THE exchange between senator-judge Risa Hontiveros and prosecutor Virgil Ligutan should have clarified what this impeachment case is truly about. Instead, the defense’s rejoinder revealed that it is still fighting the wrong battle.
Senator Hontiveros asked a fair and penetrating question. She observed that none of the videos presented proved that Vice President Sara Duterte had contracted or hired an assassin. She then asked why, despite that absence of proof, the acts alleged could still constitute an impeachable offense.
It was the right question because impeachment is not a criminal trial for murder-for-hire.
It is an inquiry into whether the conduct of a public official demonstrates fitness to continue occupying one of the highest offices in the Republic.
The prosecution’s answer reflected precisely that distinction. Prosecutor Virgil Ligutan acknowledged that the videos, standing alone, did not conclusively prove that an assassin had been contracted. He explained that they were offered to establish intent, knowledge, plan and a pattern of conduct culminating in the now-infamous declaration involving the president, the first lady and the former House speaker. He likewise manifested that additional evidence relating to the alleged assassin would still be presented.
The defense nevertheless treated that answer as though it had won the case. It triumphantly declared that because the videos did not prove the existence of a contracted assassin, the prosecution had admitted defeat.
But that was never the prosecution’s position.
The prosecution merely acknowledged the limited evidentiary value of the videos themselves. It neither abandoned its theory nor conceded that no assassin existed. Yet the defense proceeded as though it had dismantled the prosecution’s entire case.
More importantly, the defense continues to argue against an allegation that the prosecution does not necessarily have to prove to establish an impeachable offense.
Even if the prosecution ultimately fails to establish that an assassin was contracted, the constitutional question remains unchanged.
The Constitution does not require that a vice president successfully hire a killer before becoming impeachable. Neither does betrayal of public trust begin only after a murder plot has been completed.
The issue is whether publicly declaring that the president, the first lady, and the former speaker would be killed if something happened to you is conduct consistent with the dignity, restraint and judgment expected of the nation’s second-highest official.
That is the question before the impeachment court. Curiously, it is also the question the defense barely answered. Instead, it sought refuge in Operation Romanov.
According to the defense, the vice president was responding to threats against herself and her family. It portrayed her as a wife, mother, daughter and sister acting under extraordinary emotional strain. It argued that months of surveillance, harassment and security breaches culminated in the controversial statement she made during that early morning press conference.
Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that these factual assertions are true, the constitutional problem remains. Fear may explain conduct. It does not necessarily justify it.
Public officials are not relieved of their constitutional responsibilities simply because they believe they have been wronged. The higher the office, the greater the obligation to exercise prudence under pressure.
The defense also attempted to distinguish Sara Duterte the private individual from Sara Duterte the vice president. That distinction simply does not work.
A nationally televised press conference is not a private family conversation. The public did not hear an ordinary citizen speaking. They heard the sitting vice president of the Republic. Constitutional accountability cannot be suspended simply because a public official invokes personal emotions.
Perhaps the most troubling portion of the defense was its argument that she merely echoed what ordinary Filipinos supposedly felt. That is an astonishing proposition. If ordinary citizens indeed desired violence against the president, should the vice president amplify that sentiment?
Public officials are expected to calm public passions, not legitimize them. They are expected to defend constitutional order, not normalize political violence by presenting it as an understandable expression of public frustration.
Ironically, the defense’s own argument strengthens concerns about incitement. By claiming that she merely voiced what the people already believed, it transformed what could have been portrayed as a personal emotional outburst into a statement carrying the authority of the nation’s second-highest office.
The defense likewise insists that grave threats and inciting to sedition are punishable under the Revised Penal Code by penalties within the jurisdiction of lower courts and therefore cannot qualify as “other high crimes.” Even if that argument were accepted, it would still not dispose of the impeachment case.
The Constitution expressly recognizes betrayal of public trust as a separate and independent ground for impeachment. It does not depend on whether an act constitutes a high crime or even results in a criminal conviction. The framers deliberately included this ground because certain conduct may reveal such profound defects in judgment, integrity, or fidelity to public office that an official becomes unworthy of remaining in office despite the absence of criminal liability.
That is why the defense’s repeated reliance on criminal classifications misses the constitutional point.
The impeachment court is not simply determining whether the vice president committed grave threats or inciting to sedition under the Revised Penal Code. It is determining whether her conduct, taken as a whole, amounted to a betrayal of the public trust reposed in her office.
The defense had every opportunity to confront that constitutional question directly. Instead, it devoted much of its rejoinder to disputing what the videos alone could prove, even after the prosecution explained that the videos formed only one part of its evidentiary presentation. In doing so, it largely sidestepped the very issue Senator Hontiveros had raised: why the conduct itself may be impeachable even if it ultimately falls short of proving every element of a criminal offense.
At its core, impeachment asks a question that is broader than criminal law: Does this conduct demonstrate that the official remains worthy of the public’s trust?
That is the case the prosecution has been presenting. Unfortunately, it is not the case the defense seems determined to answer.
Antonio P. Contreras, PhD, is a professor at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and vice chairman of the board of PTV Network Inc.