Sara Duterte impeachment trial Day 21: Poa faces hostile witness grilling as trial lawyers clash

The 21st day of Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial opened with private prosecutor Benjamin Tolosa Jr. describing former Department of Education (DepEd) Undersecretary and witness Michael Poa as an “abogadong walang alam,” a remark that was later stricken from the record.

Tolosa said the prosecution was presenting Poa’s testimony that he was made to respond to state auditors’ queries about DepEd’s use of confidential funds, despite Poa’s repeated statements in previous hearings that he had no personal knowledge of how the funds were disbursed.

Defense team lead counsel Sheila Sison objected to such characterization of Poa, who is her co-counsel in the defense team.

Senate impeachment court presiding officer Francis Escudero ruled in favor of Sison and ordered the phrase stricken from the record, saying it was “discourteous, to say the least.”

After this exchange, Escudero declared Poa as a hostile witness, allowing Tolosa to ask leading questions.

During Tolosa’s direct examination of Poa about the P15 million confidential fund that DepEd spent for paying informants, Poa testified that purchasing information from informants using confidential funds does not guarantee success in information gathering.

"Unang-una, hindi kailangan na kapag bumili ka ng information, necessarily, 'pag nakuha mo 'yung information, it will result in success," Poa said when private prosecutor Benjamin Tolosa, Jr. asked if evidence of success is required in the purchase of information as provided under Joint Circular 2015-01, which governs the use of confidential and intelligence funds.

This answer by Poa, however, only came after lengthy arguments between Tolosa and Sison, who registered multiple objections to the supposedly misleading questions.

This prompted Escudero to appeal to the public and the senator-judges to be more patient.

“Para sa kaalaman din po ng kapwa ko senator-judges at mga sumusubaybay, mahirap na nga po na may dalawang abogadong nagkakaroon ng tagisan ng talino, gawin pa nating tatlo. Kaya pag-unawa lang po at pasensya ang hinihiling namin,” the presiding officer said.

(For the information of my fellow senator-judges and those watching the proceedings, it is difficult enough for two lawyers to have a battle of wits, let alone three. So we just ask for understanding and patience.)

Later, Poa testified that he did not ask DepEd special disbursing officer Eduard Fajarda whether he himself was disbursing the confidential funds. Poa also said he did not ask whether the rewards paid to informants had resulted in successful information gathering.

Poa also reiterated that he has no personal knowledge of how the confidential fund was used.

After Poa was discharged from the witness stand, Escudero granted the prosecution’s request for the court to issue a subpoena or order to three individuals to testify before the Senate impeachment court.

The subpoenas were for Commission on Audit’s (COA) Bresilio Sabaldan, former Assistant Secretary Sunshine Cherry Fajarda of the Department of Education, and Police Major Jovelyn Magay.

In addition, Escudero also discussed the possible adjusted schedule of the trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.

Under the proposed schedule, on October 1 and 2; October 5 to 9; and October 12 to 15, the trial will be for the entire day, from 10 a.m. up until early evening.

Before the trial started, House prosecutor Joel Chua of Manila said that the prosecution is considering dropping the bribery charge under Article 3 of the impeachment case against Vice President Duterte.

He was referring to the impeachment Article which alleges that the Vice President must be impeached for committing bribery by giving monetary gifts or payments to Department of Education (DepEd) officials to induce the violation and circumvention of procurement and other related laws.

Chua said such a move is being considered because the prosecution does not want a protracted hearing. He stressed that there is no final decision yet on the matter. —LDF, GMA News