NBI witness authenticates VP Sara Duterte threat video in impeachment trial

The House prosecution panel on Tuesday presented its first witness before the Senate impeachment court, with an NBI cybercrime investigator authenticating videos that prosecutors said support allegations that Vice President Sara Duterte threatened President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and other members of the First Family.

NBI Senior Agent John Mark Calilung, who served as the lead investigator in the case, testified during the second day of the impeachment trial that he was responsible for collecting, preserving and authenticating the digital evidence tied to Duterte's alleged threats.

“It means that I viewed, identified, preserved, collected, and authenticated digital evidence in the course of the investigation,” Calilung said during direct examination.

Calilung said his work included examining a copy of Duterte's Nov. 23, 2024 online press conference, which had been shared on Facebook by former presidential spokesperson Harry Roque. He explained that investigators compared a screen-recorded copy with the original livestream before generating a digital hash value to ensure the recording remained unchanged.

“After ensuring that the contents are identical, I generated a hash value calculation on the video to ensure that the video won’t be tampered until presented in court,” Calilung said.

After identifying the relevant portion of the recording, prosecutors played the clip before the impeachment court. In the video, Duterte could be heard saying she had instructed someone to kill President Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez if she were killed, adding, “No joke.”

Calilung testified that investigators focused on the portion of the video containing the alleged threats. He also said the NBI requested Meta, Facebook's parent company, to preserve the recording and prepared an affidavit documenting the authentication process.

The witness further told the court that investigators uncovered an earlier online press conference on Oct. 18, 2024 in which Duterte made remarks about President Marcos, including comments about "cutting off his head" and exhuming the remains of former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. Prosecutors presented the earlier video to establish the context of Duterte's later statements.

According to the prosecution, both recordings form part of the evidence supporting Article IV of the impeachment complaint, which accuses Duterte of culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust over alleged grave threats.

Calilung also authenticated official statements issued by the Philippine National Police, Armed Forces of the Philippines, National Security Council and other government agencies responding to Duterte's remarks. He testified that he captured, preserved and printed copies of those statements before submitting them to the House Committee on Justice as part of the impeachment proceedings.

Through Calilung's testimony, prosecutors sought to establish the authenticity of the digital evidence and show that Duterte's statements prompted official responses from the country's law enforcement, military and national security agencies.

-Paraluman News