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The Quezon City Police District (QCPD) on Wednesday filed the first criminal complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte that stemmed from her outbursts over the weekend in her attempt to prevent the transfer of her top aide from detention at the House of Representatives to the Correctional Institution for Women (CIW).
The QCPD accused Duterte, the chief of her security unit and several of her bodyguards of direct assault, disobedience and grave coercion during a commotion past midnight last Saturday as the police were preparing to move Duterte’s chief of staff Zuleika Lopez to the St. Lukes Medical Center from the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC).
Armed forces Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. on Wednesday said he had ordered the replacement of Duterte’s security chief and the military personnel who are members of the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group (VPSPG).
The main complainant in the case, Dr. Van Jason Villamor of the Philippine National Police Health Service, accompanied by his witnesses and officers from the QCPD, filed the charges before Asst. City Prosecutor Rommel Delos Reyes of Quezon City. Villamor is a police lieutenant colonel.
Villamor accused Army Col. Raymund Dante Lachica, commander of the VPSPG and unidentified Duterte bodyguards, of shoving him at the VMMC after Lopez was carried into an ambulance.
PNP chief Gen. Rommel Marbil had written Brawner to get the identities of other members of the VPSPG who were involved in the transfer of Lopez.
“In a video that surfaced, VPSPG head, Colonel Raymund Dante Lachica, was seen physically pushing and assaulting the PNP doctor-in-charge, which could lead to a direct assault complaint,” Marbil said in his letter.
Lopez was ordered detained last week by the House committee on good government and public accountability after being cited in contempt for “undue interference” in the House inquiry into the alleged misuse of confidential funds by the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education when Duterte was the education secretary.
Lopez, 50, was brought to the VMMC as she suffered a panic attack late Friday after House security officers informed her that the good government panel had decided to move her to the CIW so that Duterte would no longer need to keep her company at the House.
Lopez refused to leave her detention cell and later called an online press conference detailing the House’s plan, tearfully saying that she feared for her life and didn’t want to be detained at the correctional institution as she wasn’t criminally accused.
Duterte, who occupied the office of her brother, Davao City Rep.
