DOJ files grave threat raps vs VP Duterte over Marcos ‘kill’ threat

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Sara Duterte is facing a criminal complaint before a Quezon City court over the alleged death threats she made against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and former Speaker Martin Romualdez. The allegations also form part of the case against Duterte in her ongoing Senate impeachment trial.

Department of Justice (DOJ) spokesperson Polo Martinez on Tuesday confirmed that a complaint charging Duterte with three counts of grave threats had been filed before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court.

The DOJ action recounts her outburst during an online press conference in November 2024, where she cursed at the Marcoses and revealed that she had talked to someone to have the first couple and the President’s cousin killed should an alleged plot to kill her succeed.

The case stemmed from the complaint referred by the National Bureau of Investigation to the DOJ in February last year, after the NBI initiated an investigation into the statements made by Duterte as she raged over the detention of her chief of staff Zuleika Lopez in the House of Representatives.

Lawmakers in the chamber dominated by Marcos allies was then investigating Duterte’s alleged misuse of confidential and intelligence funds as Vice President and, for two years, as the concurrent education secretary.

The offense of grave threats, as cited in the complaint, is covered by Article 282 of the Revised Penal Code in relation to Section 6 of Republic Act No. 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.

“After preliminary investigation… the prosecutors saw that there was prima facie evidence with reasonable certainty of conviction to indict the Vice President for the crime of grave threats by means of Cybercrime Prevention Act,” Martinez told reporters.

The offense is bailable at P120,000 per count, the DOJ official said.

He said a separate accusation against Duterte, for inciting to sedition, was dismissed by DOJ prosecutors for lack of evidence.

‘Presumed innocent’

Martinez said the elements of the crime of inciting to sedition against the Vice President did not meet the high threshold required for prosecutors to indict her.

Duterte’s legal team on Tuesday said it had “anticipated and prepared for such an outcome” and would exhaust all legal remedies available to them.

“Under our laws, the Vice President continues to be presumed innocent and is confident that the charges against her will ultimately be dismissed,” lawyer Paul Lim, the Vice President’s counsel, said in a statement.

He also maintained that Duterte, as a sitting impeachable officer, may not be prosecuted for an offense that is also the basis of an ongoing impeachment trial. This particular incident is the basis of Article 4 in the articles of impeachment against the Vice President.

Asked if the justice department believed the case could be pursued simultaneously alongside the impeachment trial, Martinez told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that “That’s correct” but added it was now in the local court’s jurisdiction.

“That’s for the prosecutors in that ongoing trial to present,” he said.

He stressed that the prosecutors met a “high threshold” before moving forward with the case.

Asked why the DOJ took more than a year to conclude its investigation of Duterte’s rants, Martinez did not give a direct answer but stressed that the impeachment proceedings did not affect the DOJ’s findings in any way.

“The pieces of evidence presented during the preliminary investigation were distinct from what was released during the impeachment proceedings,” he said.

Professor Dante Gatmaytan of the University of the Philippines College of Law told AFP there was nothing to prevent the cases from proceeding independently of each other.

“This is not unconstitutional,” he said in a phone interview. “There might be theories that can be applied later on, but right now, nothing will stop the DOJ from proceeding with the criminal case.”

Under the Philippine legal code, a conviction on the charge of “grave threats” carries a jail term of between one and six months.

Duterte was impeached in May on charges that also included graft and corruption.

Tuesday marked Day 14 of a Senate impeachment trial where her political career—and planned 2028 presidential run—hangs in the balance.

A guilty verdict would see her removed from office and permanently barred from elective politics. —WITH A REPORT FROM AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

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