Claim: A quote card features impeachment trial presiding officer Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero telling the House lead prosecutor, Batangas 2nd District Representative Gerville Luistro, that they cannot halt the impeachment proceedings against Vice President Sara Duterte after initiating them. In response, Luistro said the prosecution no longer had any witnesses to present.
Rating: FALSE
Why we fact-checked this: One Facebook reel bearing the claim has already received 860,000 views, 15,800 reactions, 1,400 shares, and 1,200 comments as of writing. While the reel was posted on September 15, it continues to gain traction with a new comment posted on October 10.
The post features photos of Escudero and Luistro and quotes attributed to the two. It cites Escudero — falsely identified in the post as Supreme Court Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo — supposedly saying, “Atty. Luistro hindi pwede itigil ang trial na inumpisahan nyo.”
(Atty. Luistro, you cannot stop the trial you initiated.)
Luistro’s alleged response was, “Wala na kasi kami maipresentang witness.”
(We no longer have any witnesses to present.)
Most of the comments believed that the statements were from a real discussion during Duterte’s impeachment trial. One commenter wrote, “Wala pa nga silang napatunayan ni isa, puro gawa gawa lang wala naman napatunayan.”
(They haven’t proven a single thing. It’s all just made-up, nothing has actually been proven).
The facts: Escudero and Luistro did not make the statements shown in the quote card. There are no credible news reports or videos from the impeachment trial showing that they explicitly made the remarks shown in the false post.
The closest similar statement was the remark Escudero jokingly made last July: “Hindi tayo matitigil dito, Gerville, sinasabi ko sa’yo (We won’t be able to finish this session, Gerville, I’m telling you),” when Luistro made a follow-up manifestation during the impeachment trial. Escudero then allowed Luistro to state her manifestation.
Meanwhile, Luistro did not make the remark about the prosecution “running out” of witnesses. The Batangas lawmaker, however, earlier made statements about “having no other choice” when presenting hostile witnesses for the trial.
In a DZMM Teleradyo interview on September 21 on the presentation of Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte as witness, Luistro said, “In instances na nakikita niyo na ang pinepresent ng prosecution is hostile, it only means, wala na kaming choice. This is the only option left kaya napilitan na kaming ipresenta kahit hostile witness siya.”
(In instances where we see that the witness being presented by the prosecution is hostile, it simply means we have no other choice. This is the only remaining option, so we were compelled to present them, even though they are a hostile witness.)
Impeachment trial witnesses: The House lead prosecutor has earlier said that they will no longer present several witnesses due to various reasons.
In July, the prosecution dropped six witnesses on Article 4 of the impeachment case against Duterte to avoid redundancy as they deemed the testimony of National Bureau of Investigation Director Melvin Matibag already sufficient to prove the allegations.
Zuleika Lopez, Duterte’s chief of staff, as well as House security officer Belinda Bello, were also withdrawn as witnesses.
Former senator Antonio Trillanes IV, a Duterte critic, also requested to be removed from the list of witnesses so that the prosecution would be “relieved from the pressure it is going through.”
On October 9, the House prosecution panel said its final witness in Duterte’s impeachment trial was financial forensic analyst Alexander Cabrera, who told the impeachment court that the Vice President has P817 million in undeclared wealth. (LIVE UPDATES: Impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte)
Previous fact checks: Rappler has previously fact-checked similar fake quote cards:
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- FACT CHECK: Cayetano didn’t say VP Sara should face impeachment court; quote card is fake
- FACT CHECK: Quote card of Hontiveros declaring presidential bid is fake
– Angelee Kaye Abelinde/Rappler.com
Angelee Kaye Abelinde is a student journalist based in Naga City, and an alumna of Rappler’s Aries Rufo Journalism Fellowship 2024.
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