Prosecution intends to present Sara Duterte in her own impeachment trial

The House prosecution panel on Tuesday said they intend to present Vice President Sara Duterte herself in her own impeachment trial.

Private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan informed the Senate impeachment court of such position during Day 23 of the impeachment trial of the Vice President as the prosecution rested the presentation of evidence on Article 1 of the Articles of Impeachment which alleges that the Vice President must be impeached over misuse, if not misappropriation of P612.5 million worth of confidential funds.

“All of these pawns and castles and horses and bishops point to only one person and that accountable person is the Vice President. In lieu of presenting 15 other witnesses, we will be presenting the Vice President herself for Article 1 of the Articles of Impeachment [on confidential funds],” Kapunan said.

“In this game of chess, there are pawns, bishops, castles, and horses. And the most important, more important than the king, and I speak this because not of my gender, but the queen is more important than the king because the queen can move in many directions. And we have seen that. We have seen that in the evidence presented,” Kapunan added.

Further, Kapunan said that the prosecution also reserves its right to present the Vice President as a witness in other allegations, such as in Article 2 on unexplained wealth and Article 3 on bribery.

“Unless the Vice President herself appears and respects the process of this impeachment court and affirms, confirms her allegation of innocence, Your Honor…the people will never know if the prosecution's case based on witnesses and evidence will point to the Senator judges, Your Honor, exercising the lens of political neutrality, and towards the end, [if] justice will be served,” Kapunan pointed out.

Kapunan, however, said that they are not asking Senate impeachment court for a subpoena for the Vice President "at this time."

Lead defense counsel Sheila Sison, in response, said issuing a subpoena or “testimonial compulsion” to the Vice President before her impeachment trial violates her Constitutional right as provided under Article 3, Section 17 which states that “No person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself No person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.”

“This right is absolute and this is not only a simple right or a statutory right. This is a fundamental right. This is a right emanating from the Constitution itself and one that emanates from the guarantees under Article 3 of our 1987 Constitution,” she added.

Sison also said that Duterte is present in the trial through her counsel.

“If respondent is not interested in this trial, she would not have even sent her lawyers to defend her in this case,” she said.

Senate impeachment court presiding officer Senator Francis Escudero did not yet rule on the move by the prosecution pending the latter’s formal motion asking the impeachment court to issue a subpoena to the Vice President and the comment from the defense panel.

In a separate press conference, private prosecutor Benjamin Tolosa, Jr. said that calling in the Vice President as a witness is only logical given that his subordinates, Gina Acosta, Lemuel Ortonio, and Michael Poa all testified before the Senate impeachment court that she knows how the confidential funds of her offices were spent.

“Since all of them are pointing at the Vice President, we want the Senator-judges to have the opportunity to listen to her explanation,” Tolosa said.

“And so we reserve the right to call her as a witness, but we did not file the motion seeking a subpoena for her this time, because as explained by Attorney Kapunan, the Vice President can testify not only on the allegations of confidential funds but also on unexplained wealth. That is why we intend to call her as witness once we already presented all our evidence for four Articles of Impeachment,” Tolosa added —VAL, GMA News