After claiming that hiring a hitman is as easy as paying P5,000 per kill, Vice President Sara Duterte was asked by prosecutors whether that was the amount she paid when she threatened to have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his relatives assassinated.
In a press briefing on Thursday, Bicol Saro party-list Rep. Terry Ridon said this question must be asked of Duterte after she mentioned during a rally in The Netherlands – where her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, is incarcerated – that it is wrong to think of drug war deaths as extrajudicial killings (EJKs) when having someone gunned down is as easy as paying P5,000.
‘Is this the price placed by our vice president when she threatened the life of the president and his family? Is the price of the life of the president [worth] P5,000 only?’ Ridon asked.
‘Is that the exact mechanism for how she was able to make the threats against the President and his family?’ he added.
According to Ridon, a member of the prosecution team for Duterte’s impeachment trial, it seems that Duterte has a ‘violent mind.’
The lawmaker explained that the last thing anyone being prosecuted for threats would do is explain their knowledge of how threats can be carried out.
‘And that exactly is why we are talking about this again, contracting a killer for P5,000,’ he added.
Prosecution panel spokesperson and Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong said it is unacceptable to think that Duterte even knows how killings can be carried out.
‘I do not want to consider or even think that our vice president seems to have a mastery over these kinds of issues. I don’t want to accept that our vice president has mastery of killings on the street,’ he said.
‘But the opposite speaks otherwise. She herself gave this description, and the first question that would enter our people’s minds is how she was able to know this matter to the point that her illustration was so detailed,’ he added.
Alonto Adiong also noted that Duterte’s statements only show that she has an idea of how these threats can be carried out, which runs contrary to her defense for Article IV of the Articles of Impeachment, which tackles Duterte’s threats against Marcos, his wife, and his cousin, former House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez.
‘But you know, coming from the vice president herself, people cannot help but have questions – again, considering that we just concluded Article IV, which is grave threats, this only proves that when it comes to threats or incidents of violence on the streets, she seems to know about them,’ the lawmaker said.
Duterte, in condemning her father’s continued detention at the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) detention center in The Hague, Netherlands, said the extrajudicial killings (EJKs) attributed to the former president could instead be linked to the country’s rampant gun violence.
She said during a rally in front of the ICC that the EJKs cannot be immediately attributed to former President Duterte’s anti-illegal drug campaign, since it is unclear whether all those deaths occurred during legitimate operations.
‘I have a husband. My husband has a mistress. I can hire a gunman for 5,000 pesos to kill the mistress. That is how bad gun violence in the Philippines is. And that is, again, yes, EJK,’ she said.
‘So how can you say that all your listed victims, all your listed complainants are supposed victims of the drug war? How can they say now that all the victims there are victims of the drug war? That is supposed to be a crime against humanity,’ she added.
Duterte is facing an impeachment case before the Senate Impeachment Court. Just recently, the prosecution panel finished presenting its evidence and witnesses for Article IV, which deals with the threats mentioned in a November 23, 2024, online press briefing.
As she criticized the House for detaining her chief of staff, Undersecretary Zuleika Lopez, Duterte went online for a briefing to berate the First Couple and Romualdez.
In the same briefing, Duterte was asked by a vlogger to take care, as she may be in danger. She replied by urging people not to worry, as she had talked to a person about killing the Marcos couple and Romualdez if she herself were killed