House, VP Defense Submit Impeachment Pre-Trial Briefs To Senate

The 11-member House of Representatives prosecution panel and the legal defense team of Vice President Sara Duterte submitted their respective pre-trial briefs on Monday, June 15, setting the stage for a pre-trial conference on June 18 as scheduled.

Acting Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian’s Senate Secretary Renato Bantug Jr. received the 57-page documents from House Secretary General Cheloy Garafil before 5 p.m.

Duterte’s camp submitted its own – with over 60 pages – about an hour later.

The submission of the pre-trial briefs marks a critical procedural milestone, as these documents lay down the foundation of both camps’ legal strategies as well as pieces of evidence and rosters of witnesses.

Bantug told reporters that pre-trial conference serves as a venue to simplify the trial. He said senator-judges are not required to attend but they are welcome if they decide to.

“We have a list of stipulations of facts to which the defense may answer either admitted or not admitted. The purpose of this is to reduce the number of issues that will be disputed during the trial,” lead prosecutor Rep. Gerville Luistro said.

“The significance of this is that it serves like a blueprint, a roadmap, and this is what we will follow when we begin the trial. And apparently, the rule is that only the matters included in the pre-trial brief or contained in the pre-trial order may be presented during the presentation of evidence,” she said.

The second district congresswoman from Batangas said the stipulation of facts would be tackled during the pre-trial conference on June 18.

Trial is tentatively set for July 6, during which Duterte is expected to appear to answer allegations of unexplained wealth, threatening to have the First Couple assassinated, abuse in the use of P612.5-million confidential funds, among other allegations.

The House prosecution panel will present more than 30 witnesses, with the identities of some of them as well as documentary evidence likely to be withheld from the public at the pre-trial stage for security and procedural reasons.

Speaking ahead of the filing of the prosecution’s pre-trial brief, Luistro said the witness list grew after prosecutors decided to include additional individuals whose testimony could help establish the allegations contained in the Articles of Impeachment.

“It is more than 25. The witnesses is not only 25, it’s not only 30, it’s even more,” Luistro told reporters at a press conference.

She said the prosecution opted to broaden its witness pool because impeachment rules generally require witnesses to be identified during pre-trial proceedings before they can be allowed to testify.

“So if before we’re trying to limit corroborative witnesses, we’re selecting only the most important witnesses, we wanted to make sure that all testimony will be presented in court, and that is why we considered other witnesses whose testimony are likewise significant.”

Luistro said rules also allow parties to reserve certain witnesses and evidence, provided they sufficiently describe their relevance and intended purpose. The mechanism is intended to address security concerns involving witnesses when documents are not yet available during pre-trial.