The camp of Vice President Sara Duterte criticized the resolution of the Taguig City Prosecutor’s office that dismissed her perjury complaint against alleged bagman Ramil Madriaga, claiming that it was politically motivated.
In a statement, Duterte’s lawyer and spokesperson Paolo Panelo said the Vice President’s complaint against Madriaga’s alleged lies under oath was supported by voluminous evidence.
“A prosecutor who truly weighed the evidence would not have reached this result. It can therefore only be a political decision,” Panelo said in a statement.
But he also said Duterte is not giving up and will exhaust all legal remedies to contest this dismissal.
Taguig City Prosecutor’s Office ruled that the evidence was insufficient to bring the case to court.
It said that while Duterte presented evidence disputing Madriaga’s allegations, “the evidence on record does not establish prima facie, with reasonable certainty of conviction, that respondent knowingly and willfully made materially false statements under oath in violation of Article 183 of the Revised Penal Code.”
According to Panelo, the resolution acknowledged that Duterte’s evidence raised serious doubts on Madriaga’s credibility and narratives, but it nevertheless failed to indict him for allegedly lying under oath.
“We understood the political realities from the outset, and publicly warned of this possibility,” he said.
He questioned the prosecutor’s statement of there being competing factual narratives, saying Duterte submitted numerous pages of documents, witness testimony, and official records to support her complaint.
“If a complaint of that strength can be discarded, then the message is simple: a man may brazenly lie under oath against the Vice President, and this administration will protect the lie if it is politically useful,” he said.
He alleged that the complaint against Madriaga was dismissed because convicting him would confirm that the impeachment complaint against Duterte was based on perjured testimony.
“The dismissal therefore says less about Madriaga’s credibility than about the willingness of those in power to ignore law and evidence when convenient, and to weaponize both against dissenting voices,” he said.
Madriaga had executed an affidavit stating that he started working for Duterte when she was Davao City Mayor and that she directed him to form a group for her candidacy in 2022.
He alleged that it was funded by “POGO operators and drug dealers” and that Duterte and her security aides later directed him to deliver millions of pesos in cash to several parties.