No sitting vice president in recorded history has ever threatened the life of a sitting president on live video — and that, Mamamayang Liberal party-list Rep. Leila de Lima argued before the House justice committee Wednesday, is exactly why Vice President Sara Duterte’s remarks must sit at the center of the impeachment case.
De Lima, an endorser of the impeachment complaints against the Vice President, delivered her manifestation during the panel’s fourth and what is expected to be its final hearing before a vote on probable cause. She told the committee the death threat allegation was not merely one charge among many — it was the most revealing.
“Sa akin po, ito ang pinakamalalang ground for impeachment dahil pinakita nito ang kawalan ng tamang pag-iisip ni VP Sara,” she said.
She called it “one of the strongest, if not the strongest” grounds for impeachment, saying the remarks captured Duterte at her “most transparent and unfiltered moment.”
“Never before in the entire history of the world has a sitting vice president threatened to kill the president and his wife on live streaming video for the whole Filipino nation and even the world to watch,” De Lima said.
The lawmaker rejected any framing of the outburst as an anomaly, arguing it was consistent with the Duterte family’s political conduct. She described the Vice President and her siblings as “all cut from the same cloth and woven from the same fabric” as their father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is currently detained at The Hague.
De Lima also cited a recent statement by Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte, who declared at the launch of a pro-Duterte coalition in mid-April that he “only needed the head” of President Marcos — a remark that has since triggered a separate National Bureau of Investigation probe.
The NBI, summoned to Wednesday’s hearing, was expected to present its findings from its investigation into the Vice President’s apparent threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
The ICC confirmed all three counts of crimes against humanity against Rodrigo Duterte on April 23 — covering murder and attempted murder during his drug war between 2011 and 2019 — and committed him to trial.
The Vice President’s camp has challenged the current impeachment proceedings before the Supreme Court, where she has filed a petition for certiorari and prohibition seeking to halt the process. Should the committee vote to find probable cause, a one-third vote in the plenary would result in the Vice President’s second impeachment — unprecedented in Philippine history — with the articles then transmitted to the Senate for trial.
