House keeps bribery charge

ng the bribery charge last week to speed up the trial and give the Senate impeachment court “breathing room.”

Luistro said the prosecution’s decision to proceed with Article II first was consistent with a 22 June manifestation in which it reserved the right to change the order of its presentation of evidence.

“We’re not waiving the presentation of evidence for bribery. The only thing that is being changed is the order of presentation. We will be proceeding to unexplained wealth first, after which we will end with the presentation of evidence for bribery,” Luistro told the court.

Impeachment court presiding officer Sen. Francis Escudero sought a clarification after Manila Rep. Joel Chua, one of the public prosecutors, earlier said the team was considering dropping Article III altogether to expedite the proceedings.

“Right from the very beginning, we said that if we believed that our evidence was already strong, if we had presented the evidence we wanted to present, then we could reduce the number of articles we would present,” Chua said.

The House of Representatives impeached Duterte in May this year on allegations of the theft of confidential funds, unexplained wealth, bribery, and making grave threats.