MANILA: A Filipino congresswoman asked prosecutors on Tuesday to charge former president Rodrigo Duterte after he allegedly threatened to kill her and called her a communist.
House of Representatives Deputy Minority Leader France Castro filed a criminal complaint with prosecutors in Manila, who will decide if there is enough evidence to charge Duterte.
Castro, who represents the leftist ACT Teachers partylist, alleged Duterte committed the crime of “grave threats” under the Cybercrime Prevention Act during an October 10 interview with local broadcaster SMNI.
Duterte gave on-air advice to his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, about how she could use intelligence and confidential funds allocated to her office and the education department, which she also heads.
“Your first target with your intelligence fund is you, you France. Tell her, it is you communists who I want to kill,” Duterte said in the interview that was reshared thousands of times on Facebook. It was later deleted from SMNI’s Facebook page.
The House appropriations committee decided on the same day to divert the funds allocated to some government departments, including the vice president’s office and education, to agencies involved in national security.
In the complaint, Castro said Duterte’s threats were “factually baseless and clearly malicious,” but she could not dismiss them as “figurative, joking, or otherwise benign.”
Castro’s lawyer Antonio La Vina told reporters that it was the first criminal complaint filed against Duterte since he left office.
Duterte was protected from prosecution when he was president, but now that he is an ordinary citizen he can be charged for alleged crimes committed in the Philippines.
La Vina said the maximum penalty for “grave threats” was six years jail and a fine of up to 100,000 pesos ($1,760).
Duterte often threatened to kill people, including drug dealers and rights activists, when he was president from 2016 to 2022.
He also frequently labelled critics as communist sympathizers — a practice known as “red-tagging,” which can result in the arrest, detention or even death of the person targeted.
His signature policy was an anti-narcotics campaign that killed thousands of people and triggered an international investigation into an alleged crime against humanity.
“I was really shocked with the threats,” Castro told reporters Tuesday.
“He can no longer hide. He must be accountable for threatening my life.”
Duterte’s former executive secretary Salvador Medialdea said that Duterte had not yet received the complaint.
Leftist politician asks prosecutors to charge former Philippine president Duterte over death threat
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Leftist politician asks prosecutors to charge former Philippine president Duterte over death threat
- House of Representatives member France Castro represents the militant ACT Teachers partylist
Maryland Sen. Van Hollen denied entry to El Salvador prison holding Abrego Garcia
- Van Hollen’s trip has become a partisan flashpoint in the US as Democrats have siezed on Abrego Garcia’s deportation as a cruel consequence of Trump’s disregard for the courts
- While Van Hollen was denied entry, several House Republicans have visited the notorious gang prison in support of the Trump administration’s efforts
SAN SALVADOR: Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen says he was denied entry into an El Savador prison on Thursday while he was trying to check on the well-being of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.
Van Hollen is in El Salvador to push for Abrego Garcia’s release. The Democratic senator at a news conference in San Salvador that his car was stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint about 3 kilometers from the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, even as they let other cars go on.
“They stopped us because they are under orders not to allow us to proceed,” Van Hollen said.
US President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said this week that they have no basis to send him back, even as the Trump administration has called his deportation a mistake and the US Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return. Trump officials have said that Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland, has ties to the MS-13 gang, but his attorneys say the government has provided no evidence of that and Abrego Garcia has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.
Van Hollen’s trip has become a partisan flashpoint in the US as Democrats have siezed on Abrego Garcia’s deportation as a cruel consequence of Trump’s disregard for the courts. Republicans have criticized Democrats for defending him and argued that his deportation is part of a larger effort to reduce crime. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt held a news conference on Wednesday with the mother of a Maryland woman who was killed by a fugitive from El Salvador in 2023.
The Maryland senator told reporters Wednesday that he met with Salvadoran Vice President Felix Ulloa who said his government could not return Abrego Garcia to the United States.
“So today, I tried again to make contact with Mr. Abrego Garcia by driving to the CECOT prison,” Van Hollen said, and was stopped.
Van Hollen said Abrego Garcia has not had any contact with his family or his lawyers. “There has been no ability to find out anything about his health and well being,” Van Hollen said. He said Abrego Garcia should be able to have contact with his lawyers under international law.
“We won’t give up until Kilmar has his due process rights respected,” Van Hollen said. He said there would be “many more” lawmakers coming to El Salvador.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., is also considering a trip to El Salvador, as are some House Democrats.
While Van Hollen was denied entry, several House Republicans have visited the notorious gang prison in support of the Trump administration’s efforts. Rep. Riley Moore, a West Virginia Republican, posted Tuesday evening that he’d visited the prison where Abrego Garcia is being held. He did not mention Abrego Garcia but said the facility “houses the country’s most brutal criminals.”
“I leave now even more determined to support President Trump’s efforts to secure our homeland,” Moore wrote on social media.
Missouri Republican Rep. Jason Smith, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, also visited the prison. He posted on X that “thanks to President Trump” the facility “now includes illegal immigrants who broke into our country and committed violent acts against Americans.”
The fight over Abrego Garcia has also played out in contentious court filings, with repeated refusals from the government to tell a judge what it plans to do, if anything, to repatriate him.
Since March, El Salvador has accepted from the US more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants — whom Trump administration officials have accused of gang activity and violent crimes — and placed them inside the country’s maximum-security gang prison just outside of San Salvador. That prison is part of Bukele’s broader effort to crack down on the country’s powerful street gangs, which has put 84,000 people behind bars and made Bukele extremely popular at home.
Human rights groups have previously accused Bukele’s government of subjecting those jailed to “systematic use of torture and other mistreatment.” Officials there deny wrongdoing.
France hails ‘positive process’ as Europe, US discuss Ukraine ceasefire
- “Today in Paris, we launched a positive process in which the Europeans are involved,” the French presidency said
- Rubio called Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss the Paris meeting, Moscow and Washington said
PARIS: France on Thursday hailed talks on the Ukraine war between top US and European officials during which US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaffirmed a US peace plan.
President Emmanuel Macron’s office said the talks launched a “positive process” as Europe seeks to be included in efforts to end the three-year-old war.
The meetings in the French capital included Macron, Rubio, US envoy Steve Witkoff, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, German officials and Ukrainian ministers.
They took place as President Donald Trump’s push to end the war stumbles, with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin rebuffing a complete truce.
“Today in Paris, we launched a positive process in which the Europeans are involved,” the French presidency said.
A new meeting of envoys from the United States, France, Britain, Germany and Ukraine will take place next week in London, it added.
Rubio called Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss the Paris meeting, Moscow and Washington said.
“President Trump and the United States want this war to end, and have now presented to all parties the outlines of a durable and lasting peace,” the US State Department said Rubio told his Russian counterpart.
“The encouraging reception in Paris to the US framework shows that peace is possible if all parties commit to reaching an agreement,” he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also praised the talks.
“It is important that we hear each other, refine and clarify our positions, and work for the sake of real security of Ukraine and all our Europe,” Zelensky said in a post on X.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov however dismissed the Paris meeting, saying earlier that Europeans seemed to have “a focus on continuing the war.”
France and Britain have taken a leading role seeking a coordinated European response to defending Ukraine, during the conflict and in any ceasefire, after Trump shocked them by opening talks with Russia.
Macron said the Paris talks were “a very important occasion for convergence,” as everybody wanted “a robust and sustainable peace.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told reporters: “The novelty is that today in Paris, the United States, Ukraine, and the Europeans gathered around the same table.”
“For a long time there was concern that the Europeans would not be at the table,” he said.
Barrot expressed hope that the London meeting next week would help achieve a full and unconditional ceasefire “in the very near future.”
Russia’s strikes, which have recently killed dozens of people including children in Ukrainian cities, have increased pressure for new diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.
Zelensky earlier accused Witkoff of “spreading Russian narratives” after the US envoy suggested a peace deal with Russia hinged on the status of Ukraine’s occupied territories.
“I believe that Mr.Witkoff has taken on the strategy of the Russian side,” Zelensky told reporters.
“I think it is very dangerous, because he is consciously or unconsciously, I don’t know, spreading Russian narratives.”
Witkoff said this week that Putin was open to “permanent peace” after talks with the Kremlin chief in Saint Petersburg, their third meeting since Trump returned to the White House in January.
Despite the diplomatic efforts, Russia has continued to strike Ukraine.
Russian drone strikes and shelling in Ukraine killed at least 12 people on Thursday, Ukrainian authorities said, just days after a Russian attack killed at least 35 people in the northeastern city of Sumy.
Zelensky said Wednesday that negotiators were making “good progress” with the United States in fraught talks over a minerals deal intended to secure desperately needed US support. Trump said a deal could be signed next week.
Putin last month rejected a US proposal for a full and unconditional ceasefire, after Kyiv gave its backing to the idea.
He also suggested Zelensky be removed from office, sparking an angry response from Trump who said he was “very angry” with the Russian leader.
France’s Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu held talks in Washington on Thursday with US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who called on France to boost military spending, a Pentagon spokesman said.
“The secretary urged France to increase defense spending and, alongside other NATO allies, take primary responsibility for Europe’s conventional defense,” the spokesman said.
Trump says he’s in ‘no rush’ to end tariffs as he holds talks with Italy’s Meloni
- Trump administration has indicated that offers are coming from other countries and it is possible to do 90 deals during the 90-day tariff pause
- “We know we are in a difficult moment," Meloni said this week in Rome
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Thursday that he is in “no rush” to reach any trade deals because of the revenues his tariffs are generating, but suggested while meeting with Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni that it would be easy to find an agreement with the European Union.
His administration has indicated that offers are coming from other countries and it is possible to do 90 deals during the 90-day tariff pause, but the president played down the likelihood of an accelerated timeline, saying any agreements would come “at a certain point.”
“We’re in no rush,” Trump said.
Meloni’s meeting with Trump will test her mettle as a bridge between the European Union and the United States. She is the first European leader to have face-to-face talks with him since he announced and then partially suspended 20 percent tariffs on European exports.
Meloni secured the meeting as Italy’s leader, but she also has, in a sense, been “knighted” to represent the EU at a critical juncture in the trade war. She was in close contact with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen before the trip, and “the outreach is … closely coordinated,” a commission spokeswoman said.
“We know we are in a difficult moment,” Meloni said this week in Rome. “Most certainly, I am well aware of what I represent, and what I am defending.”
The EU is defending what it calls “the most important commercial relationship in the world,’’ with annual trade reaching 1.6 trillion euros ($1.8 trillion).
Trade negotiations fall under the authority of the commission, which is pushing for a zero-for-zero tariff deal with Washington. Trump administration officials, in talks with the EU, have yet to publicly show signs of relenting on the president’s insistence that a baseline 10 percent tariff be charged on all foreign imports. Trump paused for 90 days his initial 20 percent tax on EU products so that negotiations could occur.
The EU has already engaged with Trump administration officials in Washington. Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commissioner for trade and economic security, said he met on Monday with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
Šefčovič said afterward on X that it would “require a significant joint effort on both sides” to get to zero tariffs and work on non-tariff trade barriers.
Meloni’s margins for progress are more in gaining clarity on the Republican president’s goals rather than outright concessions, experts say.
“It is a very delicate mission,” said Fabian Zuleeg, chief economist at the European Policy Center think tank in Brussels. “There is the whole trade agenda, and while she’s not officially negotiating, we know that Trump likes to have this kind of informal exchange, which in a sense is a negotiation. So it’s a lot on her plate.”
As the leader of a far-right party, Meloni is ideologically aligned with Trump on issues including curbing migration, promoting traditional values and skepticism toward multilateral institutions. But stark differences have emerged in Meloni’s unwavering support for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
The two leaders are expected to discuss the war and Italy’s role in an eventual postwar reconstruction of Ukraine. Trump is expected to press Meloni to increase Italy’s defense spending, which last year fell well below the 2 percent of gross domestic product target for countries in the NATO military alliance. Italy’s spending, at 1.49 percent of GDP, is among the lowest in Europe.
Despite the differences on Ukraine and defense spending, Meloni is seen by some in the US administration as a vital bridge to Europe at a difficult moment for trans-Atlantic relations.
Trump is looking not only to discuss with Meloni how “Italy’s marketplace can be opened up, but also how they can help us with the rest of Europe,” according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters before the visit. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.
After being the only European leader to attend Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, Meloni has responded with studied restraint as abrupt shifts in US policy under Trump have frayed the US-European alliance. She has denounced the tariffs as “wrong” and warned that “dividing the West would be disastrous for everyone,” after Trump’s heated White House exchange with Ukraine’s president.
“She has been very cautious,’’ said Wolfango Piccoli, an analyst at the London-based Teneo consultancy. “It is what we need when we have a counterpart that is changing every day.’’
Italy maintains a 40 billion euro ($45 billion) trade surplus with the US, its largest with any country, fueled by Americans’ appetite for Italian sparkling wine, foodstuffs like Parmigiano Reggiano hard cheese and Parma ham, and Italian luxury fashion. These are all sectors critical to the Italian economy, and mostly supported by small- and medium-sized producers who are core center-right voters.
“All in all, I think she will focus on the very strong economic and trade relations that Italy has with the United States, not just in terms of exports, but also services and energy,” said Antonio Villafranca, vice president of the ISPI think tank in Milan. “For example, Italy could even consider importing more gas from the US”
The meeting comes against the backdrop of growing concerns over global uncertainty generated by the escalating tariff wars. Italy’s growth forecast for this year has already been slashed from 1 percent to 0.5 percent as a result.
Zelensky says Ukraine has evidence of China supplying Russia with artillery
- Zelensky said Chinese President Xi Jinping had promised him Beijing would not sell or supply weapons to Moscow
KYIV: Ukraine has intelligence which shows China is supplying artillery and gunpowder to Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday.
“We believe that Chinese representatives are engaged in the production of some weapons on the territory of Russia,” he told a press conference in Kyiv. Zelensky did not specify whether he meant artillery systems or shells.
The allegation is likely to upend relations between Kyiv and Beijing, already strained by Ukraine’s making public its capture of Chinese nationals fighting for Russia. China has so far tried to maintain an outward perception of neutrality in the three-year war prompted by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine has previously called on China to use its influence over Russia to push it toward peace.
“We already have facts about this work by China and Russia to strengthen their defense capabilities,” Zelensky said, voicing his dismay as he said Chinese President Xi Jinping had promised him Beijing would not sell or supply weapons to Moscow.
Pope pays surprise visit to Rome prison
- Francis was greeted with applause from guards and staff at the facility
- The Vatican said he met with a group of about 70 inmates
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis, still recovering from double pneumonia, paid a surprise visit on Thursday to Rome’s Regina Coeli, one of Italy’s most overcrowded prisons, to offer well-wishes to inmates ahead of Easter.
The 88-year-old pontiff, gradually making more public appearances as he recovers from the biggest health crisis in his 12-year papacy, made a short foray outside of the Vatican, as the prison is only about a five-minute drive away.
Francis was greeted with applause from guards and staff at the facility as aides rolled his wheelchair inside shortly after 3 p.m. (1300 GMT).
As during his two most recent public appearances, the pope was breathing on his own without the aid of oxygen tubes.
Francis stayed at the prison for about half an hour. The Vatican said he met with a group of about 70 inmates. “I wanted to be close to you,” he said, according to the Vatican. “I pray for you and your families.”
The Catholic Church on Thursday celebrates Holy Thursday, the day of Jesus’ Last Supper with his apostles on the night before he died. It is the first of four days of celebrations leading to Easter, the most important Christian holiday, on Sunday.
Francis, pope since 2013, has visited prisons throughout his papacy, often on Holy Thursday.
Regina Coeli, a former 17th-century monastery in the touristy Trastevere neighborhood, is primarily a men’s prison. It currently houses about 1,100 prisoners, nearly double its official capacity of 628 inmates, according to the Italian justice ministry.
The pope last visited the prison in 2018.
Francis nearly died during his five-week bout of double pneumonia. His medical team have urged him to take two months’ rest after leaving hospital to allow his body to fully heal.
The pope initially remained out of view after returning home to the Vatican on March 23 but has now made several brief public appearances.
It is not known how much the pope will participate in the Vatican’s calendar of celebrations leading to Easter.
Asked by journalists who approached his car as he was leaving the prison about how he would celebrate Easter this year, Francis smiled and responded in a soft voice: “As I can.”
