MANILA, Philippines — There will be no surprises.
That is the assurance of the House Prosecution Team amid the possibility that there could be suprise witnesses or evidence as it submits its pre-trial brief to the Senate in preparation for Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment trial starting next month.
The pre-trial conference is slated on June 18, Thursday.
In a press briefing on Monday, House lead prosecutor and Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro said that Impeachment Court has ruled that witnesses who are named and evidence that are not marked in the pre-trial will not be presented.
"We will not compromise the necessity of presenting vital witnesses just to be able to have some surprises during the trial. No, that will not happen. Because it will compromise our case," Luistro said.
It should be noted that during the impeachment trial of former president Joseph Estrada, the proseuction presented its "surprise witness", Clarissa Ocampo, a former executive of Equitable PCI Bank, who testified on the signatures of the "Jose Velarde" account that was proved to be signed by Estrada.
The prosecution also presented its evidence, a "second envelope" containing additional bank records of Estrada. This was not opened by 11 senator-judges and led to Estrada's downfall through "Edsa Dos".
Meanwhile, Luistro said that the prosecution aims to explore the use of Filipino and other regional language translations during the trial to make the proceedings easier for ordinary Filipinos to understand.
They aim to formally raise the proposal on the pre-trial conference slated for June 18.
“I wish to formalize as well on this upcoming pre-trial conference, the possibility of us, the prosecutors, and even the defense, to use Filipino language when the same is possible,” Luistro said.
The prosecution, she added, wants the proceedingss to be accessible to the public as they note that impeachment is a constitutional process that affects the Filipino people.
House Impeachment spokesman and Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong said that discussions are also underway to make the impeachment proceedings more accessible, and said that the trial is expected to involve technical legal arguments and terminology that many Filipinos would find it difficult to follow.
“Once the impeachment trial begins, the audience will be hearing technical legal terms that are not necessarily quite understandable, easily to understand by the public," Adiong said.
