The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has established “leads” and identified “persons of interest” whom Vice President Sara Duterte might have spoken to in her threat to kill President Ferdinand Marcos, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House speaker Martin Romualdez, its director told the Senate impeachment court on Tuesday.
But NBI Director Melvin Matibag said he could not disclose the identities of these persons of interest as their investigation may be compromised.
Still, he repeatedly said the NBI was taking seriously the threat of the Vice President to kill Mr. Marcos, the first lady, and Romualdez. Actually, he said, this was “not a threat anymore but a plan” to kill the three.
“We are looking at this as a serious, active, and continuing threat against the President, and this has also become a threat to national security. Any threat to the President is a threat to national security,” Matibag told House lead prosecutor and Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro during his direct examination.
The NBI chief was called as the third and final witness of the prosecution panel in its presentation of Article IV of the articles of impeachment, involving allegations of grave threats and inciting to sedition against Duterte arising from her Nov. 24, 2024 online press briefing.
In that briefing, the Vice President said she had spoken to someone whom she instructed to kill President Marcos, the first lady, and Romualdez should she end up dead.
But before Matibag testified on Day 8 of the trial, Senate presiding judge Francis Escudero said the court was admonishing and reminding him “to kindly avoid statements pertaining to individual members of this impeachment court.”
“Without prejudice to any investigation you are undertaking, you may do so, but without need of issuing statements that may impinge upon the independence and/or integrity of the court or the individual senator-judges,” Escudero said.
Cayetano siblings
The rebuke came after Senators Alan and Pia Cayetano protested Matibag’s pronouncements that his agency was investigating alleged anomalies in infrastructure projects for the country’s hosting of the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in 2019. Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano headed the Philippine SEA Games Organizing Committee at that time.
The siblings had raised the matter during the impeachment trial, with Escudero referring it to the Senate as a legislative body, which will resume session next week.
With Luistro questioning, Matibag, who assumed the top NBI post last February, said he issued an administrative order in April that created a special task force to investigate Duterte’s threats against the President.
This was different from the early investigation of the NBI then under Jaime Santiago, which looked into the grave threats uttered by Duterte against the President.
This time, Matibag said the special task force’s job was to find and identify the person that the Vice President spoke to in the alleged kill plot against the Marcoses and Romualdez.
He said the NBI used the intelligence methodology of the US Secret Service in case of a threat to a known personality and looked into a “pattern of the violence, gravity and seriousness of an incident, identify characteristics of those involved in the incident, the capabilities of the subject, and the motive or intent of the subject.”
They obtained an affidavit of confessed Davao Death Squad member and former police officer Arturo Lascañas to the International Criminal Court, Matibag said. Lascañas alleged that the Vice President was among the architects of “Oplan Tokhang,” the brutal war on drugs that her father implemented during his administration and for which he is now facing trial at the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity.
“…[Lascañas] also said that instead of shooting and killing so that the media wouldn’t know, just kidnap the subjects—the shabu users or those who commit other crimes or sell drugs and just bury them in a quarry, where it was found that this Laud quarry has victims of extrajudicial killings,” Matibag said.
Not notarized
The introduction of the Lascañas affidavit was questioned by defense lawyer Mark Vinluan for its lack of notarization and a wet signature. Vinluan also said Matibag was not the one who executed the affidavit.
Sen. Pia Cayetano questioned why the prosecution used an unnotarized document and for them “to do their job” in presenting legally authentic documents.
Meanwhile, Luistro asked Matibag about the status of the NBI search for the person that the Vice President had spoken to kill the President, prompting him to say they have “leads.”
“We already have established persons of interest who could point to the person that the Vice President had spoken to, or it could be that one of the persons of interest is the one that the Vice President actually talked to,” he said in a mix of English and Filipino.
When pressed by Luistro to disclose the identities of these persons, Matibag said that “sadly” he could not do so given that the NBI’s investigation is “continuing and open.”
He said the investigation may end up compromised, endanger their informants, and violate their right to privacy.
On questioning by Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian on when the NBI expects to complete its investigation given that the threats were made almost two years ago, Matibag said it may take three to six months.
“That is our hope,” Matibag said of the timeline.
Asked by Sen. Bam Aquino to assess the probability that Duterte did talk to someone to make good her death threats, Matibag said: “100% because she is the one who announced about her plan that she talked to someone to do the killing and that the person agreed to do so.”
The NBI head also testified that the special task force looked into a video showing that Duterte’s brother, Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte, had also threatened the life of the President.
The court was presented a video of the Davao City mayor telling a rally by their group, the Reform Alliance for Accountability, Good Governance and Ethics (Rage) Coalition on April 26 this year, that “we need only one head, and that is the head of Bongbong Marcos.”
‘Kinetic force’
Asked by Luistro why the NBI looked into the video, Matibag said this showed that the Vice President’s threat against Mr. Marcos had a “kinetic force” or resulted in persons like her brother who heard it to make their own threats against the President.
“That is the very purpose of the task force: to monitor all these threats that are coming out now, and every day we see threats over social media, through statements in rallies, and these are continuous threats against our President, which has reached an issue of national security,” he said.
Moreover, Matibag said, over 600,000 people viewed the video of the Rage rally.
He said they compared what Sebastian Duterte said on that video to the Oct 18, 2024 video where the Vice President also talked about “imagi(ning) cutting [President Marcos’] head.”
Explaining his “kinetic force” statement further, Matibag warned of the danger of those who heard Duterte’s threat that they may create chaos, and not respect the Constitution and the democratic process.
The NBI official will return on Wednesday to continue his testimony at the impeachment trial. CS
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