House prosecutors presented on Wednesday preserved and authenticated video clips where Vice President Sara Duterte threatened to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and even hire someone to kill him, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House speaker Martin Romualdez as an act of revenge should she end up dead.
On Day 2 of the impeachment trial of Duterte, the prosecutors decided to tackle first the fourth article of impeachment against Duterte, which pertains to alleged assassination threats against Marcos, his wife, and Romualdez.
They presented their first witness, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) senior agent John Mark Calilung, to testify on two video clips where the Vice President was shown making the threats against the President, her erstwhile ally.
Duterte did not attend the proceedings again, but she dared to go to the Senate a few hours before the trial began to meet with her defense team.
“In this bloodbath and bludgeoning, I will be bloodied but unbowed,” the Vice President gave the one-liner to the media in the Senate premises. She made it clear that she wouldn’t take any questions from the media and left.
Despite much opposition to the prosecution’s presentation of Calilung—with the defense team even seeking his exclusion from the witness stand—the prosecutors succeeded in presenting the video clips through flash drives or USB that the NBI senior agent had stored the recordings.
House prosecutor and Iloilo Rep. Lorenz Defensor said their evidence was “derived not only from testimonies and authenticated documents, but from the Vice President’s own words, own conduct, her own public admissions.”
‘Uttered publicly’
“Her words were neither accidental nor taken out of context. They were uttered publicly with the intention to be taken seriously,” Defensor said in his manifestation before the impeachment court.
The House prosecutor then quoted the Vice President’s threat in Filipino, which she made in an online media briefing on Nov. 23, 2024: “Don’t worry, ma’am, for my security because I already talked to someone. I told that person that if I’m killed, kill BBM, kill Liza Araneta, and Martin Romualdez. No joke, no joke. I already gave instructions, ma’am. That if I die, I said, ‘do not stop until you kill them.’ And he said yes.”
Duterte’s threat was presented later by private prosecutor Amando Virgil Ligutan during Calilung’s testimony.
“What makes these threats sinister is that they do not come from an ordinary citizen but from the Vice President herself, an official who, under the Constitution, stands to succeed the President of the Republic,” Defensor said, adding that her statements do not fall under freedom of speech but “strike at the very heart of the government.”
He called her statements “significant” given that Duterte had publicly declared her intention to run for president in the 2028 election.
Presiding officer Sen. Francis Escudero said Defensor’s opening statement was “duly noted” and reminded senator-judges that it “should not be taken as an evidentiary one.” He said that they should only do so when it’s done with a witness testifying under oath, and then subjected to direct and cross-examination
Defense lawyer Carlo Joaquin Narvasa sought to strike Defensor’s opening statement from the record, saying it was “improper for trial, not evidentiary in nature.”
But Escudero denied Narvasa’s motion, reminding that he had earlier said Defensor’s opening statement was “not considered as evidentiary in any shape, size and form.”
Agent’s background
Ligutan then presented Calilung to the court, noting his background as NBI senior agent, “well-trained and experienced in the field of digital forensic examination, and competent in identifying, preserving, collecting, and authenticating digital evidence.”
As a member of the NBI cybercrime team, Calilung was tasked with probing Duterte’s statements and threats against President Marcos.
“He personally conducted and participated in the cybercrime and open source investigation related to the subject video and related digital recordings,” he said of Calilung.
Narvasa then moved to exclude Calilung as a witness in the impeachment trial for not being named in the Saballa-Cabrera consolidated complaint, which became part of the articles of impeachment against Duterte. He also said Calilung was not included as a witness in the articles of impeachment transmitted to the court.
In response, Ligutan reminded Narvasa that the Saballa-Cabrera complaint “is done” and this issue “is passé, settled,” noting that Calilung had been listed in the impeachment pretrial order.
Narvasa contended that there were no rulings on the pretrial order on the exclusion of witnesses. He also stated that the defense team has a petition before the Supreme Court on the prosecution’s action to allow evidence not attached to the original Saballa-Cabrera petition.
He said this was a circumvention of the proceedings cited in the Stonehill vs Diokno case, and impinged on the constitutional rights of the Vice President.
Defense bid denied
But Escudero denied Narvasa’s bid to exclude Calilung, citing the case of Enrile vs Sandiganbayan where the “prosecutors may add or rely on evidence during pretrial, even if it’s not stated in complaint or articles, because only a summary is required to be stated, and the articles of impeachment in this case and/or complaint and not a complete list of the prosecution’s evidence and/or witnesses.”
“The court in general will not shackle the prosecution by limiting it to the evidence mentioned in the information or the articles of impeachment, especially when it’s mentioned in the pretrial brief, not only order, but brief of the counsel of the prosecution,” he added.
Continuing with his testimony, Calilung said he took the Nov. 23, 2024 video recording of Duterte’s online media briefing where she made the threats from the Facebook page of Harry Roque.
He said he asked Facebook’s parent company, Meta, to preserve the livestreamed video of Duterte and that it agreed.
But the defense panel questioned the authenticity of Meta’s response given that the prosecution presented a printout of an electronic copy. Narvasa also questioned the Jan. 30, 2025 photocopied affidavit of Calilung of his investigation on the video recordings.
But Ligutan said the Supreme Court recently said photocopies are considered originals. He also said that Calilung was the one who authenticated the document.
Flash drives
Narvasa also objected to the presentation of the flash drives used to store the video clips of the Vice President, which Escudero later overruled, and noted the prosecution was trying to “establish the origin of the flash drive, trace the chain of custody, and how it reached this court.”
Eventually, the defense opposed Ligutan’s move to play a portion of the online press conference where Duterte had stated hiring someone to kill Marcos, his wife, and Romualdez. He explained that the rule requires the entire video be played, as playing only a portion would not provide context for the Vice President’s statements.
Ligutan had moved to play the relevant portion of the video clip, which comprises 2 minutes and 18 seconds of the 2-hour and 10-second video.
Escudero denied Narvasa’s bid, saying the prosecution or the defense can decide what to present, when to present, and how to present their evidence during the trial.
The prosecution was also able to play before the court another video clip that Calilung had looked into in his open-source investigation of similar threats that Duterte had made against the President. This was the Oct. 18, 2024 video clip where she told a news conference of how she thought her relationship with Marcos had become toxic and her imagination of “strangling a person,” as well as wanting and imagining to “cut off his head,” among others.
The prosecution also played video clips of Marcos and Romualdez responding to the threats made by Duterte against them.
Pia, Risa
Meanwhile, Sen. Pia Cayetano protested Sen. Risa Hontiveros’ line of questioning when she asked the prosecution whether Duterte’s grave threats were impeachable acts.
Ligutan replied to Hontiveros, saying that Duterte had “a plan, a system, knowledge” on what she wanted to do to the President, and these acts were a violation of the Constitution.
Escudero interjected by saying that Ligutan’s response “pertains to the final question of this entire impeachment proceedings already.”
Cayetano then took to the floor to call out Ligutan’s response, as she reminded Escudero to call out as well senator-judges whose questions are “not proper, at the proper time.”
Escudero said the defense panel will also be given the same time after cross-examination to explain why the allegations are not an impeachment offense.
Cayetano sought to strike from the record Ligutan’s response to Hontiveros, and Escudero said they will do so at a later time.
Hontiveros, for her part, told Escudero that if he will strike Ligutan’s response to her query, then “so be it.” But she made it clear that her intention was “not to provoke a closing statement.” CS
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