Ex-president Duterte charged for death threat on lawmaker

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REP. France Castro (PL, ACT) yesterday filed a criminal complaint against former President Rodrigo Duterte before the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office for threatening her life in a television interview which was also posted online.

Complaint. Alliance of Concerned Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro (center), accompanied by legal counsel Rico Domingo (left) and Tony La Viña, shows a copy of her complaint filed against former President Rodrigo Duterte before the Prosecutors Office in Quezon City Tuesday. PHOTO BY ROLLY SALVADOR

Accompanied by her lawyers, Castro filed a complaint of grave threat under Article 282 of the Revised Penal Code and Section 6 of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 against Duterte for his statements in an October 11 interview with Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI) where he defended his daughter Vice President Sara Duterte’s request for confidential funds under the proposed P5.768 trillion national budget for 2024.

“Hearing respondent Duterte, the immediate former president of the Philippines, father of the incumbent Vice President of the country and a self-confessed murderer, call my name multiple times and made grave threats to kill me made me immensely fearful for my life, safety and security,” Castro said in her eight-page complaint.

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The former president was quoted as saying in the interview that he told his daughter that she should have been candid enough to tell members of the militant Makabayan bloc in Congress that they are really the target of the confidential funds that she was requesting and that he wants to kill Castro and all groups he branded as communists.

The elder Duterte, who no longer enjoys immunity from suits, said: “Pero ang una mong target d’yan (sa) intelligence fund mo, kayo, ikaw France, kayong mga komunista ang gusto kong patayin. Sabihin mo sa kanya (Castro) (The first target of your intelligence funds are them (militant lawmakers), France, these communists whom I want to kill. Tell that to her (Castro).”

Castro, along with her Makabayan bloc colleagues, has been very vocal in criticizing the Vice President for her request of P650 million in confidential funds – P500 million for the Office of the Vice President and P150 million for the Department of Education, which the younger Duterte also heads as concurrent education secretary.

The House has realigned the P650 million, together with the confidential funds of other civilian offices to the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and other agencies at the forefront of defending the country’s territorial rights in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

The House has also allocated some funds to develop Pag-asa Island, which is located in the WPS, as a manifestation of the government’s determination to strengthen its presence in that area, which China is claiming together with most of the vital global trade route South China Sea.

“Though factually baseless and clearly malicious, I cannot merely dismiss Respondent Duterte’s red-tagging and accompanying grave threats as either figurative, joking, or otherwise benign considering that many victims of extrajudicial killings, illegal arrests and detentions, excommunicado confinements, forced disappearances and other analogous attacks were called or labeled ‘communists,’ members and supporters of the NPA, ‘terrorists’ and the like labels before they were attacked,” Castro said in the complaint.

The complaint said the elder Duterte “threatened to inflict a wrong amounting to a crime upon my person and honor” and that “such wrong amounted to either homicide or murder, both of which are crimes against persons penalized under Title Eight, Section Three (Threats and coercion) of the Revised Penal Code, specifically Article 248 (Murder) or Article 249 (Homicide).”

“The grave threats made by Respondent Duterte to kill me does not impose any other condition; and the grave threats were committed by, through and with the use of information and communication technologies, namely, computers, computer systems, mobile phones, sky cable and social media which were employed to create the content, and upload/publish and then broadcast/distribute the same,” the complaint said.

One of Castro’s legal counsels, Tony Laviña, said grave threat made online carries a penalty of six months to six years imprisonment and a P100,000 fine “but this is about accountability.”

“We have to leave it to the fiscal to decide, to the prosecutor to decide, what charges to file, [but] he has no immunity from suit, so I think we have a good chance,” Laviña said.

Lawyer Rico Domingo of the Movement Against Disinformation (MAD), who is also a legal counsel for Castro, said the complaint will serve as a litmus test for the country’s judicial system.

“We are testing the prosecutorial and judicial system on how effective or not effective it is. And that is the main reason some of our countrymen are going to the International Criminal Court. Because the perception is that our judicial, prosecutorial systems, with all due respect, is not effective and cannot dispense justice like the way it should be,” he told reporters.

Domingo said Duterte’s presidential immunity only protected him from charges during his incumbency, but he could still be prosecuted now for acts committed during his term, especially for extrajudicial killings in his war on drugs.

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Appeals Chamber has affirmed the Pre-Trial Chamber’s ruling authorizing the Office of the Prosecutor to proceed with the investigation into Duterte’s alleged crimes against humanity and the Makabayan bloc has been urging the Marcos Jr. administration to cooperate with the probe.

“Ang hope nating lahat is (What we’re all hoping is) those that have even more serious crimes to charge against President Duterte, they will also file those charges to hold the person accountable now that the legal system allows us to hold him accountable for what he has done,” Domingo said.

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