Vice President Sara Duterte is now facing a criminal case for grave threats after the Department of Justice filed the complaint before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court, a development her camp says was expected but insists will not hold up in court.

The charge stems from the vice president's remarks against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez, remarks that prosecutors determined met the threshold of prima facie evidence needed to move the case forward.

DOJ Spokesperson Atty. Polo Martinez explained that the decision came after a thorough review of the evidence gathered during the preliminary investigation.

"So, after the preliminary investigation, ang nangyari nakita ng ating mga prosecutors is that there was prima facie evidence with a reasonable certainty of conviction to indict the Vice President for the crime of grave threats, again, by means of cyberspace," Martinez said. 

[So, after the preliminary investigation, what happened is our prosecutors saw that there was prima facie evidence with a reasonable certainty of conviction to indict the Vice President for the crime of grave threats, again, by means of cyberspace.]

For the vice president's camp, however, the filing changes nothing about their confidence in the outcome. Atty. Paul Lawrence Lim, Duterte's counsel, maintained that she remains innocent under the law and is confident the case will eventually be dismissed.

Lim went further, raising what he described as a serious legal question over the timing of the charge. He argued that as an impeachable officer, the vice president cannot be prosecuted for an offense that is also currently the subject of an ongoing impeachment case, a defense that touches on the same allegation now before the Senate impeachment court.

The DOJ, for its part, does not see the two proceedings as connected. Martinez said the criminal case in the Quezon City RTC should move forward on its own, regardless of what happens in the impeachment trial, and that the reverse holds true as well.

With both sides holding firm on their positions, the matter now rests with the Quezon City court, even as the vice president continues to face the same accusation in the impeachment proceedings at the Senate.

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