NBI summons VP Duterte on her threat to ‘kill’ Marcoses

MANILA, Philippines — The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) issued on Tuesday a subpoena to Vice President Sara Duterte after she claimed to have hired a hitman to kill President Marcos, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and House Speaker Martin Romualdez if she were to be assassinated.

The subpoena was delivered to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) in Mandaluyong City and was received at 12:52 p.m. by Lucky April Ebrole, officer in charge of the Central Record Unit of the OVP.

According to the document, Duterte was ordered to appear at the office of NBI director Jaime Santiago in Pasay City this coming Friday at 9 a.m., as part of the investigation being conducted by the NBI.

READ: VP Sara publicly threatens to have the president assassinated

In particular, the subpoena was meant “to shed light on the investigation for alleged grave threats under Article 282 of the Revised Penal Code in relation to Section 6 of Republic Act No. 10175,” also known as the Cybercrime Prevention Act, and “for possible violation of RA 11479,” or the Anti-Terrorism Act.

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The subpoena was signed by Glenn Ricarte, assistant director for investigation service at the NBI.

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‘Act of revenge’

The Vice President declined to respond to questions about the subpoena, saying she has yet to read it.

“We will talk about the NBI (subpoena) tomorrow… so give me time to read and think about it,” she told reporters on Tuesday.

Duterte again insisted that her disclosure of contacting a hitman to kill Marcos was not an active threat, saying it was a “conditional act of revenge.”

She tried to explain her response to a question from one of her supporters if she was aware of the so-called “Operation Romanov,” an alleged plot to “wipe out” the entire Duterte family.

This was during a video conference at midnight on Saturday from inside the detention cell at the Batasang Pambansa, where her chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, was being held then.

Duterte disclosed her plan by saying in Filipino: “I told him (the person she contacted) that if I am killed, you kill BBM (Marcos), Liza Araneta, and Martin Romualdez. No joke, no joke.”

“I left word, ma’am, that if I am killed, don’t you stop until you kill them. And then he said, ‘yes’.”

Conditional threat

Duterte said her response of being in touch with someone to do her bidding was conditional on her being killed first. “If they kill me, if I die, in the context of ‘Don’t worry about my security,’ so, this means [if] I was killed, right? So, if I am killed, I already asked a person to take revenge against three individuals,” Duterte told reporters. “So, my question now to the administration: Is revenge from the grave a crime?”

Reporters asked her to confirm if she indeed contacted someone to kill the President, to which she responded: “Yes.”

“So, I have to die first. They have to kill me first. So now, they can’t kill me anymore unless they want to die,” the Vice President said.

Duterte was also careful with her choice of words, saying that she told the person she hired to “take revenge.”

She had earlier insisted that her statement was “taken out of its logical context” and questioned why the word “assassin” was brought up.

“Tossing the word ‘assassin’ into this issue makes things even more terrifying—and especially because I never used that term during my recent consternation against the Marcos administration,” Duterte explained.

“Common sense should be enough for us to understand and accept that a supposed conditional act of revenge does not constitute an active threat. This is a plan without a flesh,” she noted.

DOJ: No such thing

But the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday clarified that there is no legal basis for a “conditional threat,” which Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa also used to describe Duterte’s alleged kill orders.

According to Justice Undersecretary Jesse Andres, a threat remains a threat regardless of any condition attached to it as its essence lies in the intent to cause harm.

“There is no such thing as a conditional threat. A threat is a threat. If I say, ‘I’ll kill you if I don’t like your face,’ it’s still a threat,” Andres explained in a Teleradyo interview.

Dela Rosa on Monday defended Duterte’s kill order against the President, arguing that her statement included a condition.

“There was a condition in what she said, right? If someone tries to kill her, she said she would have them killed, too … basically, nothing will happen if she isn’t harmed,” Dela Rosa told reporters.

“Everything has been heard and can be listened to or watched again in the video. She said it in no uncertain terms, and when she finished speaking, she said, ‘Yes, it’s true, no joke.’ So it is really a threat to the President, wherein she has already begun executing the threat by engaging the services of an assassin,” Andres explained.

“Let us understand the situation. She is a sitting Vice President. She is the potential beneficiary of the death of the President,” Andres said. —with a report from INQUIRER.net