Vice President Sara Duterte was hit with a criminal charge over an alleged death threat against the country’s president, a key part of the case against her at her ongoing Senate impeachment trial.
The charge of “grave threats” was filed Tuesday afternoon in a Quezon City courtroom, Department of Justice spokesman Polo Martinez said.
It stems from a National Bureau of Investigation criminal complaint filed in February 2025, months after a late-night news briefing in which Duterte claimed to have hired an assassin to kill President Ferdinand Marcos, his wife and a former congressman cousin.
Lawyers for Duterte argued the case could not be pursued while she was being impeached.
Professor Dante Gatmaytan, of the University of the Philippines College of Law, said there was nothing to prevent the cases from proceeding independently of each other.
“This is not unconstitutional,” he said. “There might be theories that can be applied later on, but right now, nothing will stop the DOJ from proceeding with the criminal case.” — AFP
