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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Prosecution team justifies listing of psychiatrist as witness in VP Sara impeachment trial

Prosecution team justifies listing of psychiatrist as witness in VP Sara impeachment trial

Published Jun 26, 2026 03:54 pm

At A Glance

  • House prosecutors confirm a psychiatrist is among their reserved witnesses for Vice President Sara Duterte's Senate impeachment trial.
  • Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong and lawyer Benjamin Tolosa say expert testimony will objectively assess the seriousness of Duterte's death threats against President Marcos, the First Lady, and former Speaker Romualdez.
  • They stress that the psychiatrist's role is to establish whether the threats, made during a November 2024 press conference, is serious and intended to intimidate.
Vice President Sara Duterte (Facebook)
Vice President Sara Duterte (Facebook)


Members of the House prosecution team have insisted on the need to summon a psychiatrist to the witness stand during Vice President Sara Duterte’s upcoming Senate impeachment trial.
Prosecution panel spokesperson Lanao del Sur 1st district Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong and lawyer Benjamin Tolosa Jr. confirmed in a virtual press conference Friday, June 26 that a psychiatrist was included among the reserved witnesses for the side of the prosecution.
According to them, the psychiatrist will help assess in an objective and expert manner the seriousness of the death threats that Vice President Duterte uttered against President Marcos and other members of the First Family on Nov. 23, 2024.
“The psychiatrist would be objective in trying to respond to the question of either the defence and the prosecution,” Adiong said.
He says the defense has suggested that the alleged statements were not real threats, but figures of speech, conditional remarks, or words made in the spur of the moment.
Adiong says this is exactly why an actual expert may help the court and the public assess that claim.
“Someone who is objective and non-partisan is the right witness to establish to the court that yes indeed, these allegations and these threats are made with seriousness,” Alonto Adiong said.
Adiong said the expert’s task would be limited to commenting on the alleged threats against President Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
“The only way for the public to know that these threats are made in seriousness, with clarity and with seriousness, is for an expert to observe and assess the utterances of threats against the president, the First Lady, and the former Speaker,” he reiterated.
Tolosa, one of the private prosecutors handling the impeachment trial, reckoned that expert testimony may help establish the nature and purpose of the alleged threats.
“So it could establish a lot of things, among other things would be the seriousness of the threats, the fact that when it was made, it was not made in jest,” Tolosa said in the same presser.
Tolosa added that the prosecution may seek to show whether the alleged statement was meant to threaten those named in it.
“The fact that the threat was seriously made and there was very intention to produce that intended effect which is to threaten the recipients of these statements,” he said.
Duterte’s now infamous death threats--which she punctuated with the phrase "no joke, no joke"--were made during a virtual press conference. It has been replayed countless times on social media.

Related Tags

IMPEACHMENT Sara Duterte prosecution defense Zia Alonto Adiong Benjamin Tolosa Psychiatrist
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