THE historic, much-awaited impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte — the second-highest official of the land who, despite all the credible surveys of the presidential elections in 2022 showing that she had the presidency in the palm of her hand, opted to slide to being the running mate of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who undoubtedly without the Duterte name attached to his would have not decisively won the presidency — finally commenced last July 6, with the highest expectations of victory for the polarized political forces in the country. The prosecution has expressed confidence of a conviction for the respondent, while the latter anticipates a bloodbath and bludgeoning but coming out “bloodied and unbowed,” in Sara’s own fiery words.
With the Senate president unconstitutionally removed as the presiding officer — obviously because he cannot be dictated on the manner he will handle the impeachment hearing to get the desired result by the brains behind the move to oust Sara and bar her from seeking the presidency, as well as the incarceration of the latter’s father at The Hague — and the malleable senator, accused of being part of the anomalous flood control funds scandal and who somersaulted to form the new majority, taking over the helm of the impeachment court, the trial has begun in earnest.
The impeachment court and the public were misled into believing that a female private member of the House of Representatives’ prosecution team would be handling the presentation of the first prosecution witness. Instead of doing so, however, she addressed the court and made a manifestation on the surprise appearance of the vice president in the Senate building to confer with her defense team. She pushed for VP Sara’s appearance in court and announced that the prosecution team would call her as a hostile witness. The manifestation was not only unnecessary but improper as well. Apparently, apart from using the deception to slam VP Sara, the female lawyer just wanted to get media mileage and flaunt her role as part of the prosecution team.
Another private counsel for the prosecution panel formally informed the court that he would present the first witness, a National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agent, and immediately thereafter launched a propaganda spiel for the prosecution’s cause, making adverse remarks against the vice president that drew a sharp objection and rebuke from the defense lawyer for being improper in stating the purpose for presenting the witness.
The presiding officer, either showing this early his bias against the defense team or exposing his ignorance of the rules, overruled the objection and allowed the private prosecutor, who obviously was hungry for publicity and his first shot at prominence, to continue with his propaganda narrative against the respondent.
Despite repeated objections of the defense counsel, the presiding officer, in blatant violation of court procedure, did not reconsider his erroneous ruling and incredibly gave the stupid reason that he would like to hear the private counsel’s peroration before he would decide to strike it out from the record, forgetting that allowing the improper remarks to be made would make its removal from the record useless as the millions of people watching the live television and online coverage of the event would have already heard the offending and inappropriate statements.
Realizing his unforgivable procedural error, the presiding officer had to allow the defense team to make its own rebuttal, thus converting the impeachment court into a propaganda proceeding.
Senator-judges should not be limited to two minutes
The rule in the impeachment trial limiting the senator-judges to a two-minute probing of a witness is wrong as it impedes the ferreting out of the truth. The ultimate purpose of a trial is to get to the truth on the innocence and guilt of an accused. Confining the questioning of a witness to two minutes defeats the very purpose of the judicial proceeding, and for that matter, a congressional probe as well.
Like the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, and the Sandiganbayan, the impeachment court is a collegial court. Members of the aforementioned courts during a hearing of a case are not limited to two minutes when any of them subjects a witness to judicial scrutiny. Questions from the court or the presiding judge and from the justices of a superior court are vital to determining the credibility of a witness or to finding out the truth of certain alleged facts of the case which may not have been unearthed, owing to the omission or inadequacy of either of the opposing counsels examining the witness. It becomes the duty of every senator-judge to propound such important questions to elicit the circumstances for the judicious consideration of those who will render judgment. Whether the question may appear to favor any side is of no moment, the paramount consideration is for the truth to come out.
Authenticating undisputed video a waste of time
The presentation of the prosecution witness/NBI agent to authenticate the existence and contents of a video of an online press conference involving the vice president, which took more than five hours, was a waste of time and taxing to the patience of the viewers because the video’s existence and its contents were not in dispute. The defense panel never questioned its existence, nor did it deny the remarks made by VP Sara. What is at issue is whether or not the utterance made by the respondent is a crime of grave threat to make it an impeachable offense. The testimony of that witness would not prove the vice president’s guilt under the fourth article of impeachment. The parties could have just entered into a stipulation of facts during the pretrial stage on the authenticity of the video and agreed to the showing of the entire video in court for the appreciation of the impeachment court.
Senate president should intervene when procedural errors are made
There were pronounced procedural errors committed by the presiding officer as pointed out above. The Senate president, as the constitutionally designated head of the Senate functioning as an impeachment court, is duty-bound to ask the collegial body to overrule or junk the de facto presiding officer’s blatant procedural violations should he prove to be recalcitrant.
To allow those procedural transgressions to go unchecked and uncorrected would impair the integrity of the impeachment court, making its verdict unacceptable. It should be avoided at all costs.
