Prosecutors proved criminal intent in VP kill threat, ex-SC justice says

MANILA, Philippines — Former Supreme Court associate justice Adolfo Azcuna is standing firm on his legal opinion that prosecutors have established the criminal intent behind Vice President Sara Duterte’s assassination remarks. After stating that the House prosecution panel “succeeded” in proving the grave threat charge during the ongoing Senate impeachment trial, the retired magistrate pushed back against criticism over the weekend and corrected misconceptions about his background that circulated online. “I am not the sitting chancellor of the Philippine Judicial Academy. I retired from that position in 2021. Neither am I a grandmaster in chess. I am only a chess lover and enthusiast although sometimes capable of being a worthy adversary,” he said. In an interview with Bilyonaryo News Channel last week, Azcuna noted that the criminal intent of Duterte’s November 2024 remarks – where she claimed to have contracted an assassin to kill the President, the First Lady and the House speaker if she were killed – had been established. He reiterated in his statement that this was achieved when Senator-judge Alan Peter Cayetano questioned National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) special agent John Mark Calilung, who testified that authorities assessed the seriousness of the threat based on Duterte’s capability to carry it out. “It is my understanding of case law that how the threat was received by the persons threatened, including naturally by those mandated to protect them, is one of the ways of judging the intent behind the threat,” he said. However, Azcuna emphasized that this does not automatically equate to a guilty verdict, only that the prosecution has effectively passed the ball to the Vice President’s camp. House prosecutor and ML party-list Rep. Leila de Lima maintained that the defense failed to break their witness Calilung, as well as disprove the authenticity of the Vice President’s death threat video. “Nothing was ever broken in any part of agent Calilung’s testimony under the crucibles or the test of cross-examination, because the cross-examination is a stress test. And therefore if the evidence remains stellar, then it only shows the case became even stronger,” she told reporters over the weekend. “As far as we are concerned, there is no more debate there. No less than the defense panel have shown that the video is authentic. Why did they show portions of the same video if they didn’t believe it was authentic?” De Lima added. NBI regional director Jeremy Lotoc, who will take the witness stand today, is expected to corroborate and uphold Calilung’s investigation findings on Duterte’s kill threat against the First Family, De Lima said. “He will both be corroborating as well as adding certain aspects to the testimony of Agent Calilung, most especially on the investigation and the results, which became the basis and also conclusion on why they forwarded the case to the Department of Justice,” she explained. Capt. Belinda Bello, executive director of the House of Representatives’ legislative security bureau, is also expected to take the witness stand this week as she was among those who discussed Duterte’s chief of staff Zuleika Lopez’s possible imprisonment and eventual transfer to the Correctional Institution for Women, which triggered the Vice President’s rant. — Delon Porcalla