Vice President Sara Duterte (Facebook)

Assistant Majority Leader Ako-Bicol Party-list Rep. Jil Bongalon believes that the National Bureau of Investigation's (NBI) recommendation for the filing of charges against Vice President Sara Duterte over her alleged plot to kill President Marcos strengthens the House's impeachment case against her. 

"Well, first and foremost, this is a positive development, especially in relation to the impeachment case filed against the Vice President," Bongalon, a member of the House "Young Guns" bloc, said on Wednesday, Feb. 12 following the NBI's recommendation for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prese charges against  the country's second highest-ranked official.

"So, it would really strengthen our position that indeed the Vice President committed criminal acts such as grave threats and inciting to sedition, which the [NBI] has found out that there is indeed sufficient evidence against the Vice President," said the Ako-Bicol solon.

Bongalon was among the 215 official signatories to impeachment complaint against Duterte that was directly sent by the House of Representatives to the Senate last Feb. 5.

The alleged  conspiracy to assassinate Marcos along with alleged sct inciting to sedition comprise two of the seven articles of impeachment enumerated in the complaint.

Other Young Guns members Deputy Majority Leader La Union 1st district Rep. Paolo Ortega and Manila 1st district Rep. Ernesto Dionisio also gave their reactions to the NBI's announcement.

"Ako naman (As for me), I trust our agency, the men and women of NBI would always do their job, inaalam nila at sinusuri nila lahat ang bagay before filing (they do their due diligence before filing)," Dionisio said.

"There's a possibility that they found [pieces of evidence] and probably people behind such threats. So kudos to NBI, we salute you in doing your job. We hope that we get to the bottom of it...we salute you," he said.

Ortega, his part, said: "Expected po talaga yun kasi hindi ko nga po alam kung paano nila ide-deny yun kasi kitang kita po naka-live mayroon pong video. So, kitang kita po na may pagtatangka sa buhay ng ating Pangulo by the Vice President."

(That one is really expected because there's a livestreamed video of the threat, I don't know how they will deny it. So, clearly there was an attempt on the life of our President by the Vice President.)

Ortega's statement was in reference to Duterte's dismissive remark on the NBI's which the latter said was "as expected".