NBI chief to Panelo: Let’s ‘sit in’ with law students
National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Jaime Santiago on Thursday called on lawyer Salvador Panelo, who served as presidential legal counsel during the Duterte administration, to be his seatmate and “sit in” with law students for a refresher session.
It was Santiago’s way of getting back at Panelo, who earlier took a swipe at the NBI chief — suggesting that he “go back to law school” — after the bureau recommended the filing of charges against Vice President Sara Duterte for inciting to sedition and grave threats.
“Maybe Attorney Panelo was just joking. Maybe we don’t have to go back to law school. It’s the start of the second semester and they will be teaching Book 2 of the Revised Penal Code,” Santiago said in a press conference.
“Maybe we can just sit in with the first year students so that he can understand that the charges we filed were correct,” said Santiago, a retired judge of the Manila Regional Trial Court.
Before joining the judiciary, Santiago also served in the Philippine National Police where he earned a reputation as a sharpshooter. A movie about his PNP exploits came out in 1996.
Part of impeachment raps
The NBI chief on Wednesday said the agency had filed criminal charges against Duterte at the Department of Justice in connection with her profanity-laden online press conference on Nov. 23, 2024.
The Vice President then said she had talked to someone to have President Marcos, his wife Liza, and Speaker Martin Romualdez killed in case an alleged plot to kill her succeeded.
Her statement about arranging the death of the President was cited in two of the seven articles of impeachment filed against Duterte and endorsed by more than 200 House members on Feb. 5.
The impeachment complaint considered it an act of destabilization that made her liable for betrayal of public trust, culpable violation of the Constutuon, and “the high crimes of sedition and insurrection.”
Panelo earlier dismissed the NBI’s charges for having “no basis in fact and in law” and ”a waste of taxpayer money.”
‘From the grave’
“There can be no crime of a ‘threat’ from the grave,” he said. “Neither has VP Sara publicly and tumultuously incited the people to perform acts of sedition as defined by law or to go against the constituted authorities or to stop the enforcement of laws.”
To this, Santiago responded on Thursday: “He said there is no threat from the grave. Naturally. We all know that you cannot charge a dead person.”
“But she said the threats now, while she is still alive. Every Filipino heard her make her threats.”
Based on entire presser
“He also said there was no tumultuous disturbance, so why did we file such a case against her? If there is a tumultuous disturbance, that is sedition. But it was only ‘inciting’. She is just inciting, she is just encouraging. First year law students know this very well.”
The NBI, he said, charged Duterte with inciting to sedition because her remarks throughout the press conference encouraged her followers to commit disturbance.
“If you were able to watch the entire Zoom meeting, she said a lot of things, with expletives here and there, inciting her followers to commit disturbance, to commit seditious acts. As a matter of fact, the following day, there were already groupings at Edsa Shrine, which thankfully did not escalate. So that is our basis,” he said.
‘No matter who you are…’
In a message to Duterte, he said: “Ma’am, remember, no one is above the law. Whoever is violating the law, no matter who you are, we will hold you accountable.”
“The cases we filed against the Vice President, it was filed not because she is a Vice President, it was filed because she committed a crime. Threatening the President, inciting to sedition, whoever they are, the NBI will remain impartial, apolitical, with no one to dictate us. We are just fulfilling our duty,” he added.
“The filing of cases is a product of the exchange of opinions between five lawyers, as well as myself. We studied it carefully, and we based it on the basic elements of each of the criminal [cases] that we filed and (on) jurisprudence,” he said
