Vice President Sara Duterte has blasted the proposal to turn former House Speaker and Leyte Representative Martin Romualdez—a cousin of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.—into a state witness in the ₱1.6-billion flood control scandal, calling it an affront to the law and a possible sign of political cover-up. “Under the law, a principal in a crime cannot be made a state witness,” Duterte declared, in a sharp rebuke of Palace Press Officer Atty. Claire Castro’s statemen