MANILA, Philippines —Vice President Sara Duterte said that the country has witnessed that her impeachment complaint was not supported by evidence as the fourth day of her impeachment trial continued today at the Senate, saying tat the "rule of law" depends onf facts.
"Repeatedly claiming that there were threats when none existed, inventing an assassin where there was none, and fabricating evidence to support those claims does not transform fiction into fact," Duterte said in statement on Tuesday.
She added that such actions "undermine the integrity of public institutions, erode public trust, waste public resources, and corrupt the search for truth,".
She said that an impeachment proceeding should be grounded in credible evidence, not speculation, manufactured narratives, or unsupported allegations.
"The rule of law depends on facts, not fiction," Duterte said.
Meanwhile, the Defense team of Vice President Sara Duterte has announced one of its counsels as its deputy spokesman.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday at the Defense media room, lead spokesman Michael Wesley Poa appointed Justin Nicol Gular deputy spokesman who would be available to speak to the media whenever Poa is unavailable.
Poa also said that Gular would also help them reach "the regional level" due to his fluency in Bisaya.
Meanwhile, Poa said that they were unsure whether Duterte would visit again her counsels at the Senate as she has "several meetings scheduled" in Manila.
On the fifth day of the trial, Poa said that their cross-examination aimed to test the credibility of National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Regional Director Jeremy Lotoc, and reiterated that their objections would depend on the question propounded by the opposing counsel.
"Like yesterday, we didn't really see any basis for raising objections. As you saw, we were being reasonable—we weren't objecting just for the sake of it. But if a question is genuinely objectionable, then we would not be doing justice to our client. We would not be fulfilling our responsibilities if we failed to object." Poa said.
