After a total of six hearings that looked into Vice President Sara Duterte’s alleged unexplained wealth, misuse and abuse of confidential funds, and grave threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., his wife, and then Speaker Martin Romualdez, the House of Representatives’ justice committee has found probable cause to impeach her.
The vote was unanimous in the committee’s last clarificatory hearing that lasted over six hours on Wednesday. Fifty-three of the members present voted in favor of each of the two impeachment complaints that they had earlier determined to be sufficient in form, substance, and grounds. There were no abstentions.
This paves the way for the committee to present its report and resolution to the House plenary for voting, with Congress set to resume session on May 4.
The vote of at least one-third of all House members, or 106 of 316, is needed to impeach Duterte and transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate, which will then convene as an impeachment court.
The justice committee agreed to transmit to the House plenary a consolidation of the two impeachment complaints into one upon the proposal of Mamamayang Liberal Rep. Leila de Lima. One complaint was filed by Fr. Joel Saballa and a group of other priests and lawyers, which De Lima had endorsed; the other was filed by lawyer Nathaniel Cabrera, which had been endorsed by Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr.
The committee will hold another hearing on May 4.
“The chair pronounces that the existence of probable cause has been declared with respect to both the Saballa complaint and the Cabrera complaint,” Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro, the committee chair, said shortly after the voting. Cheers were heard from those who had filed the impeachment complaints and their supporters.
‘Not unexpected’
The Vice President’s lawyers issued a statement that they were not surprised by the outcome of the committee’s hearings, which she had skipped altogether despite a standing invitation for her to present her counter evidence. While the committee was holding its last hearing on Wednesday, she was reported attending an exhibit in a mall in San Pedro, Laguna.
The finding of probable cause against Duterte was “not unexpected, given the direction the proceedings had taken,” her legal team said.
It added: “We respectfully maintain that the proceedings before the committee departed from the constitutional design. Instead of confining itself to the verified complaints and their attachments, the process expanded into matters that properly belong to a full trial.”
Cagayan de Oro Rep. Lordan Suan and 1-Rider Rep. Rodge Gutierrez had sought to delay the vote in order, they said, to give the Vice President another chance to respond to the allegations. They asked that the justice committee hold one more hearing for this purpose.
They relented after several members such as De Lima and Akbayan Rep. Chel Diokno, and Luistro herself said the vote should proceed considering that the committee had given Duterte “more than enough” chance to explain her side.
There were two other major developments at Wednesday’s hearing:
• The members’ 38-6 vote against the opening of a sealed box containing the tax records of Duterte and her husband, lawyer Manases Carpio, which the Bureau of Internal Revenue turned over to the committee last April 22. It was decided that the Senate impeachment court should be the one to deal with it.
• The disclosure of the recommendation of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to charge Duterte with grave threats and inciting to sedition for threatening the lives of the President, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and then Speaker Romualdez in a live-streamed video on Nov. 23, 2024. The NBI was also ordered to continue its investigation, including identifying the assassin that Duterte had supposedly contacted.
The VP’s ‘character’
Early on, Luistro said the Wednesday hearing would be devoted to looking into the “character” of the Vice President.
“If before we dealt with numbers, today’s hearing deals with character…” Luistro said in her opening statement delivered in a mix of English and Filipino.
“Who is the Vice President, really, the second highest official of the Republic of the Philippines?” Luistro said, adding: “Is she a public servant who observes the bounds of the law…or one who believes she is above the law?”
NBI officials led by Director Melvin Matibag were invited to speak about the bureau’s inquiries into the “kill” remarks made by Duterte against the President. It was disclosed that she had not heeded the two summonses made by the NBI.
In their testimony, NBI officials said they had authenticated the Nov. 23, 2024, video where Duterte threatened to have the First Couple and Romualdez killed if she ended up dead in a supposed plot against her. At the time that she made the threats, Duterte was at the Batasang Pambansa, furious that her chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, had been held in contempt and ordered detained by a House committee probing the disbursements of the Office of the Vice President’s confidential funds.
Ties between Duterte and Mr. Marcos had frayed by that time, with the Vice President also having resigned as education secretary.
NBI lawyer Yentl Malicad said that based on the video, “the acts constitute grave threats and inciting to sedition.” She said the NBI was operating on the standard of “reasonable certainty of conviction” in making this determination.
‘No joke’
The video was played several times at the hearing. “No joke, no joke,” Duterte was heard saying after declaring that she had talked with someone and ordered that if she is killed, “patayin mo si BBM, si Liza Araneta, at si Martin Romualdez.”
Another video presented was of a media interview of Duterte taken three days after she made the threats. This time, she said, “I already asked a person to take revenge against three individuals. Is revenge from the grave a crime?”
The NBI also showed portions of the Oct.18, 2024, press conference of Duterte where she said she wanted to cut off the President’s head; that she wanted to squeeze his neck; and that she told his sister, Sen. Imee Marcos, that if the attacks against her would not stop, she would have their father’s remains dug up and thrown into the West Philippine Sea.
De Lima, who was justice secretary during the administration of the late President Benigno Aquino III, said Duterte’s “kill” remarks are the “gravest ground for impeachment” as these show her “lack of proper judgment.”
Even if the Vice President said her order to kill Mr. Marcos was on condition that she is killed, “a threat is a threat with or without a condition,” De Lima said. “The crime of grave threats is consummated with or without a condition.”
De Lima also noted “a clear pattern running along all of the Duterte children—they’re all cut from the same cloth and woven from the same fabric as their father, who is now facing three charges of crimes against humanity.” She was referring to the former president Rodrigo Duterte, who is awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands on charges involving his “war on drugs.”
At the hearing, the committee members were also shown a video of the Vice President’s brother, Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte, at the recent launch of his Reform Alliance for Good Governance and Accountability in San Juan City, Metro Manila. The mayor, speaking in Filipino, talked about a scenario where public officials took a bribe or were involved in theft, and “that should be enough.”
“You’ve already had a president who tolerated it. So what’s next? Will you keep stealing?” he said. “That’s enough. Maybe your children can go study abroad. Maybe you can eat at very nice restaurants. That’s enough. It’s okay. We only need one head, and that’s the head of Bongbong Marcos.”
‘Leads’ on the assassin’
NBI Director Matibag said they were awaiting the resolution of DOJ prosecutors on their recommended charges against the Vice President.
He said the NBI is also currently determining the identity of the assassin hired by the Vice President, as she had claimed in the video. “We are trying to pinpoint and identify the assassin. And just to let you know, we have leads already. We have some personalities that we are [undertaking] surveillance [on],” he said.
On Luistro’s questioning, Matibag said the NBI is looking at “those individuals” in the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group (VPSPG), made up of active and retired military officers, and other “close associates.”
Asked by Luistro on the VPSPG’s significance to the NBI probe, Matibag said Duterte, the second highest official of the land, “has the network, and that is why we have to follow those she talked to and she is talking to.”
Matibag also noted that it was “unusual” that Duterte has such a large security detail. He said then Vice President Leni Robredo had no more than 30 members in her security detail, but that Duterte has about 500.
ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio observed that in the video, Duterte did say she talked to someone in her “security” to do the killing.
Matibag also disclosed that his office has received a report that the Vice President went to the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) in Camp Bagong Diwa to visit the detainee Ramil Madriaga.
Madriaga testified in an earlier hearing of the committee that he had served as Duterte’s bagman and handled her funds. Duterte has denied knowing him and filed a perjury complaint against him.
Negros Oriental Rep. Janice Degamo questioned Matibag over Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla’s statement that Duterte had gone to the BJMP office to see former lawmaker Arnolfo Teves Jr., who is accused of masterminding the 2023 killing of her husband, then Gov. Roel Degamo.
Said Matibag: “We have established that on two occasions the Vice President went to the BJMP to initially visit Madriaga, and Madriaga told us he did not want to see her, so [the Vice President] went to see Arnie Teves.”
Asked by Degamo for evidence, Matibag said that this was confirmed to him by the jail warden, and that he got an official report on this matter. He said a subpoena has been issued for the visitors’ logbook at BJMP and they also sought access to its CCTVs.
Degamo also asked about a reported attempt to harm Madriaga. The NBI chief said there was indeed a new detainee who had tried to harm Madriaga. CS
Read more: The House justice committee enters ‘a territory of forensic truth’
