MindaNews / 21 July 2026 – The prosecution on Tuesday pointed to “tokhang” and the punching of a court sheriff in Davao City by then-mayor and now Vice President Sara Duterte to establish a “pattern of violence” in connection to Article IV of the impeachment complaint alleging grave threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the First Lady, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
“Tokhang” refers to the anti-drug campaign in Davao City that started during the time of Rodrigo Duterte as mayor and was implemented nationwide during his term as President.
The prosecution on Tuesday presented National Bureau of Investigation Director Melvin Matibag, its last witness for Article IV.
Matibag testified that the agency has considered the alleged death threats made by the Vice President a national security matter.
Under continuing objection by the defense, lead prosecutor Gerville Luistro asked Matibag to read portions of a copy of the affidavit supposedly submitted by self-confessed hitman Arturo Lascañas to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in connection to the charges of crimes against humanity against the former President.
The NBI official read the parts where Lascañas, a self-confessed member of the so-called Davao Death Squad, implicated Sara as having a role in the implementation of tokhang during her term as mayor.
Sara, according to the document read by Matibag, ordered then-Davao City police director Ronald dela Rosa to just kidnap suspected drug personalities and other criminals and bury them in a quarry site. Dela Rosa, the document said, told Lascañas that Sara didn’t like killing targets in public because it would invite media attention.
Defense counsel Mark Vinluan objected to the use of the document produced by the prosecution. He said that it is not signed and not notarized, and that the witness is not competent to testify using such a document because he wasn’t the one who executed it.
“It is just a scrap of paper…We cannot allow the witness to build on his testimony based on this document,” Vinluan said.
He said the respondent was already prejudiced by the reading of the content, and the senator-judges and the public may be misled.
Luistro responded that the ICC doesn’t require notarization of affidavits, but presiding officer Senator-Judge Chiz Escudero told her the impeachment court is not the ICC.
Escudero, however, allowed Matibag to testify based on such a document but not as to the truth of its content.
The prosecution also played a video where Sara punched a sheriff who refused her request to defer the execution of a demolition order by a local court in 2011.
Mayor Baste, too
Matibag mentioned Davao City Mayor Baste Duterte’s video during a RAGE Coalition rally on April 12, where he said: “Isang ulo lang ang kailangan naming ulo, ulo ng pangulo” (We only need one head, the president’s head).
The prosecution played the video where the mayor made the statement.
Matibag said the mayor’s statement was similar to the utterances of the Vice President during an online press conference on Oct. 18, 2024, and that they noticed that the threats came from one family.
The witness was referring to Sara’s statement that she has asked somebody to kill Marcos, the First Lady and Romualdez in case she got killed.
Out of the country
In a statement Tuesday, July 21, the eighth day of the trial, the Office of the Vice President said she left for an “overseas trip” with stops in Qatar, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
“The itinerary includes both official foreign travel and personal engagements. No government funds will be used by the Vice President for the entire duration of the trip,” the statement said.
“These activities are intended to engage with overseas Filipinos and advance the Philippines’ interests abroad,” it added. (H. Marcos C. Mordeno/MindaNews)
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