MANILA: The actions of Vice President Sara Duterte’s lawyers, particularly in checking documents, have delayed her impeachment trial, whether deliberate or not, prosecution spokesperson Benjamin Tolosa Jr said on Monday (Aug 10).
In a press briefing, Tolosa was asked about statements by defense deputy spokesperson Justin Gular over DZMM, where Gular said the defense would only be available to cross-check the acknowledgment receipts (ARs) for confidential expenses presented by the prosecution panel by Aug 14.
This would be more than a week after Senate Impeachment Court Presiding Officer Francis Escudero issued the directive.
“We were told last Wednesday that we had more than enough time to schedule it last Thursday or Friday or during the weekend. Maybe we would have appealed to the Senate clerk of court staff to accommodate us, like during the pre-trial. We were making that request if needed,” Tolosa told reporters.
“I don’t want to say that they are deliberately delaying the proceedings, but it is becoming clear from their actions during the pre-trial and what they showed when Atty. (Roderick) Wamil and Xylene (Mae del Campo) were presented, what they are doing — deliberate or not — causes delay,” he added.
Last Wednesday, after the prosecution finished its examination of Commission on Audit (COA) state auditor Wamil, it presented another witness, del Campo, who was set to testify on the ARs submitted by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) under Duterte for their confidential expenses.
However, the presentation of the witness was delayed as del Campo was asked to authenticate around 5,000 ARs, prompting the court to ask the defence to check the prosecution’s evidence.
Private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan suggested using the defense’s documents, joking that she did not want to spend her Thursday and Friday skimming through ARs.
But in an interview on Sunday, Gular said the earliest time the defense could allot to checking the documents was Aug 14.
“Honestly, it’s really only a matter of availability of our lawyers; if you recall, we’re only a 16-man and of course women defense panel, and really — that’s why Atty. Michael Poa said the defense team is really spread thin,” Gular explained.
“The suggestion coming from the prosecution as well as the Presiding Officer was given only on Wednesday […] and we lawyers have affixed our schedule ahead. So, we did our best, we adjusted some of our schedules and really, the next available date for us to attend to this is already August 14,” he added.
Tolosa said that while he was “glad” that the defence “admitted” that it had asked for Aug. 14, it would cause a delay because the hearing on the ARs was scheduled for Monday before it was suspended due to heavy rains.
He also questioned why the defence could not send someone from its team to monitor the document checking, stressing that not all 16 members needed to be present.
Tolosa said they would raise the matter during the next hearing, which will be on Tuesday.
“We will see how the presiding officer will appreciate it and act on it,” he added.
ARs are documents submitted to COA during confidential fund (CF) audits to prove that allocations reached their intended beneficiaries, who, in the case of the OVP and DepEd, are informants.
However, questions arose after House of Representatives lawmakers found that some ARs submitted by the OVP and DepEd contained fictitious personalities, such as Mary Grace Piattos, whose name does not appear in the Philippine Statistics Authority database for live birth, marriage and death records.
Eventually, the COA-Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office disallowed P73 million of the OVP’s P125 million in CF expenses for the fourth quarter of 2022 and the entire P375 million spent by the office from the first to third quarter of 2023 due to several anomalies.
The issue was then among the matters considered when the House twice impeached Duterte.
During his testimony on Aug 5, Wamil said that after auditing the confidential and intelligence fund expenses of more than 30 agencies over 10 years, it was only during Duterte’s time that he saw agencies rely solely on ARs and refrain from submitting supporting documents such as official receipts or sales invoices.
Last Monday, it was also revealed that P40 million of the OVP’s CF allocation for the fourth quarter of 2022 was used to buy medicines that were eventually used as rewards. Wamil noted that these were disallowed because the ARs did not show documentary evidence of payment or other details proving a successful information-gathering and surveillance activity.
Wamil explained that under Joint Circular No. 2015-01 — issued by the COA, Department of Budget and Management, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Governance Commission for GOCCs, and Department of National Defense and mandating the use of CFs — the purchase of medicines is not allowed.
On Tuesday, Wamil made the same observations about the OVP’s confidential expenses in 2023, saying Duterte’s office failed to provide documents evidencing payment and proving the success of information-gathering or surveillance activities.
The OVP also used P42 million in the first quarter of 2023 and another P40 million in the second quarter to buy medicines.
With Wamil’s testimony that failure to liquidate CF is presumed to be initial evidence of personal use, prosecution counsel Amando Virgil Ligutan said last Thursday that the burden of proving Duterte’s innocence has shifted to the defense panel. - Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
