Lawmaker sues former President Duterte for grave threats

By Beatriz Marie D. Cruz, Reporter

A PHILIPPINE lawmaker on Tuesday filed a criminal complaint against former President Rodrigo R. Duterte after he allegedly threatened to kill her during a TV interview this month.

The ex-President “called my name multiple times and made grave threats to kill me and made me immensely fearful for my life, safety and security,” Party-list Rep. France L. Castro said in an eight-page complaint before the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office.

Mr. Duterte, whom she called a “self-confessed murderer,” must be held accountable now that he no longer enjoys immunity from lawsuits as a private citizen, she said.

Ms. Castro was among the lawmakers who had criticized Mr. Duterte’s daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio, for seeking confidential funds in the 2024 budget. The House of Representatives has since stripped her of P650 million of the funds.

Ms. Castro was accompanied by volunteer-lawyers from the Movement Against Disinformation and former and current lawmakers from the Makabayan bloc.

Harry L. Roque, Mr. Duterte’s spokesman, did not immediately reply to Viber and Facebook messages seeking comment. 

In an SMNI interview on Oct. 11, Mr. Duterte said he had told his daughter to say that she would use her proposed intelligence funds to kill Maoists in Congress including Ms. Castro.

“Your first target in your intelligence fund is France, the communists, whom you want to kill,” he said in Filipino.

At a separate news briefing, Ms. Castro attributed Mr. Duterte’s threats to her criticism of his daughter’s confidential funds.

Ms. Duterte-Carpio had sought P500 million in confidential funds for her office and another P150 million for the Education department, which she also heads. 

Ms. Castro also questioned Ms. Duterte-Carpio’s confidential funds worth P125 million that she allegedly spent in less than a month last year.

“Former President Rodrigo Duterte [has] lost his immunity from suit,” she said in Filipino. “He must be held accountable for the serious threats he made against my life.”

She accused Mr. Duterte of violating Article 282 of the Revised Penal Code, which punishes offenders with up to six months of jail time and a P100,000 fine.

Felonies under the code in relation to section 6 of the Cyber-crime Prevention Act could get a penalty that is one degree higher — a jail term of up to six years with a P100,000 fine, Tony M. La Viña, who teaches law at the University of the Philippines, told the briefing.

“President Duterte has gotten away with so many things when he was president,” said Mr. La Viña, a former dean of the Ateneo de Manila University School of Government. “For the first time, we’re holding former President Duterte accountable for his actions in a Philippine court.”

In the complaint, Ms. Castro said Mr. Duterte had made several statements linking her to the armed Maoist movement without evidence.

“Though factually baseless and clearly malicious, I cannot merely dismiss respondent Duterte’s red-tagging and accompanying grave threats as either figurative, joking, or otherwise benign,” she said.

The ex-president also said her secret funds would be used to revive citizen’s army training, which youth groups have opposed due to corruption and human rights violations in the past.

“The fact that Duterte and his ilk have the gall to declare open season against their perceived enemies shows that they are able to hide behind the same climate of impunity that shielded them when Duterte was President,” Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay said in a statement.

Southeast Asian human rights group Asian Parliamentarians for Human Rights has called out Mr. Duterte, saying his remarks “have no place in a democracy or, indeed, any civilized society.”

Philippine congressmen on Oct. 10 stripped several agencies including the Office of the Vice President and Education department of their confidential funds, transferring P1.23 billion worth of these budgets to security agencies amid worsening tensions with China.

In response, Mr. Duterte described the chamber as the “most rotten institution” in the country.