Luistro says Sara camp asking for eight trial days to present evidence

Lead public prosecutor Rep. Gerville Luistro said Sunday that the camp of Vice President Sara Duterte was asking for a total of eight trial days to present their counter-evidence with respect to her alleged unexplained wealth.

The lawmaker said that the information that she had received has yet to be verified but was a development that they had expected given the fact that they had decided to withdraw three out of their four Articles of Impeachment from the proceedings.

“Originally the defense asked for 30 trial days to present their evidence, but then 30 days is intended for four Articles of Impeachment, we have to consider that the prosecution withdrew three, this is approved by the Impeachment Court, so there is one remaining charge,” Luistro said in a media forum in Quezon City.

The development comes nearly two weeks after the panel formally manifested before the Senate impeachment court that they would only retain their case on unexplained wealth against the Vice President in view of expediency in the proceedings.

Despite views that the move indicated a sign of weakness of the prosecution’s cases, Luistro and other members of the group maintained that Article II was strong enough to stand on its own in the trial.

On 12 October, the prosecution panel formally concluded its presentation of evidence in chief against Duterte after over three months of trial.

The prosecution’s case on Article II tackled information pertaining to the Vice President’s alleged hidden assets and net worth which were left off of her Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN) since assuming her post in 2022.

Financial expert Atty. Alexander Cabrera, the final witness of prosecutors, alleged that Duterte’s undeclared net worth exceeded P800-million from a period of 2022 to 2025 alone.

In a separate media forum over the weekend, House trial spokesperson Robert Ace Barbers said that it was possible that the impeachment trial could wrap up in the following month given the anticipated timeline of the defense’s presentation.

Barbers mentioned, however, that the defense still had the ability to exhaust its initially requested 30 trial dates for its evidence presentation but noted that Duterte’s lawyers should stick to countering allegations contained in Article II.

“If it is eight trial days only, this may be finished already, two weeks may even be long…what can happen is, if it is allowed, they have the option to exhaust, probably, their request of 30 days just to be able to present their evidence,” he said.

The impeachment trial is set to resume on 9 November after a three-week break to allow the Senate to conduct its deliberations into the proposed budget for 2027.