00:00In his closing statement for the third day of Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment trial,
00:05Defense Counsel Mark Vinluan calls the alleged grave threats uttered by the second highest official of the land unconventional but
00:11justified.
00:12Rather, when DP Sara left the administration, she suffered various forms of threats and harassment for many months from the
00:22powers that be,
00:23and the culmination was her statement on that fateful early morning in November 2024.
00:30Rappler Managing Editor Miriam Grace Goh disputes this framing in a Rappler panel.
00:35I want to remind our viewers that yesterday, one of the clearest messages that the prosecution was able to establish
00:44is that
00:45When Sara had that, what social media users and observers would call meltdown on video,
00:54parang dun mo na-question bigla yung fitness niya for the Vice Presidency.
01:01In the same panel, Law Professor Maria Lulu Reyes also calls the defense's cross-examination of witness NBI agent John
01:07Mark Calilong full of facepalm moments.
01:10The purpose of a cross-examination is really first to impeach a witness, whether or not the witness was lying,
01:21is biased, etc.
01:24Second purpose of cross-examination is of course to elicit admissions that are supportive of your defense or of your
01:34case.
01:36And third, of course, is to provoke admissions contrary to the interest of the witness and helpful to your case.
01:47None of that happened today.
01:48During the trial, Senator Judge Alan Peter Cayetano questions whether Duterte's remarks were considered a conditional threat.
01:55Reyes says the articles of impeachment should not be confused with the criminal allegation of grave threat.
02:00The crime, grave threat, is measured by the actual utterance made and whether or not the person has the capacity
02:09to carry out that threat.
02:12Whether it's conditional or not, the elements of the crime remain.
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