A person may face a murder complaint if he or she deliberately infects other people with the coronavirus disease and such transmission causes death, according to President Duterte.
Such criminal liability may be remote but remains a possibility if a person gets someone sick on purpose, the President said in his latest address to the nation.
The legal consequence for intentional virus transmission was among the issues tackled during the President's meeting with several Cabinet members and other government officials involved in pandemic response in Davao City Monday, June 7.
Duterte, a former city prosecutor, agreed with the view of Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo who raised the possibility of murder charges against a coronavirus patient who intentionally infects someone else.
"'Yung sabi mo murder although medyo malayo masyado sa isip ng tao 'yan but it is possible if he knows that he is sick with COVID-19 and he goes about nonchalant, pasyal-pasyal ka lang diyan. You are maybe if it is intentional," Duterte said during a televised address Monday, June 7.
"Malayo 'yan pero (it's remote but) it can be murder sabi nga ni Sal (according to Sal)," he added.
Duterte, however conceded that reckless imprudence would be a more appropriate consequence for anyone involved in the intentional spread of the coronavirus.
"'Yung reckless imprudence would really mas swak doon sa sitwasyon na 'yun (Reckless imprudence would really, more appropriate to the situation)," he said.
In the same speech, the President cautioned that government is prepared to "calibrate" measures if some people will continue to break quarantine protocols. He said pandemic would not end if people will not follow health and safety protocols despite vaccination.
"As we go along with this journey ridding the pandemic from our country, we will adopt measures that would be commensurate to the gravity of the situation," he said.
The President issued the latest remarks after health authorities recently reported the continued rise in cases of coronavirus particularly in Mindanao.
The country has so far recorded more than 1.2 million cases of infections since the pandemic started last year. The active cases have risen to 58,854 while the death toll reached 21,969 as of June 7.