Impeachment court presiding officer Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero joked that private prosecutor Atty. Lorna Kapunan may have been “ghosted” by Vice President Sara Duterte’s legal team after the two sides failed to agree on a schedule for comparing thousands of acknowledgment receipts linked to confidential funds.

The light moment came during Tuesday’s proceedings after Kapunan told the Senate impeachment court that the prosecution had repeatedly tried to reach Duterte’s lawyers to arrange the court-ordered comparison of 4,492 acknowledgment receipts (ARs).

Kapunan said the court had directed the parties to agree on a date, preferably Thursday or Friday of last week. But she said the defense did not respond until 5:38 p.m. Thursday, when it proposed meeting on 14 August — after the prosecution had scheduled the presentation of the documents.

“On Thursday, we waited the whole day. We kept asking, ‘When will we meet? It’s Thursday today, and tomorrow is Friday. Our witness will be appearing on Monday.’ But we received no response throughout Thursday,” Kapunan said.

“What good would 14 August do us? The hearing is today, 10 August, and they want us to appear before the clerk of court to compare the documents on 14 August. For what purpose, Your Honor?” she added.

“It appears that the defense team ghosted you,” Escudero replied.

Kapunan described the delay as “bad faith,” saying prosecutors even approached the defense an hour before Tuesday’s hearing to compare the documents, but the proposal was rejected.

“This attitude of the respondent is not new. We experienced the same attitude during the pretrial. They did not want to stipulate because they claimed our copies were not faithful reproductions of theirs because of the covering page,” she said.