Peter Joemel Advincula (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)
MANILA, Philippines — Peter Joemel Advincula, the video blogger known as “Bikoy” who in 2019 first accused the Duterte family of amassing drug money only to do an about-face by claiming his allegations were part of an opposition takeover plot, was sentenced to a maximum prison term of one year for perjury or lying to the court.
Advincula, who admitted to being the hooded figure in the viral “Ang Totoong Narco-list” videos, was meted an indeterminate penalty of at least three months and one day to a maximum of one year and one day in prison.
In her 16-page decision, Judge Karla Funtila-Abugan of the Manila Metropolitan Trial Court Branch 17 said the actions of the accused met the “essential elements” of perjury, defined under Article 183 of the Revised Penal Code as “the willful and corrupt assertion of a falsehood under oath or affirmation administered by authority of law on a material matter.”
Advincula is out on bail and has the option of appealing the decision.
In an earlier affidavit, Advincula described the case as a “nuisance or harassment suit” aimed at obstructing sedition charges against the opposition figures he had accused of plotting to overthrow the government. The sedition charges were dismissed in 2020.
‘It’s a vindication’
“To us it’s a vindication and now the truth has been exposed to everyone that we really had nothing to do with that,” said law school dean Chel Diokno, a member of the Otso Diretso senatorial ticket accused by Advincula of trying to unseat then President Rodrigo Duterte.
“The accusations were quite serious that we were allegedly involved in seditious acts, and that we wanted to manipulate the results of the election, which all turned out to be false and fake,” Diokno told the Inquirer on Wednesday.
“That is why for us, this is a vindication,” he said.
Diokno and the rest of the Otso Diretso team, including former Quezon Rep. Erin Tañada, lost the elections to administration candidates.
In April 2019, videos showing a hooded man who linked members of Duterte’s family to the illegal drug trade were posted on Facebook.
The man, who only called himself Bikoy, claimed Duterte’s son Paolo, son-in-law Manases Carpio and former aide Christopher Go, now a senator, were members of an illegal drug syndicate who had collected millions of pesos in drug money.
On May 6, 2019, days before the May 13 elections, Advincula surfaced at the Integrated Bar of the Philippines main office in Pasig City, claiming to be the Bikoy in the videos.
He told reporters that he had wanted to show that the President’s family and associates benefited from the narcotics trade. He also sought legal aid in filing cases.
‘Project Sodoma’
But on May 23, 2019, after the opposition shutout in the elections, Advincula said his previous claims were false and that the videos had been part of a scheme to unseat Duterte hatched by the Liberal Party and Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV.
Advincula, who had admitted to being jailed for fraud, also linked Sen. Risa Hontiveros and a staff member of then Sen. Leila de Lima to the so-called “Project Sodoma,” which he said was intended to topple Duterte from power and install then Vice President Leni Robredo, who was to pick Trillanes as her vice president.
In July 2019, Robredo and 31 other opposition figures were charged with sedition and other offenses based solely on the claims of Advincula, who by then had turned into a government witness.
On Sept. 6, 2019, lawyers implicated in the sedition raps, Diokno, Tañada and lawyer Theodore Te, filed a countersuit against Advincula and Police Lt. Col. Arnold Thomas Ibay of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, saying they made false statements in making the accusations against them.
In February 2020, the Department of Justice cleared Robredo and several opposition figures, Catholic prelates and lawyers of sedition charges.
Murder charges
Advincula, on the other hand, is still facing multiple murder charges in the killing of three local election candidates from Sorsogon City who were found dead in Advincula’s thrift store in Daraga town, Albay, in 2021.
While Advincula’s conviction on the perjury charge was good news for the opposition, Diokno admitted that the damage to his and his colleagues’ reputations had already been done.
“I would find it highly questionable to believe that he could have done this all by himself,” the rights lawyer said, adding: “Who made Advincula do what he did — that’s a big question that should be looked into.”
“The truth about that will also come out as the days pass, there’s no ‘forever’ in lying,” Diokno said.
Diokno said Advincula’s conviction should send a message to peddlers of “fake news” and disinformation that they, too, “can be held accountable,” and that this should be a “wake-up call” for government agencies to be careful in vetting alleged witnesses or whistleblowers before filing cases.