NATION
Chua: Prosecutors absence in impeachment due to preparations, duty in Congress
“Just because we are here for the impeachment doesn’t mean we are neglecting our other work.”
Manila 3rd District Representative Joel Chua on Sunday defended lawmakers participating in the impeachment trial against Vice President Sara Duterte, clarifying that recent absences do not mean prosecutors are neglecting their regular duties in Congress.
"Just because we are here for the impeachment doesn’t mean we are neglecting our other work,” Chua explained, noting that members of the prosecution panel are balancing trial preparations with committee hearings, plenary duties, and constituent responsibilities.
Chua stated that their participation in the constitutional process did not mean that they were allowed to ignore the responsibility that they had to their constituents and other roles within the House of Representatives.
“Some of us are performing roles in Congress, attending the budget hearings, aside from our respective committees…we have chairmanships, others have duties in plenary as assistant majority floor leaders,” he explained in a radio interview.
“We can really say that even with the impeachment, we do not neglect our work,” he added.
Even when the public prosecutors were not in Congress, however, the lawmaker said that there were some members of their team that were busy preparing for their respective presentations in the trial.
Chua said that each prosecutor was assigned specific roles in accordance with the different Articles of Impeachment, noting that he was the lead prosecutor when it came to Article I or the alleged misuse of confidential funds of Duterte from 2022 to 2023.
“What you see in the proceedings, 80 percent of the success of the trial is because of preparation. Just because they are not there does not mean that they are doing nothing–they are preparing,” he said.
Chua mentioned that part of their preparation was knowing what questions to ask to witnesses that were being called to testify in the proceedings in order to build their cases for the appreciation of senator-judges.
Prior to the consecutive suspension of hearings, the prosecutors presented their first hostile witness in former Office of the Vice President (OVP) special disbursing officer Gina Acosta to testify on matters concerning Article I.
Acosta had prepared the liquidation documents that were part of the reports that were released by the Commission on Audit that disallowed P448 million in confidential funds from the OVP and the subsequent order for restitution on the same amount.