Vice President Sara Duterte has moved to halt a criminal case arising from her 2024 threat against high-ranking government, asking a Quezon City court to quash the charges while she battles impeachment in the Senate.

Duterte’s lawyers filed a motion to quash the grave threats information, her counsel Paul Lawrence Lim confirmed on Thursday, seeking to stop the case before it proceeds further.

“We confirm having filed a motion to quash the Grave Threats Informations filed against the Vice President, on the ground of lack of jurisdiction,” he said in a statement. 

A motion to quash is a request by an accused to invalidate or dismiss a criminal information before the case proceeds to trial. Under the Rules of Criminal Procedure, an accused may file the motion before entering a plea on specific grounds, including lack of jurisdiction over the offense.

Lim, however, declined to discuss the motion's details, citing the professional obligations.“As lawyers bound by our Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability, however, we cannot give any further discussion on this matter that is now sub judice,” he added.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has yet to receive its copy of the defense motion. Prosecutor General Richard Fadullon said prosecutors received a court order directing them to comment on the motion and giving them five days to respond.

The DOJ filed the grave threats case on 11 August after a preliminary investigation into a complaint lodged by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). 

The case arose from Duterte's remarks in a November 2024 press conference, when she said she had arranged for someone to kill Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and then-House Speaker Martin Romualdez if she were killed.

The NBI investigated the remarks and later recommended that Duterte face criminal charges. Prosecutors subsequently found probable cause to pursue the grave threats case.

Fadullon said the court would ultimately decide whether the charges could proceed, including whether Duterte's status as an impeachable official affects the criminal case.

“Whatever it is that's going on before the impeachment court is different from the one that we have now. This is before the Regional Trial Court,” Fadullon said.

“That’s why we will leave it to the ruling of the court on how it will dispose the same, whether it believes that the charges can be sustained, even if the accused in this case is an impeachable officer,” he added.###