DAVAO City 1st Congressional District Representative Paolo Duterte on Wednesday released a statement on complaint filed by ACT Teacher Party-list lawmaker France Castro.
“We all have the right to file a complaint against anyone in court. But public servants should not be onion-skinned and should not make use of this right as a tool to silence critics,” the statement read.
“The former President has received much harsher and humiliating criticisms in the past but never filed a case against anyone. As public servants, we all are under scrutiny by the Filipino people. If the former President has said something that threatened her, then maybe she should come out clean. ‘Di yung nagtatago tayo sa likod ng so-called “right” na ito,” said Duterte.
As a Congressman myself, madami din akong alam sa maka-kaliwang mga Party-list Representatives. Tigilan na lang natin ang ka-dramahan at pagpapa-media,” he concluded.
Castro filed a complaint of Grave Threat under Article 282 of the Revised Penal Code and Section 6 of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 for the statements he made over a television program at Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI) where he talked about the confidential fund of his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte.
Duterte said: “I told Inday (Sara) to be direct, tell them that the intelligence fund is meant to prepare the minds of the Filipinos, to address the insurgency that is taking a long time to end. And the ROTC so that we are prepared for war, especially in this situation, if we do not have soldiers, then we will have the youth who can take care of their respective barangays,” he explained.
“But your first target there, using your intelligence funds, is you, France, you communists who I want to kill. I asked her to tell them that, but she refused, saying, ‘You know Pa, if I did that, they might harass the PMTs (Philippine Military Training institutions),”he added.
