A FRESH remark about hiring a gunman for P5,000 cannot distract from bank records and sworn testimony tracing the encashment of P612.5 million in confidential funds under Vice President Sara Z. Duterte.
Bicol Saro party-list Rep. Terry Ridon, a member of the House prosecution panel, described Thursday the reported statement at the “Free Duterte Now” rally in The Hague as another diversion after two former Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) managers testified before the Senate impeachment court.
“Another diversion ito matapos mailatag sa impeachment court ang documented encashment ng P612.5 million. She may try to change the conversation, but she cannot make the checks, bank records and sworn testimony disappear,” Ridon stressed.
Duterte was quoted as saying she could hire a gunman in the Philippines for P5,000, using as an example what she could supposedly do if her husband had a mistress.
“Mas malalim ang problema: bakit bukambibig ng Vice President ang pagpatay? From cutting off heads to hiring an assassin and now a P5,000 gunman, violence is no longer an isolated figure of speech but a recurring language of power,” Ridon noted.
The remark followed Duterte’s earlier statements about imagining cutting off President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s head and arranging for the President, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and former Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez to be killed if she herself were slain.
“A public official, especially the Vice President, should lower the temperature of public life, not make contract killing sound cheap, casual or ordinary. Leadership cannot normalize the idea that death is a convenient answer to anger, infidelity or political conflict,” Ridon emphasized.
The Senate impeachment court on Wednesday heard former LandBank branch managers Violeta Constantino and Nenita Camposano testify on four OVP checks totaling P500 million and three DepEd checks totaling P112.5 million, respectively.
“Kahapon, dalawang dating LandBank managers ang humarap with records, dates and amounts. Today, the answer is another shocking line about a gunman, but spectacle is no substitute for an explanation of where the people’s money went,” Ridon pointed out.
Both former bank managers described the size of the cash transactions as unusual, while the money trail involving DepEd included testimony that P37.5 million encashments were placed in bags and carried out through a fire exit.
“The DepEd cash was not handled like an ordinary government transaction; it was encashed and carried out through a fire exit. When P112.5 million leaves a government bank in bags, the public is entitled to ask who received it, where it went and what public purpose it served,” Ridon explained.
Article 1 accuses VP Duterte of misuse, misappropriation and irregular liquidation of P500 million in OVP confidential funds and P112.5 million in DepEd funds, allegations that the prosecution must prove and the defense may challenge before the senator-judges.
“The Vice President can dispute the prosecution, cross-examine witnesses and present her own evidence. What she cannot do is ask Filipinos to look away every time the documentary trail becomes uncomfortable,” Ridon maintained.
“This trial is about fitness for office as much as accounting. A leader entrusted with public money and constitutional power must answer with documents and restraint, not diversions and another vocabulary of killing,” Ridon added.
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