The 39th day of Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial was supposed to focus on scheduling the remaining proceedings. Instead, the prosecution made a major move, asking the Senate impeachment court to allow it to drop three of the four impeachment articles and focus on Article 2.
The article accuses Duterte of amassing unexplained wealth by failing to declare assets in her Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) and divest business interests as required by the Constitution.
The prosecution moved to drop Article 1 on confidential fund misuse, Article 3 on bribery, and Article 4 on alleged threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his family. The move followed a week of testimony from financial regulators, bank and insurance officials, tax authorities, and lawyer-accountant Alexander Cabrera, who helped establish allegations that Duterte and her husband allegedly amassed at least P817 million and as much as P1.5 billion in unexplained wealth.
The motion by the prosecutors was granted by the Senate impeachment court, saying that such a decision has a precedent: the 2012 impeachment trial of then Chief Justice Renato Corona. Then, prosecutors were allowed to drop five out of the eight Articles of Impeachment after presenting evidence on three Articles.
House lead prosecutor Gerville Luistro of Batangas said the move was made for exigency in response to the public, who has long been awaiting a verdict on an impeachment case that took two years before reaching the trial stage. She also stressed that the Senate is in the thick of deliberating the proposed P7.2 trillion budget for 2027.
“The rest have been withdrawn already, but only for the interest of the public, for the interest of the Senate as the institution. We are willing to take that position that we are all in here in Article 2 on unexplained wealth,” Luistro said in a press conference.
“We believe we have presented sufficient evidence that warrants the removal from office for culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust. Let us give justice to the Filipino people who have been waiting for this conclusion,” she added.
Senator-judge Alan Cayetano and defense counsel Sheila Sison, however, disagreed.
Cayetano said the impeachment has no timeline, while Sison said that the prosecution cannot be allowed to have the benefit of its accusations without bearing the burden of having those accusations tested.
"In other words, the prosecution would thus retain the benefit of having its evidence heard, while the respondent would be at risk of being denied the benefit of having that evidence contradicted,” she added.
To this, private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan said, “They always play the victim card. Wait a minute. Hindi siya ang victim, ang taong bayan ang victim dito. Who is being unfair here? Who is being unjust? The Vice President herself. She refuses to come and defend herself in the impeachment court. And yet she does press conferences saying this trial is a farce. If that is their style, then they come to court with unclean hands."
“They cannot say they were deprived of presenting countervailing facts. They cross-examined all our witnesses for hours, for days. The defense cannot say they were not given a fair shake,” private prosecutor Amado Ligutan added.
After allowing the dropping of the three Articles of Impeachment, presiding officer Francis "Chiz" Escudero lifted the sub judice, or the gag order on parties concerning Articles 1, 3 and 4.
Escudero, however, clarified that the court’s ruling on the prosecution’s dropping of three charges and the lifting of the sub judice rule for the withdrawn allegations is subject to appeal by the senator-judges once the parties have had time to reflect on the matter.
Escudero announced the November schedule of the impeachment trial days.
November 9: Court will convene at 10 a.m.; the Senate will have a session in the afternoon and resume the trial after the session
November 10: Whole day, from 10 a.m. onwards
November 11: Court will convene at 10 a.m.; the Senate may conduct a session in the afternoon as needed
November 12: Whole day, from 10 a.m. onwards
November 13: Whole day, from 10 a.m. onwards
November 19: Whole day, from 10 a.m. onwards
November 20: Whole day, from 10 a.m. onwards
November 23: From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. only
—LDF, GMA News