‘Uncertain’ House Prosecutors seek extension of pre-trial conference

Lawmakers from the House Prosecution team said that they have coordinated with impeachment court clerk Senate Secretary General Renato Bantug, seeking to extend the pre-trial conference for the upcoming impeachment trial against Vice President Sara Duterte until Saturday, 27 June.

Speaking to reporters during a press conference at the House of Representatives, House Lead Public Prosecutor Rep. Gerville Luistro stated that some members of the prosecution had expressed “uncertainties” that the marking of evidence would be finished on Thursday, 25 June.

Amid the doubts, Luistro mentioned that their team communicated with Bantug in order to avail of measures that could help expedite the time-consuming and painstaking process.

“We reached out already to Secretary Bantug through Secretary General Cheloy Garafil whether there are other measure which may be considered to be able to expedite more the process of marking the exhibits,” she said.

For their part, one of the actions they sought was for the impeachment court to allow them to send out additional teams which would be assigned in assisting prosecutors that were concerned with the “voluminous documents” related to the article on confidential funds.

Luistro said that exhibits that they had related to the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Office of the Vice President (OVP) where the funds were directed were more than 4,000 documents.

Out of the four teams that were allowed to be sent out for the process, three were already assigned to the particular exhibits.

Another factor that was supposedly eating up much of their time was the fact that the defense counsel of the Vice President solicited to separately mark their evidence, including those that were similar with the prosecution.

The lawmakers, however, refused to offer any insight on whether they believe that the tactic was meant to delay the proceedings.

Asked about the possibility that the scheduled trial date which was 6 July would not push through, Manila Rep. Joel Chua affirmed that the prosecutors remain confident it was going to be followed, barring any further delays.

“Yes, we remain confident, and we are hoping that there would be no further delays in the marking of evidence,” Chua said.

As for Luistro, she said that all they were focused on doing everything they could to accomplish the pre-trial conference by this week, so that the pre-trial order could be released on time.

“We are not entertaining that possibility, we are pushing for the termination of the pre-trial conference this week,” she said.