Senate impeachment court presiding officer Francis “Chiz” Escudero announced that an additional date outside of official proceedings would be set for the prosecution and the defense to compare and confirm whether their respective documents on confidential funds were similar.

The development came after a lengthy exchange took place between both parties concerning the acknowledgement receipts from the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) during various periods from 2022 to 2023.

During the impeachment hearing on Wednesday, 5 August, state auditor Xylene Mae del Campo from the Commission on Audit’s (COA) Intelligence and Confidential Fund Audit Office (ICFAO) was asked to verify documents that came from her predecessor Atty. Roderick Wamil.

The documents consisted of 845 acknowledgement receipts (ARs) from 21 to 31 December 2022 in relation to a tabulation that was prepared by Wamil.

Atty. Kristine Ferrer, a lawyer from Duterte’s counsel, argued that Del Campo was not thoroughly verifying the documents and was simply flipping through the voluminous receipts being asked of her to validate.

“The witness is merely flipping the pages without comparing the ARs with the list to check whether the ARs are the same with what was listed by Mr. Wamil,” Ferrer manifested before the court.

Answering to the comments of the defense and in an effort to expedite the proceedings, private prosecutor Atty. Lorna Kapunan proposed for Del Campo to simply verify the documents in a separate date wherein both parties are present.

Kapunan said that there were a total of 4,492 documents and six summaries that the prosecution would be presenting to the court related to confidential funds.

Ferrer opposed the notion, however, stressing that such a proposal went against the rules of the court that stated that witnesses were required to identify documents in open court and that an out of court process would cause problems to the prosecutor’s offer of evidence.

“We object to the proposal that the examination of the ARs be done outside the court,” she stressed.

In an effort to form an agreement between both parties, Escudero stressed that the reason for an additional date was to serve as a venue where stipulations could be settled, noting that neither party was required to stipulate.

Maintaining their stance on the matter, Ferred said that their reasoning for not stipulating on the documents of the prosecution which came from DepEd and OVP and was subsequently submitted to COA was that the said offices no longer had control over the documents once they were submitted for audit.

The lawyer said that since the documents of the prosecutors were not compared to that of theirs, they could not be amenable as to the validity of the receipts.

Kapunan, who had previously refrained from submitting a counter-manifestation, expressed that the issue facing both parties could have been prevented and resolved had the respondent’s lawyers made the most of the opportunity provided to them during the pre-trial stage of the trial.

She likewise questioned why the defense was seemingly trying to block the prosecution from ensuring that the trial be carried out in an expeditious manner.

In an effort to resolve the issue of supposed distrust in the documents reproduction, the veteran litigator urged the defense counsel to allow them to use the documents that were marked for their exhibit.

“Let’s use the defense documents, your honor, then they will not say they do not trust these documents because it is their own defense documents, maybe that will solve the problem of this court, we will use your documents, will you still question using your own documents?” she posited.

“Maybe that is a possible solution, your honor, let us use the defense documents instead of the prosecution’s documents so we no longer need to compare, Thursday, Friday, I still have to watch The Odyssey,” Kapunan quipped.

Considering the arguments of both parties, the impeachment court presiding judge granted the request of the prosecution to set an additional date for the parties to stipulate on documents for use in the trial when the proceedings resume on Monday, 10 August.

Escudero noted that the process would be overseen by the impeachment court clerk and Senate Secretary General Atty. Renato Bantug.

“All that the court is asking is for an opportunity to be had by the parties once more to compare your respective marked ARs to be able to distinguish and find out if indeed they are the same or not, regardless of whatever purpose or theory each party may have,” he explained.

The parties were asked to inform the court of their preferred schedule after the proceedings concluded.