The legal team of Vice President Sara Duterte fired back at the National Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday after the House Committee on Justice concluded its fourth and final hearing with a unanimous vote finding probable cause to proceed with her impeachment.
Atty. Paul Lawrence Lim, one of Duterte’s counsel, took direct aim at the NBI’s presentation on the Vice President’s alleged commission of grave threats and inciting to sedition, saying it only exposed the weakness of the case against her.
“Evidence is curated, even spliced. Context is ignored. Opinion is substituted for facts. Guesswork is presented as investigation results,” Lim said.
He added: “These cannot be the foundation for probable cause, much less a prima facie case with reasonable certainty of conviction. Simply repeating a conclusion, no matter how vehemently, does not make it true.”
Lim said the NBI presentation “publicly reveals the paucity of the charges against her.”
All 53 committee members present voted in favor of two separate probable cause motions — one covering the Saballa complaint filed by a group of lawyers and clergy, and another for the complaint filed by lawyer Nathaniel Cabrera. No objections were raised on either motion. Committee chair Rep. Gerville Luistro suspended the hearing to applause from lawmakers on the floor.
NBI Director Melvin Matibag had testified that the bureau found sufficient basis to charge Duterte with grave threats and inciting to sedition over her publicly recorded 2024 remarks in which she claimed to have arranged for a hitman to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez if she were harmed. Matibag told the panel the remarks were neither a metaphor nor a hyperbole, and that Duterte had spoken to someone for that purpose.
Duterte was absent from the proceedings for the fourth consecutive time. While the hearing was underway, her official Facebook page showed her attending the launch of a pop-up exhibit titled “Extra+Ordinary: The Vice Presidents of the Philippines” in San Pedro City, Laguna.
The defense had publicly announced ahead of the hearing that she would not appear, citing jurisdictional objections to the proceedings. Spokesperson Atty. Michael Poa said the decision was rooted in legal strategy.
Across four hearings, the committee built its record around three central clusters of evidence: detainee Ramil Madriaga’s account of distributing ₱125 million in confidential funds on Duterte’s behalf within a single day in December 2022; an Anti-Money Laundering Council report flagging ₱6.7 billion in transactions between 2006 and 2025 against net worth declarations that peaked at ₱88 million; and the NBI’s criminal referral stemming from the death threat remarks.
Poa said the camp had anticipated the outcome. “We are not here to lose. Our goal is not just to win, but to show the public that the accusations of corruption have no truth,” he said.
The committee will now draft its report. A majority vote transmits it to the House plenary, where 106 of 318 members — one-third of the chamber — must vote in favor to formally impeach Duterte for the second time in her tenure. The plenary vote is scheduled for May 4.
The defense has a separate petition pending before the Supreme Court questioning the validity of the proceedings. Duterte’s team has maintained that the proper venue for contesting the charges is the Senate, which would convene as an impeachment court to conduct the trial.Sara’s lawyer says NBI ‘substituted opinion for facts’ as panel seals probable cause finding
