Several Facebook posts are falsely claiming that private prosecutor Amando Ligutan admitted that his camp is unable to prove that Vice President Sara Duterte committed an impeachable offense, and that he instead made a “moral appeal” to senator-judges to remove Duterte from office over her kill threat against President Bongbong Marcos. This is fake.
On July 8, the third day of Duterte’s impeachment trial, an FB page posted a quote card featuring a photo of Ligutan and the following statement attributed to him:
“I know we cannot prove it but I’m not appealing to you as a lawyer but I’m making a moral appeal.”
The post carried the caption:
“When asked by Senator Risa Hontiveros whether or not what VP Sara did is an impeachable offense?
The answer of the prosecution:”
The Cebuano lawyer is leading the prosecution’s charge on the fourth article of impeachment (Grave Threats) against Duterte. In the four days that the Senate has sat as an impeachment court, Ligutan never made any such remarks about not having evidence to support the charge nor about appealing to judges on the basis of morals.
On July 7, Ligutan and Hontiveros only had the following exchange:
“Hontiveros: Counsel, none of these statements are proof that the vice president actually contracted an assassin or hired one. Why are these acts impeachable?
Ligutan: There is an answer to the question, Your Honor, please. The prosecution is in the process of establishing that the vice president should be impeached and, once she is impeached, be removed from office for contracting an assassin to kill the President, Your Honor, please. In as much as we understand that these statements may not actually a hundred percent prove that she in fact contracted an assassin to kill the President, […] we are invoking […] a rule in the Rules on Evidence, that there could be statements, utterances of a person that may not be directly similar to what he or she did, but it could establish […] what we call a specific intent, knowledge, identity, plan, system, and the like.”
Source: Senate of the Philippines YouTube channel, Impeachment Trial of Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte (July 7, 2026), watch from 2:59:16 to 3:00:35
At least 12 other FB accounts have also attributed the fake quote to Ligutan, including expelled congressman and known Duterte supporter Kiko Barzaga, who has over 1.5 million followers.
The fake quote, published by the FB page AllWrite (created on June 9, 2020) and FB user Ana Dujali (July 22, 2021), has garnered a cumulative 10,400 reactions, 852 comments and 1,486 shares as of writing.
