Quad Committee chairperson Ace Barbers wants the House of Representatives and the Senate to hold a joint hearing into Duterte administration's alleged extrajudicial killings in a bid to expedite the crafting of a law that would put an end to to the bloody anti-drug campaign.
House of Representatives
House trial spokesperson Robert Ace Barbers expressed Friday that the prosecution panel was not afraid of presenting Col. Raymund Dante Lachica as one of its witnesses concerning the alleged misuse of confidential funds of Vice President Sara Duterte.
While believing that Lachica could provide some insight into how the millions of funds were handled, the former congressman said that the witnesses that the prosecution previously presented had sufficiently built the case.
“Why would we be scared? Our belief, in the four or five witnesses that the prosecution has presented, was enough to prove the allegations that there was misuse, misappropriation and irregular liquidation,” Barbers said in an online press conference.
“Presenting Colonel Lachica at this point is no longer necessary, unless he has something to add that has evidentiary value to the allegations we have in this article,” he added.
Throughout the previous hearings, Lachica had been repeatedly mentioned as the individual that was entrusted with disbursing the millions of confidential funds under the Office of the Vice President (OVP).
Gina Acosta, former OVP special disbursing officer, told the impeachment court that the colonel was given the funds as he was the person that was familiar with the operations that were conducted “on the ground.”
Lachica, for his part, had also vocalized his willingness to participate in the constitutional process and that he had never refused to appear in the trial.
“I have never refused to appear or testify; if lawfully called, I am prepared to tell the truth, subject to applicable laws and security restrictions,” he said in a statement on 25 August.
Barbers, however, claimed that the prosecution panel was already aware of the testimony that Lachica and other witnesses that served under the Vice President were going to provide.
With the assumption, the spokesperson said that the only focus of the panel was to further build on its case and that the defense panel of the Vice President could present Lachica if they deemed it necessary.
“Colonel Lachica, whatever he hopes to say or we could get from him, we will see if they will also be presented by the defense if they want to identify where the millions of funds that was entrusted to him went,” he said.
“But, absent that, I don’t think that a conclusion would be reached that this was used properly,” he added.
In the resumption of the proceedings on Tuesday, 1 September, the prosecution panel is set to present individuals linked to the use of confidential funds under the Department of Education (DepEd).
Aside from military personnel and the agency’s former special disbursing officer, the prosecution has also manifested its intention to present former DepEd undersecretary and defense lawyer Atty. Michael Poa.
Notably, while the OVP was allocated a total of P500 million in confidential funds, DepEd received P112.5 million.
