House Deputy Minority Leader and ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro files a criminal complaint against former President Rodrigo Duterte before the Quezon City Prosecutors Office on October 24. The filed case is in accordance with Article 282 of the Revised Penal Code in response to the former president’s alleged malicious threats against Castro.
REP. CASTRO FILES CRIMINAL RAP VS EX-PRRD
For grave threat
HOUSE Deputy Minority Leader and ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro on Tuesday filed a criminal complaint before the Quezon City Prosecutors Office against former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte over a death threat that gravely threatened her life, liberty and security and her family.
Accompanied by her lawyers Tony Laviña and Rico Domingo from Movement Against Disinformation (MAD), Castro filed a grave threat complaint against Mr. Duterte, who threatened her life through a televised statement while attending the wake of her father last October 11 at Saint Peter’s Chapel in Quezon City.
Earlier, Magdalo National Chairperson and former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, who urged President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. to allow the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigators into the country to run after Mr. Duterte, submitted a supplemental communication to the ICC regarding the supposed extrajudicial killings using the latter’s program over Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI), including threats on Castro’s life.
Mr. Duterte allegedly faces a charge of grave threat under Article 282 of the Revised Penal Code and Section 6 of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 when he made a statement over Gikan sa Masa, Para sa Masa entitled “FPRRD ibinulgar ang plano ni VP Sara [Duterte-Carpio] sa confidential fund” televised live over SMNI.
“Hearing Respondent Duterte, the immediate former President of the Philippines, father of the incumbent Vice President of the country, and a self-confessed murderer, called my name multiple times and made grave threats to kill me, and made me immensely fearful for my life, safety, and security,” according to the complaint of Castro, a vocal critic of Duterte-Carpio’s P650 million confidential funds under next year’s national budget that was reprioritized by the House of Representatives to boost the country’s security defense, especially in the tension-filled West Philippine Sea.
During the controversial episode, the former president said, “Pero ang una mong target d’yan [sa] intelligence fund mo [Duterte-Carpio], kayo, ikaw France, kayong mga Komunista ang gusto kong patayin. Sabihin mo na sa kanya.”
“Sabi ko sa kanya [his daughter, the Vice President], magprangka ka na lang. Itong intelligence fund na ito gagamitin ko para sa utak ng mga Pilipino kasi ito ang target ko, kayong mga komunista nandiyan sa Congress. Prangkahin mo na ‘yan si France Castro,” the complaint said, quoting the former president.
In the same episode of the SMNI program, Castro said Mr. Duterte admitted that he had used his intelligence funds to kill those he considered communist.
“Ang intelligence fund, binili ko. Pinapatay ko lahat. Kaya ganun ang Davao, ‘yung mga kasama ni [inaudible], pinatigok ko talaga. ‘Yun ang totoo,” the complaint quoted the ex-president as saying.
In her complaint, Castro said Mr. Duterte had linked her to the left-leaning communist group repeatedly.
“Though factually baseless and clearly malicious, I cannot merely dismiss Respondent Duterte’s red-tagging and accompanying grave threats as either figurative, joking, or otherwise benign considering that many victims of extrajudicial killings, illegal arrest and detentions, excommunicado confinements, forced disappearances, and other analogous attacked were called or labeled ‘communists,’ members or supporters of the NPA, ‘terrorists’ and like labels before they were attacked,” the complaint said.
YouTube deleted the complete two-hour and 21-minute program in SMNI for violation of its standards.
It was Castro who led the criticisms of Duterte-Carpio’s use of P125 million in confidential funds that were spent in 11 days.
For 2023, Duterte-Carpio’s Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education asked for a total of P650 million in confidential funds that the House of Representatives reprioritized to security agencies amid the tension in the West Philippine Sea.
