The demolition that preceded Sara Duterte’s confrontation with a court sheriff in 2011 displaced 217 families who had just survived a flash flood that left 31 people dead, an account Sen. Christopher Go has offered and one the Vice President’s defense team is now pressing senator-judges to weigh alongside the footage itself.
Michael Poa, spokesman for the defense, raised the circumstances after the video surfaced again this week during testimony from National Bureau of Investigation Director Melvin Matibag. The bureau presented the clip as part of what it called a pattern of violence. By Go’s telling, the then-Davao City mayor was asking the sheriff to delay the clearing because the affected residents had nowhere else to go.
Interviewed on ANC’s “Headstart” on Thursday, Poa argued that the broader portrait of Duterte circulating publicly bears little resemblance to the person he has worked alongside since 2022. He described her as decisive and unambiguous about her instructions. “I’ve never seen her done that. She’s never been violent. She’s never even raised her voice at me.”
Asked about a story that has followed him for some time — that Duterte once hurled a laptop in his direction — Poa rejected it outright. “Nasabi nga noong minsan, nabato ako ng laptop, that’s not true, totally not true. Hindi ako nabato ng laptop or anything,” he said.
The defense faces a separate problem in the first article of impeachment, which centers on remarks Duterte made during an online press conference in November 2024. She said then that she had made arrangements for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to be killed should she be assassinated first. Poa did not dispute that the words were spoken.
What the prosecution has not shown, he said, is that the statement functioned as an actual threat. “I always say we cannot deny the utterance… But it’s really more of the context,” Poa said. He added that the remarks fall short of an impeachable offense, and that the determination belongs to the senator-judges.
