit the presentation of evidence in saying she committed sedition and grave threats, claiming that spliced materials were used during the impeachment hearing.
“Evidence is curated, even spliced. Context is ignored. Opinion is substituted for facts. Guesswork is presented as investigation results,” Paul Lim, Duterte’s lawyer, said in a statement on Thursday, April 30.
In 2025, the National Bureau of Investigation recommended the filing of charges against Duterte for inciting to sedition and grave threats over her remarks in November 2024 that she hired someone to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., his wife, and his cousin former House Speaker Martin Romualdez, if she herself gets killed.
At the impeachment raps, an NBI agent confirmed that based on their investigation, the video of Duterte issuing the remark was not edited and not generated by artificial intelligence.
Lim said the presentation of evidence supposedly revealed “paucity of the charges” against his client.
“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,” he added.
Duterte’s lawyer also echoed the vice president’s claim that the impeachment proceedings of the House of Representatives are merely a fishing expedition, “giving a semblance of substance to the defective impeachment complaints.”
Lim noted that the vice president’s camp will address the allegations at the proper fora.
Duterte’s threat against the presidential family is one of the basis of the two complaints seeking to remove her from office.
The other issues were her alleged fund misuse and supposed unexplained wealth, with complainants saying these may be a ground for culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust, and bribery, among others.
The justice committee unanimously ruled that there is probable cause to impeach Duterte.
