MANILA — Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio’s defense team denied deliberately dragging out her impeachment trial, insisting that its request to conduct document stipulation on Aug. 14 is necessary to carefully scrutinize evidence that could no longer be challenged once its authenticity is accepted.
Defense deputy spokesperson Atty. Justin Gular said the 16-member legal team had to work around the availability of its lawyers and had already adjusted their schedules to accommodate the document review at the earliest possible date.
“This is not delay. Ganito po talaga ang sistema natin sa trial,” Gular said in a radio interview.
Stipulation involves the prosecution and defense reviewing and agreeing on the identification and authenticity of documents to be presented as evidence, potentially eliminating the need to prove those matters during the trial.
Gular said the process could take considerable time because of the volume of records involved and stressed that the defense must thoroughly examine the documents before agreeing to their authenticity.
Once both sides stipulate to the authenticity of a document, the defense could no longer contest that particular aspect later in the proceedings, he said.
“The defense has all the right to be prudent and careful,” Gular said.
He also maintained that the scheduled document review would not interfere with the testimony of Commission on Audit auditor Xylene Del Campo.
Gular acknowledged concerns that the Aug. 14 schedule could be viewed as a delaying maneuver but maintained that the defense was merely following normal trial procedures.
The prosecution, however, questioned why the document comparison was not completed during the pre-trial stage, arguing that prosecutors had already attempted to coordinate with the defense before the impeachment trial resumed.
Prosecution counsel Atty. Jay Tolosa said the prosecution wanted both sides to review the documents in advance to prevent interruptions once proceedings were underway.
“For some reason, they refused to even compare the documents with ours,” Tolosa said.
Tolosa said previous hearings had already been interrupted for lengthy periods because the prosecution and defense still had to jointly examine documents during the proceedings.
The interruptions, he said, had frustrated some senators sitting as impeachment judges — a situation the prosecution had sought to prevent.
“We were trying to avoid this,” Tolosa said.
Tolosa said the prosecution would raise the issue with Senate President Pro Tempore Francis “Chiz” Escudero, who is presiding over the impeachment proceedings, to make clear that prosecutors should not be blamed for any delay resulting from the document review.
The Senate impeachment court is hearing the complaint against Duterte-Carpio, with the proceedings focusing, among other issues, on allegations involving the use of confidential funds during her tenure as vice president and education secretary./PN
