00:00that it is not enough simply to assert that Rodrigo Duterte said outrageous things
00:07and that deaths occurred and so as a result he must be criminally responsible.
00:15There is a requirement for what is called a causal nexus. The prosecution has to show
00:21which one of Duterte's statements, orders or commands were given to a specific individual
00:29who then went out and pulled the trigger or communicated the command to someone else who
00:37also went out and pulled the trigger killing one of its 78 identified victims.
00:45That would have been the classical way to prove a causal link between stuff that came out of
00:53Rodrigo Duterte's mouth and the deaths pertinent to the case. That would have been ordering under
01:02article 25.3b. But the prosecution cannot show such a causal link. They've never been able to do that.
01:13They show you a lovely pyramid. It's on the screen. With Duterte at the top, the co-perpetrators
01:23underneath, the DDS handlers underneath them, and the hitmen perpetrators at the very bottom.
01:32To quote Mr. Julian Nichols, how cute. But what the learned prosecutors can't show you is the
01:40connecting line between Duterte at the top and the next level down, comprising
01:48the so-called co-perpetrators. I hope Ms. Croft will forgive me for vandalising her screenshot, but there you have
01:57it.
01:58That is where the apex slips off the pyramid of Giza. The most they can do is allege that their
02:05cooperating
02:06witnesses who pulled the trigger and whose credibility is about as worthless as a devalued
02:14person. But as they know, not one of the 49
02:15people of Giza understood that killing is what Duterte would have wanted. Or that they had no choice but to
02:24comply because that was what was expected of them by their handlers. Or other such similar expressions
02:34of a totally subjective sense of obligation.
02:39But as they know, not one of the 49 incidents mentioned in the document containing the charges
02:48manifests such a causal link between a speech, an order, and one of the charged incidents.
02:56I will state it for the record. In fact, I will state it a number of times during my submissions.
03:02There is no smoking gun in this case. And that is not for want of a desperate attempt to find
03:11one on the
03:12part of the prosecution with all their leading questions when they interviewed their criminal
03:19cooperating witnesses. Not one witness relevant to any of the 49 incidents with which Mr. Rodrigo Duterte
03:29is charged will testify that he received a direct order from the former president to go out and kill
03:37someone. Let us just digest this. All those speeches where the former president made various threats to
03:46kill, but not one demonstrable incident set out in the prosecution's document containing the charges,
03:53which details an act of murder committed as a result of a direct order given by him.
04:01This in and of itself should be sufficient to convince any reasonable bystander observing the
04:09conduct of these proceedings that Rodrigo Duterte is innocent of these charges leveled at him.
04:19It is for this reason and because of the complete lack of reliable cooperating witnesses that the
04:26prosecution has alleged not one but a plethora of theories as to the means of perpetration to link
04:35the crimes allegedly committed to the person who is far removed from the incidents of murder
04:43and who has been targeted for prosecution and who has been targeted for prosecution.
04:49The
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