Says Duterte uttered kill threat ‘as an ordinary citizen’

Ombudsman Samuel Martires said there are no valid grounds yet to investigate Vice President Sara Duterte as he rejected suggestions that his office can do the probe given the President’s position against any impeachment moves.

“As far as we are concerned right now, we have not seen any acts of the Vice President that we should investigate. We do not find anything that was in violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act or of any offenses in the Revised Penal Code that is in relation to the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act,” Martires said in an interview with GMA News.

He said the threats uttered by Duterte against Mr. Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and Speaker Martin Romualdez were done “as an ordinary citizen, not as Vice President in relation to her office or to the function of her office.”

He also chastised Justice Undersecretary Jesse Andres for saying the Ombudsman has the authority to discipline and investigate officials in the context of Duterte’s remarks.

“I would advise Usec. Andres to shut up, to stop talking about the case. Because one of the powers of the Ombudsman is to take over the investigation of a case of any government investigative agency at any stage of the proceedings,” Martires said.

“No one can dictate upon us, not even the President of the Philippines. Don’t ever try to lecture us on what are the functions, duties and responsibilities of the Ombudsman,” he said.

Martires said proper law enforcement agencies should be the ones to investigate Duterte’s actions and utterances.

“So the DOJ (Department of Justice) and NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) should investigate this, and if the CIDG (Criminal Investigation and Detection Group) wants to help the NBI investigate, they can do so,” he said.

Martires was appointed by former President Rodrigo Duterte to the Supreme Court as associate justice in 2017 and as Ombudsman in 2018, but he denied his views on the issue were influenced by this.

“I’m not close to the President (Duterte). During the six-year term of the President, you can check the logbook of Malacanang how many times I have been there,” he said.

On Friday, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. left the door open to a possible reconciliation with Duterte as he confirmed sending a private message to lawmakers in the House of Representatives urging them not to file an impeachment case against her.

“What will happen if somebody files an impeachment? It will tie down the House, it will tie down the Senate. It will just take up all our time and for what? For nothing, for nothing. None of this will help improve a single Filipino life,” he said.

The commander-in-chief described the ongoing tension between him and his running mate in the 2022 polls as a “storm in a teacup” – an idiomatic expression for great outrage or excitement about a trivial matter.

Duterte earlier she and the President already reached a “point of no return.”

President Marcos, however, held a different view. “Never say never,” he said.