Pia casts doubt on Matibag's credibility as impeachment witness, points to ‘inconsistencies’ in his 13 May Senate shooting statements
Text size
Senator Pia Cayetano brought up the chaotic 13 May Senate shooting incident on the ninth day of Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial on Wednesday, confronting National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Melvin Matibag as she challenged his credibility to take the witness stand.
Prior to this, Cayetano had already hinted last week that she would admonish Matibag, with whom she and her brother, Senator Alan Cayetano, have had a rift since the widely known incident involving NBI’s alleged attempt to arrest Senator Bato dela Rosa on an International Criminal Court warrant.
Pia seized the opportunity to face off with Matibag by flagging supposed inconsistencies in his previous statements, as she questioned the bureau chief’s credibility as a witness for the prosecution.
Citing court rules, Pia flagged Matibag’s previous interview that no one was reported hurt in the shooting incident despite a member of the Senate security being mauled by NBI agents during the scuffle.
“You swore an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, correct?” Pia asked Matibag, to which the NBI chief responded in the affirmative.
She also referred to two separate interviews of Matibag where he said he was not at the scene during the shooting because of an ongoing event at a nearby hotel, while he admitted in a separate interview that he deployed some NBI personnel to the Government Service Insurance System, which is beside the Senate.
The Senate leases its building from the GSIS. They share one compound and are separated only by a gate.
Pia contended that under the court’s rules, a witness’ credibility is relevant in assessing the weight of his or her testimony and that he or she can be discredited “by evidence that his general reputation for truth, honesty, or integrity is bad.”
Matibag is the third NBI witness to testify on Article IV of the Articles of Impeachment, which centers on the alleged grave threats Duterte made against President Marcos Jr. in several public statements in late 2024.
The Senate impeachment court concluded the trial for Article 4 on Wednesday and will proceed with Article I, which centers on the alleged misuse of Duterte’s confidential funds, on Wednesday next week.
Matibag was at the center of the 13 May Senate shooting controversy after he and his agents were blamed by then-Senate president Alan Cayetano and his allies for breaching the Senate premises through GSIS to enforce the ICC warrant against Dela Rosa, despite being under the chamber’s protective custody.
The firing occurred two days after the NBI’s first botched attempt to arrest the ex-PNP, who surprisingly appeared at the Senate after six months of being absent as he evaded the ICC warrant for crimes against humanity tied to the Duterte administration’s bloody drug war.
Aside from the Senate shooting, the Cayetanos and Matibag have publicly traded barbs as the NBI reopened the investigation into alleged irregularities in the 2019 SEA Games, which was chiefly supervised by Alan.
