Atty. Paul Lawrence Lim, counsel for Vice President Sara Duterte, on Thursday criticized the presentation of evidence before the House Committee on Justice, calling it “curated, spliced, and grounded on guesswork” rather than facts.
The Vice President’s camp pushed back against materials presented during the panel’s April 29 hearing, where the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) laid out records of its probe into alleged assasination threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House speaker Martin Romualdez.
In a statement, Lim said the NBI’s presentation on Duterte’s alleged commission of inciting to sedition and grave threats “publicly reveals the paucity of the charges against her.”
“Evidence is curated, even spliced. Context is ignored. Opinion is substituted for facts. Guesswork is presented as investigation results,” Lim said in a statement.
“These cannot be the foundation for probable cause, much less a prima facie case with reasonable certainty of conviction. Simply repeating a conclusion, no matter how vehemently, does not make it true,” he added.
The lawyer also questioned the supposed link between Duterte and statements critical of the President, describing it as requiring “a gigantic leap in logic” and a departure from basic evidentiary principles.
He maintained that some of the alleged threats discussed during the hearing had no connection to the Vice President.
“The non-existent connection to the Vice President is posed as a mystery still under investigation with no immediate answer, but strategically implies guilt. This excites judgment without evidence,” Lim said.
He urged that the matter be resolved in proper legal forums, where evidence—not insinuations—would guide judgment.
The Duterte camp further described the proceedings as a “fishing expedition” aimed at lending credibility to what it called defective impeachment complaints.
“If there is anything that was proved by yesterday’s proceedings, it is to confirm that it is and has always been a fishing expedition aimed at giving a semblance of substance to the defective impeachment complaints,” the camp said.
The House Committee on Justice concluded its hearings on the complaints and found probable cause to impeach Duterte following clarificatory hearings.
