Drilon: Technicalities Slowing Down Impeachment Trial

The impeachment proceedings could be expedited by not focusing too much on the technical details of Vice President Sara Duterte’s alleged grave threats, according to former Senate president Franklin Drilon.

Speaking to radio dwIZ on Saturday, July 11, Drilon shared the public’s frustration with the slow pace of the first three days of the trial, with both parties objecting to each other’s questions on the authenticity of the Nov. 23, 2024 press briefing where Duterte said she had contracted an assassin against President Marcos, the First Lady and the former speaker if they succeed in killing her first.

Drilon said there was no question as to its authenticity because even the Vice President referred her controversial remarks.

He said the impeachment trial should not determine if she is guilty of grave threats but instead look into whether or not she committed an impeachable offense like betrayal of public trust when she said she had hired an assassin to kill the President.

He also could not understand the point of Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano when he asked the prosecution’s witness, National Bureau of Investigation senior agent John Mark Calilung, if he agrees with him that the Vice President’s remark was merely a “conditional threat” based on the event that she is killed first.

“Even so, conditional or not, this is not a trial to determine if she is guilty of grave threats. This is a trial to determine if her actions are acceptable as a Vice President. Is it betrayal of public trust if you tell me you’ll kill me?” he said. 

Drilon disagreed with restricting the questions to be asked by the senator-judges, following the reprimand on Sen. Risa Hontiveros for her question on whether or not the remarks constituted an impeachable offense already, which Alan Peter and Pia Cayetano found leading.

“The senator-judges have the power and discretion to ask questions in the manner they see fit. Whatever they think needs to be asked to reveal the truth, they should not be restricted,” he added.

As to the Vice President and her husband’s tax records, Drilon said the Senate impeachment court can order it opened and entered as evidence.

While he is not in favor of the President stepping in and would prefer the Senate impeachment court to decide, Drilon said the President can order it opened to appease the public who still remember how the court’s refusal to open the “second envelope” during the 2000 impeachment trial of former president Joseph Estrada triggered the EDSA People Power Dos and led to his ouster.

Drilon was senator-judge in both the Estrada impeachment trial and that of the late chief justice Renato Corona in 2012.