The claimed refusal of Vice President Sara Duterte’s camp to stipulate to and authenticate documents from her own offices has allegedly caused an inordinate delay in her ongoing impeachment trial at the Senate, a House prosecutor said Sunday.

House prosecutor Rep. Terry Ridon said the prosecution could not help but view the defense’s refusal to validate thousands of documents from the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) as a tactic to prolong the proceedings.

Ridon called the defense’s position “laughable,” noting that Duterte’s camp had refused to allow the prosecution to use documents from her own offices.

“Well, since the defense did not agree to stipulate, we will proceed with the presentation of the acknowledgment receipts. That’s why we said that we would just use their list, their documents, but they did not agree,” he said.

“We view it as sort of a delaying tactic, since it is their very own documents that we are talking about but they still don’t want to stipulate.”

Pretrial impasse

Ridon clarified that despite the volume of documents involved in Article I of the impeachment case, the prosecution did not intend to present every record, particularly the thousands of acknowledgment receipts.

He said the prosecution’s main objective was to establish that the names listed as recipients of confidential funds were fictitious and that the millions of pesos allocated to the OVP and DepEd were not properly used.

The impeachment court set 14 August for the prosecution and defense to compare and stipulate on their respective documents following arguments over their validity on 5 August.

Private prosecutor Atty. Jay Tolosa said the dispute over document certification stemmed from the defense’s rejection of the prosecution’s proposal during the June pretrial conference to jointly mark common exhibits.

Tolosa said the timing of the meeting remained an issue because the documents to be discussed would form part of the testimony of state auditor Xylene Mae del Campo.

“We will have to let the presiding officer know about this to make it clear that we are not causing a delay. We are really trying to find ways to expedite, but this is what happened,” Tolosa said.

CoA proof

Tolosa said the prosecution was prepared to adapt to the disputes over the documents’ validity and authenticate them during the proceedings, but warned that doing so would consume additional time.

Duterte faces four impeachment articles: alleged misuse of P612.5 million in confidential funds, bribery, unexplained wealth and grave threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and then-House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

Since the Senate trial began 6 July, the prosecution has completed its presentation on the threats article and moved to the confidential funds case.

It has traced the release and encashment of the P612.5 million and started presenting Commission on Audit evidence on spending.

The impeachment court approved subpoenas for Duterte’s financial records, including bank and tax documents, to support the unexplained wealth charge.