Impeachment court asked to compel Duterte defense to specify witnesses

MANILA, Philippines — The prosecution panel for the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte has asked the Senate Impeachment Court to compel the defense to specify who their witnesses are and the purpose of their testimony, instead of providing general reasons and lists.

In a press briefing on Monday, prosecution spokesperson and Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong explained that part of the compliance and manifestation document filed before the court includes a request for the defense to specify the purpose of the witnesses listed in their pre-trial brief.

“What we’ve noticed and what we observe is that it’s more of a general denial,” Alonto Adiong said.

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“We don’t exactly know what would be the purpose of the witnesses that we have submitted to the court insofar as the defense adopting them as part of their witnesses. We want to specify exactly what would be the purpose by which the defense decided to include these witnesses as part of their witnesses, which were originally included in the list of witnesses by the prosecution panel,” he added.

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Alonto Adiong was referring to the defense panel’s pre-trial brief submitted last June 15, which contained a list of witnesses that they want to present.

In the pre-trial brief, the Duterte camp wanted former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, along with former aide Ramil Madriaga and over 40 other individuals, to testify before the Senate Impeachment Court.

Trillanes and Madriaga were resource persons when the House of Representatives’ committee on justice heard the impeachment complaints against Duterte.

Most of the witnesses were called for similar reasons: to “disprove the allegations in the Articles of Impeachment, prove that the allegations in the Articles of Impeachment are mere conclusions of law and fact, identify documents, and establish such other matters related to the foregoing.”

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READ: Duterte camp wants Trillanes, 40 others, to testify in impeachment trial

Asked why there is a need to specify who the defense’s witnesses are and what their purpose will be, Adiong said the prosecution is entitled to know what they will testify on and how the accusations will be challenged.

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“We also need to go through the list of possible counter-testimony or counter-evidence that they would provide to the impeachment court. It is hard if there are only general denials and general statements on what the purpose of the witnesses will be,” he said.

“So we want to know exactly what the reason is, first, why they adopted our witnesses, if they will be treated as hostile witnesses by the defense. We also would like to know what the purpose is by which these are adopted as a common witness, for example, if we may use the common term,” he added.

He also stressed that the purpose of the pre-trial conference is to “simplify the discussion,” which will not be the case if the reasons for witnesses appearing remain generic.

If this remains unchanged, the Lanao del Sur lawmaker said it appears the defense panel is the one doing a “fishing expedition.”

“So to simplify the discussion, it would be better to have pinpointed, targeted issues to discuss because that is what the House prosecution team provided. For the past several months, even a year, what we heard from them is that the prosecution team has been doing a fishing expedition, even during the confirmation hearings of the committee on justice,” he said in Filipino.

“It appears now that they are the ones doing a fishing expedition because we want the witnesses to appear before the court that initially are really our witnesses, and then we don’t exactly know, and the court does not exactly know what would be the purpose by which they are to be treated (whether) as hostile witness,” he added.

The prosecution panel submitted the compliance and manifestation document on Monday during the second day of the pre-trial conference at the Senate.

The second day of the pre-trial proceedings ended at 5:00 p.m., but both parties had not finished marking evidence, prompting them to return on Tuesday for a third day.

Senate Secretary and Impeachment Clerk of Court Rey Bantug said earlier that the documents requiring marking for Article I, or the accusation discussing the alleged misuse of confidential funds, numbered around 4,000.

READ: Pre-trial to extend to Day 3 due to volume of documents — Bantug

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“This morning, I was very hopeful that we’ll finish today, but when I checked the ongoing marking, it’s clear to me that we cannot finish today. [Because of the] sheer volume of documents,” Bantug told the media. /mcm