Defense urges Senate court to curb legal arguments after prosecutors trim witness list

The defense team of Vice President Sara Duterte on Wednesday urges the Senate impeachment court to rein in what it described as argumentative procedural manifestations after House prosecutors withdrew several witnesses from the impeachment article accusing Duterte of making grave threats against the country's top leaders.

At the resumption of the trial, lead House prosecutor and Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro informed the impeachment court that the prosecution would no longer present a representative of the Philippine National Police Firearms and Explosives Office, journalists Mikhail Flores and Bonz Magsambol who attended Duterte's 23 November 2024 online press conference, Sheriff Abe Andres, a family member of one of the alleged victims of the threats, and a psychiatrist who was expected to testify on Duterte's state of mind.

Luistro said the prosecution would instead conclude its presentation of evidence for Article 4, which centers on the alleged grave threats, with the testimony of National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Melvin Matibag.

Private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan on Tuesday said the prosecutors will drop the Office of the Vice President chief of staff Atty. Zuleika Lopez and House Legislative Security Bureau Executive Director Capt. Belinda Bello as witnesses, stating that their testimonies will be “totally unnecessary, redundant and surplusage" after the presentation of National Bureau of Investigation officials Jeremy Lotoc and John Mark Calilung.

Defense lawyer Atty. Sheila Sison, however, said her objection was not to the withdrawal of witnesses but to the manner in which prosecutors explained their decision before the tribunal.

"My concern is those manifestations are almost always accompanied with lengthy discourse containing conclusions of law and facts that in reality only this impeachment court can really determine," Sison told the senator-judges.

She argued that procedural manifestations should be confined to informing the court of procedural developments rather than advancing factual or legal conclusions that only the impeachment court is empowered to make after evaluating all the evidence.

"We are before the impeachment court and therefore we should try evidence and not advocate for the conclusions that we may have already made even before we went to this trial," she said.

Sison stressed that her appeal applied equally to both the prosecution and the defense, saying neither side should use procedural motions to reinforce its theory of the case before the evidence has been fully presented.

"If the only intent really is just to withdraw witnesses, then perhaps it would better serve the purpose of aiding the speedy disposition of this case if that fact alone will be the only thing that will be mentioned without factual assertion or evidence, or conclusions of fact, or even interpretations of the law," she said.

The lawyer argued that conclusions about the strength of evidence and interpretation of the law belonged solely to the impeachment court.

"There is no excluded evidence because they never offered it in the first place," Sison said.

Presiding officer Francis “Chiz” Escudero ruled that while manifestations should remain limited to the withdrawal of witnesses, parties may still explain the reasons for doing so given the constitutional significance of the impeachment proceedings and the public interest surrounding the trial.

Sison maintained that such explanations could prejudice the proceedings because they effectively place before the court factual assertions that were never subjected to cross-examination.

"The problem with explaining why you're withdrawing is actually you are feeding to the court something they did not testify to and then something the defense cannot object to," she said.