THE impeachment trial is getting to be boring and moving at a snail’s pace, owing to the inability of the presiding officer to control the proceeding efficiently, objectively and orderly.
It seems that his being a lawyer has not helped him navigate the judicial and political process with the high expectations placed on him by those who advocated to make him the presiding officer instead of Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian, who appears to be asserting himself as a senator-judge with insightful questions and observations.
The presiding officer had a very limited practice as a lawyer, having been elected as a public servant and serving as such for 28 years, after practicing for only four years.
To ordinary viewers with no legal background or experience in court, he appears to be competent, owing to his use of legal terms commonly used by practicing lawyers, but to those scarred in courtroom battles that are their daily grind, he is a walking disaster.
He allows the prosecution lawyers to convert the impeachment court into a propaganda proceeding. He permits these publicity-hungry prosecution lawyers to make improper and irregular manifestations that not only delay the proceedings but also make these lawyers use the forum to propagandize the guilt of the respondent through their inappropriate narratives instead of proving the prosecution’s case through their witnesses.
He overrules proper objections and tolerates improper questioning on the witnesses. At the inception of the trial, he overruled a timely objection from the defense team against a prosecution lawyer who, instead of just stating briefly the purpose for presenting the first witness, started to deliver a speech. He allowed the prosecution counsel to litter the record of the impeachment proceeding with inappropriate remarks and conclusions of law that are better left to the judgment of the senator-judges.
Worse, the prosecution counsel for the House of Prosecutors vexes and taxes the patience of viewers with his repetitious manner of conducting the direct examination of the witnesses, repeating the answers of the witnesses before propounding his next and succeeding questions. What he can do in two hours spends five hours doing, unnecessarily prolonging the direct examination of the witnesses and necessarily the proceedings. During the cross-examination of the witnesses, he repeatedly interjected groundless objections, triggering time-consuming arguments on both sides, while the presiding officer, most of the time, sustained the objections wrongly. Obviously, the prosecution lawyer wants his image on the television screen to stay a long time for media mileage. A relatively unknown lawyer taking a shot at prominence.
Another prosecution lawyer, who has the habit of calling attention to herself, who, after the lead prosecutor made it appear to the impeachment court that she would be handling the presentation of the first prosecution witness, turned out to be untrue, as instead of presenting the witness, she delivered a propaganda spiel for the prosecution’s case. Not content with that self-propagandizing appearance, she repeats such impropriety by way of a manifestation explaining the withdrawal of certain of the prosecution’s witnesses. Instead of just perfunctory informing the court that the prosecution has decided not to present them, she took 35 minutes to deliver a speech, citing the whys and the wherefores of the withdrawal, and in the process, stating the nature of the testimonies of the witnesses, effectively proving circumstances to be testified to by the witnesses on the witness stand and thereafter stating conclusions of law, which action was grossly improper in the impeachment hearing.
The presiding officer, despite the glaring impropriety, allowed the prosecution counsel to finish her improper manifestations.
Minutes after the end of that particular July 7, 2026 hearing, this columnist, in his interview with media outlets and in his own SMNI show, slammed the presiding officer as well as the prosecution lawyer, the former for his failure to stop such irregularity, and the latter for undertaking such improper and irregular action. He also called the attention of the senator-judges for them not to allow such improprieties in the impeachment court.
The following impeachment hearing day of July 8, 2026, the senator-judges and defense team spent considerable time calling out the prosecution team, particularly the female prosecution counsel, and criticizing them for improper conduct. Unfortunately, the damage has been done; the complaint and the opposition came after the fact. The bigger blame, of course, should be placed on the presiding officer for his failure to halt the violation of the rules, which was only one of the many.
So far, the prosecution has yet to prove its fourth article of impeachment of betrayal of the public trust and high crimes. The basis for the aforesaid impeachable offense is the alleged commission of the crime of grave threats and inciting to sedition.
Their two witnesses, two NBI agents, miserably failed to prove that the vice president committed those crimes.
They were useless witnesses for the prosecution.
What the two witnesses proved was that the video containing the Nov. 23, 2026 online press conference of VP Sara, where she uttered the subject utterances, is authentic, which authenticity is not, however, in dispute. It was therefore wrong and a waste of time for the prosecution to present witnesses to authenticate a video of the online conference when the defense never denied the occurrence of the event as well as the utterances made by VP Sara.
They were not able to prove that the controversial remarks fall under the crimes of grave threats and inciting to sedition as defined by law.
On the other hand, the NBI agents’ testimonies were favorable to the respondent. Their testimonies established that their investigation surrounding circumstances that triggered what the NBI deemed to be threatening and sedition was sloppy and not thorough.
They admitted that they were not able to establish that VP Sara contracted an assassin to kill the president, first lady and former speaker of the House.
Both witnesses also admitted that they did not investigate the threat against the life of VP Sara, which is relevant to the case. The second NBI agent also admitted, upon questioning by Senator-Judge Robin Padilla, that no reported seditious acts were committed by any group of Filipinos from the time VP Sara uttered the alleged seditious remarks, which destroys the claim of the witness that the utterances of VP Sara had the tendency or the effect of inciting the people to sedition. The same witness also admitted that VP Sara was never seen nor participated in any protest rally staged by various groups, negating the claim that she had incited the people to commit sedition against the government.
The said NBI agent, when questioned as to the existing criminal charges of bribery, theft, robbery, arbitrary detention and unlawful arrest against him in the Office of the Ombudsman, evasively responded that NBI agents and other law enforcement agents commonly face criminal complaints, but he did not deny that he is currently charged with said crimes. That circumstance should somehow impair the integrity and credibility of the witness. One is tempted to ask: Is that why he so vigorously testified against VP Sara?
