Sara’s senator-allies: Digging her deeper into the hole

This week’s impeachment trial was entertaining, thanks largely to the awkward and often self-defeating defense mounted by senators openly sympathetic to twice-impeached Vice President Sara Duterte. Their eagerness to shield the Vice President was remarkable not only for its brazenness, but also for how casually they abandoned even the pretense of any impartiality expected of senator-judges. Instead of weighing the evidence, they appeared determined to litigate on Duterte’s behalf. Worse, the mental gymnastics they performed in trying to defend the Vice President had the opposite effect; with every strained argument, they only pushed Sara deeper into the quicksand.

This came as the House prosecution continued to tighten its case, presenting documentary evidence and witness testimony on Duterte’s alleged misuse and fraudulent liquidation of millions of pesos in confidential funds. Among the most consequential witnesses was a former Commission on Audit (COA) auditor who personally evaluated the transactions and testified that there was prima facie evidence of abuse.

Leading the defense was Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, who proudly declared before the impeachment court and the entire nation that he was “neutral.” Yeah, right. “Morally neutered” is a more accurate description. This is the same senator-judge who said that a death threat is only a threat if there is a dead body, and that Sara’s threat against her dynastic rival was only conditional, as if imposing conditions makes a personal death threat against another person permissible and less criminal.

Alan Peter, “the neutral,” then immediately delivered a non-neutral intervention that favored the Vice President. He questioned the former COA auditor, arguing that a prima facie finding is not final or conclusive. The statement is legally correct, but spectacularly beside the point.

A prima facie finding does not mean that the presumption of innocence has been replaced by a finding of guilt. But neither does it mean that the presumption remains untouched by the evidence that has emerged. It simply means the probe has already crossed the threshold from mere allegation to a reasonable presumption that wrongdoing may have occurred. The case has advanced precisely because the evidence was found sufficient to warrant further proceedings.

Cayetano’s argument ironically conceded exactly that. By stressing that a prima facie finding is “not yet final,” he implicitly acknowledged that the case has already progressed well beyond the stage of mere accusation and suspicion. The process is no longer asking whether there is anything worth investigating; it is now determining whether the evidence ultimately proves guilt.

To use a basketball analogy, a sport Alan Peter loves, even if watching him play is an assault on the eyes, this is no longer the opening tip-off. The case has survived the early rounds and is already in the semifinals. Pointing out that the championship has not yet been won is hardly a defense; it merely confirms that the team is very much in contention. Nobody mistakes a semifinalist for someone who failed to qualify.

In trying to undermine the significance of a prima facie finding, Cayetano ended up underscoring precisely why it matters.

Second to mount a defense of Sara was Sen. Imee Marcos. The estranged sister of the President attempted to pin responsibility for the alleged misuse of confidential funds on the Vice President’s staff. Through her questioning of the witness, Imee sought to shift accountability away from Sara and onto the Office of the Vice President’s Special Disbursing Officer (SDO) and other personnel. She argued that since the SDO physically received and disbursed the confidential funds, the SDO, not the Vice President, should answer for any misuse.

Bravo! In trying to exonerate Sara, Imee reinforced the prosecution’s assertion that the confidential funds were, in fact, misused. Her argument was no longer about whether abuses occurred, but merely about who should carry the blame.

Has the senator conveniently forgotten that responsibility does not disappear simply because someone else physically handled the cash? The House prosecution has already presented documents showing that Sara personally signed requests for the release of confidential funds, certifications and official documents seeking their allocation to her office and papers designating the officials, including the SDO, who would administer those funds.

Simply put, while the SDO handles the cash, the Vice President authorizes the funds and bears ultimate responsibility for ensuring that they are used lawfully, properly and in accordance with the rules.

Not to be outdone, Sen. Robin Padilla once again shared with us his infinite wisdom. Seeking to justify the Vice President’s questionable confidential fund expenditures, he argued that because the CPP-NPA did not launch attacks on the dates when checks were issued to Duterte’s office, the confidential funds may have helped prevent those attacks.

Stupendous! Following Robin’s amazing logic, every time we bring an umbrella and it doesn’t rain, the umbrella must have scared away the clouds. If the lights don’t go out after buying a flashlight, then the flashlight must have prevented a blackout, and an earthquake didn’t happen because someone took a bubble bath. Robin just unlocked the secrets of the universe.

With allies like these, Sara doesn’t need the prosecution team to pin her down. Her allies in the impeachment court are doing the job for them. In their pathetic attempts to defend Sara, arguments that often defied both common sense and basic logic, they only accomplished the opposite. They reinforced the prosecution’s assertions, conceded key premises and advanced arguments that collapsed under even the slightest scrutiny.

Instead of plugging the holes in Sara’s defense, her senator-allies kept punching new ones into it. Every attempt they made to pull the Vice President out of the hole only handed her another shovel.