By now, the cadence is familiar: deny the existence of a “grand plan,” recast incendiary rhetoric as metaphor, and insist that any violence was directed not at civilians but at criminals — a distinct “genus,” as defense counsel put it. In his recent defense speech, Atty. Kaufmann advanced a theory built on a single premise: that the public speeches of former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte are insufficient to prove the existence of a coordinated plan to kill civilians, whether during his tenure as mayor of Davao City or as president of the republic. The former president’s repeated threats to “kill” drug suspects, the defense argues, were hyperbolic tools of deterrence, designed to instill fear among criminals, not evidence of a...