MANILA: For the second time, Vice President Sara Duterte (pic) spoke publicly of a scenario involving hiring a gunman.
Addressing a group of supporters at The Hague in the Netherlands on Wednesday (July 29), Duterte tried to illustrate how some of the killings that happened during her father’s presidency were inaccurately attributed by his critics to his so-called war on drugs.
She gave an example to support the claim: “I have a husband. My husband has a mistress. I can hire a gunman for P5,000 to kill the mistress … That is how bad gun violence in the Philippines is. And that is, again, yes, EJK (extrajudicial killings) (sic).”
Duterte, who has declared plans to seek the presidency in 2028, is currently facing an impeachment trial partly because of a statement she made in November 2024 about her contacting a person for a hit job.
One of the four articles of impeachment filed against her, and which was recently tackled in the Senate impeachment court, was about her own revelation during an emotional online press conference that she had spoken to someone to have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and then Speaker Martin Romualdez killed should a supposed murder plot against her succeed.
According to the vice president, the deaths being linked to the antinarcotics crackdown could not possibly be considered crimes against humanity since it remained unclear if all of the victims were indeed drug war targets, given the ease of hiring hit men in the country.
“So how can you say that all your listed victims, all your listed complainants, are supposedly victims of the drug war?” she said.
“How can they say now that all the victims there are victims of the drug war? That it is supposed to be a crime against humanity?”
Official government records put at around 6,000 the number of people killed in police operations during the campaign. Human rights groups, however, estimated that up to 30,000 were killed, including children as young as 3 years old.
On Thursday, members of the House prosecution team in the impeachment trial took note of Duterte’s remarks about the supposed contract price of hired killers.
For Bicol Saro Rep. Terry Ridon, the vice president should now be asked: “Was that the price set by our vice president when she threatened the life of the president and his family? Was the president’s life worth only P5,000? Was that the exact mechanism she had in place when she made the threats?’’
“Well, again, with respect, I think the vice president has a violent mind,” Ridon said.
“She’s being prosecuted today on threats; the last thing I think any person being investigated on threats would do would be to talk about threats.”
Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong, the spokesperson for the prosecution, added: “I do not want to consider or even think that our vice president seems to have a mastery over this kind of issue.”
“But the opposite is showing. She herself is giving the scenario, and the first question that would form in our people’s minds is: How was she able to know these things in such detail?” Adiong said. - Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
