De Lima calls threats showing 'true Sara' as strongest impeachment ground 

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April 29, 2026 | 2:22pm

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Sara Duterte's "threat" of contracting a hitman to kill the president if she were to be killed is the most damning of all the impeachment allegations against her, and a window into her true character, Rep. Leila de Lima told the House justice committee Wednesday, April 29. 

De Lima, an endorser of the impeachment complaints, delivered her manifestation during the panel's fourth and likely final hearing before a vote on its probable cause. 

She called the threats "one of the strongest, if not the strongest" grounds for impeachment, saying they captured Duterte at her "most transparent and unfiltered moment."

"Never before in the entire history of the world has a sitting vice president threatened to kill the president and his wife on live streaming video for the whole Filipino nation and even the world to watch," she said.

The threats stem from a midnight Zoom "press conference" on Nov. 23, 2024, when Duterte — enraged over the detention of her chief of staff Zuleika Lopez at the House of Representatives — told the public she had arranged for someone to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and then-Speaker Martin Romualdez if anything happened to her. She repeated twice that she was not joking.

A clip of this moment was broadcast once again Wednesday as the House justice panel evaluates the impeachment charges against Duterte.

'Cut from the same cloth'

Commenting on this, De Lima described the outburst as one expected of her family, as she says the Duterte children are "all cut from the same cloth and woven from the same fabric" as their father, former President Rodrigo Duterte.

The elder Duterte is currently detained at The Hague. The International Criminal Court on April 23 confirmed all three counts of crimes against humanity against him — murder and attempted murder during his drug war from 2011 to 2019 — and committed him to trial.

De Lima also pointed to a recent remark by Davao City Mayor Sebastian "Baste" Duterte as further evidence of their rhetoric. At the launch of a pro-Duterte coalition in mid-April, the mayor publicly declared he "only needed the head" of Marcos — a statement that drew an NBI probe of its own.  

She also cited the testimony of Arturo Lascañas, a self-confessed leader of the Davao Death Squad, who has accused Sara Duterte and then-Davao police chief Bato dela Rosa — now a senator — of devising Oplan Tokhang, a system that Lascañas said masked drug killings as kidnappings.

That history, De Lima argued, made it impossible to treat the vice president's hitman threat as bluster.

"Hindi yun biro. Siya po mismo ang nagsabi, no joke, no joke," she said.

The National Bureau of Investigation Director Melvin Matibag told the committee that investigators found basis for two criminal charges — grave threats and inciting to sedition — related to Duterte's remarks.

NBI's findings

In 2024, Duterte defended herself against allegations she made an explicit threat against the president's life. She said her remarks were meant to be understood as a "conditional threat."

Matibag said before the hearing that the vice president's remark was neither "a metaphor nor a hyperbole" and that the NBI had established she actually spoke to someone for that purpose, though the person has not been identified. 

The panel is expected to vote on probable cause before the day ends. 

A "yes" vote would produce a committee report that could be sent to the House plenary as early as May 4, when Congress resumes.   

If one-third of House members vote to impeach, it would be the second time the vice president has been impeached, unprecedented in the country's history. The case would then move to the Senate for trial.