Davao City First District Representative Paolo "Pulong" Duterte broke his silence on the move of Act Teachers Partylist Rep. France Castro filing grave threat charges against his father, former President Rodrigo R. Duterte.
Castro filed charges for violation of Article 282 of the Revised Penal Code against Duterte before the Quezon City Prosecutor's Office for the statements he made over Sonshine Media Network International's (SMNI) Gikan sa Masa, Para sa Masa where he talked about the confidential fund of his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte.
In an issued statement, Rep. Duterte emphasized that as public servants, they should not be "onion-skinned" when being criticized.
"We all have the right to file a complaint against anyone in court. But public servants should not be onion-skinned and should not make use of this right as a tool to silence critics," the younger Duterte said.
He added that his father has received "harsher and more humiliating criticisms in the past but he never filed a case against anyone."
Castro, meanwhile, said all the key elements of grave threats are present in her complaint, specifically that threat, which is considered a crime upon her person, as provided under the Revised Penal Code and the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.
It can be recalled that the former president came to the rescue of his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, and revealed the intentions of her intelligence funds.
In the same tv program's live broadcast on Tuesday evening, October 10, Duterte said her daughter is planning to use the P125 million intelligence fund to make the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) compulsory.
He said she wanted to have a soft landing for the ROTC implementation and he suggested that she should be frank and tell everyone in the Congress about it.
“I told Inday (Sara) to be direct, tell them that the intelligence fund is meant to prepare the minds of the Filipinos, to address the insurgency that is taking a long time to end. And the ROTC so that we are prepared for war, especially in this situation, if we do not have soldiers, then we will have the youth who can take care of their respective barangays,” he said.
“But your first target there, using your intelligence funds, is you, France, you communists who I want to kill," Duterte added.
Meanwhile, Rep. Duterte said public servants are under scrutiny by the Filipinos.
"If the former president has said something that threatened her, then maybe she should come out clean. Di yung nagtatago tayo sa likod ng so-called right na ito," Rep. Duterte said.
He even revealed that he, as a congressman, knows a lot of leftist partylist representatives.
"Tigilan na lang natin ang kadramahan at pagpapa-media (Let's stop the drama and publicity involving the media)," he ended. CEA