Palace: Trial will be bloody if truth not revealed

MANILA, Philippines —  The impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte would be “bloody” if the public would not get the truth about the allegations hurled against her, Malacañang said yesterday. 
Duterte, who has been accused of corruption and plotting to kill President Marcos, First Lady Liza Marcos and former House speaker Martin Romualdez, on Tuesday said that amid the “bloodbath and bludgeoning,” she would be “bloodied but unbowed.”

In reaction, Malacañang press officer Claire Castro said the Vice President has not refuted the accusations against her. 
“Well, anyway, she feels that this is a bloodbath and we know that she wished for it. She wanted this bloodbath,” Castro said at a press briefing.
“But in her brief statement yesterday (Tuesday), we did not hear any denial of the accusations against her. She lets her lawyers (do their job) and perhaps that is their strategy, since the physical presence of the Vice President is not yet needed during the hearing yesterday,” she added.
Castro said the public would like to hear the Vice President deny the allegations against her instead of relying solely on technicalities to defend herself.

“It would really be bloody if the people do not see the truth and that is what our countrymen are looking for – to know the truth behind the accusations against her,” Castro added.

She noted that Duterte’s statement came from the poem “Invictus” by English poet William Ernest Henley. 
“We are happy that the Vice President’s statements now have basis,” she added. 
Castro said many legal luminaries have argued that there is nothing that prohibits a senator who is not the Senate president from presiding over an impeachment trial. She was asked to react to critics who questioned the Senate’s decision to designate Sen. Francis Escudero as presiding officer of the impeachment trial.

“It is within their (critics) right to go to the Supreme Court. But what are they afraid of if ever a lawyer sits as the presiding officer of the impeachment?” Castro said.

Castro also responded to Sen. Pia Cayetano’s remark that members of the Senate majority bloc can contact Malacañang if a special session is needed to discuss the impeachment rules because the Palace is “supportive” of them.
“First, we would like to send our regards to Sen. Pia Cayetano. How is Sen. Pia Cayetano? Because every time she talks, very recently, she seems to be out of breath and we do not know if it is due to excitement (or) anxiety,” Castro said, alluding to the senator’s remarks after the recent shooting incident at the Senate.
Castro said Marcos would support the actions of the Senate as long as they are within the bounds of the law.

Defense weak?

Meanwhile, militant lawmakers have observed that the Vice President’s camp seemed to have a weak or no defense at all in the ongoing impeachment trial.

They added the defense should go beyond technical objections and get to the crux of the matter.

“We have noticed two things in the opening statement of the defense – one, there’s no full-stop claim that VP Sara is innocent,” Rep. Renee Co, one of the spokespersons in the prosecution panel, said on Tuesday.

The Kabataan party-list representative, also a lawyer, said the omission, whether deliberate or not, was striking because the defense counsel’s opening should have directly challenged the central allegations against Duterte.

“That was what we were looking for in the opening statement of the defense panel. Secondly, they also didn’t address the Article of Impeachment on the death threats against President Marcos,” the neophyte opposition legislator stressed.

Her colleague in the Makabayan bloc, Rep. Antonio Tinio (ACT Teachers party-list), agreed.

“She’s just resorting to pure drama instead, and seems not to be taking the impeachment trial seriously,” the deputy minority Leader explained, referring to Duterte’s one-liner, “In this bloodbath and bludgeoning, I will be bloodied but unbowed.”

“Her statement is just pure drama. She didn’t address any of the allegations. She didn’t show the public that she is indeed ready to face the trial in person,” Tinio said, also noting that the “endless objections and delays expose the weakness of Duterte’s case.”

All of these “relentless procedural objections,” he said, only show that they are resorting to “delaying tactics” and “reveal the weakness of VP Duterte’s position and her unwillingness to seriously engage the accountability process.”

Tinio stressed that the defense’s primary strategy is to prevent evidence from reaching the public and the Senate through technical obstruction, a tactic that inadvertently exposes the gravity of Duterte’s violations.

What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Applying this proverb, the House prosecution team insisted that the Vice President should be held accountable for declaring openly that she wanted to have President Marcos killed, noting this also happened in the previous administration.

Benjamin Tolosa Jr., spokesman for the prosecution, cited a case of deja vu where Ronnel Mas, a public school teacher from Zambales, was arrested in May 2020 for posting on social media that he wanted former president Rodrigo Duterte killed.

Agents of the National Bureau of Investigation arrested Mas for posting on Twitter he was willing to give a P50-million “reward” to anybody who could assassinate the former president. He was charged with inciting to sedition but was later released after his arrest was declared unlawful.

“If the teacher in the previous administration who threatened the life of the former president was arrested, then I think we should have a higher level of penalty for a very high public official to hold her for accountability,” Tolosa said during a news briefing at the Senate, referring to the Vice President.

Tolosa thumbed down the position of the Duterte camp that the alleged threat on Marcos was “conditional,” only if the Vice President would herself be killed.

For the House prosecution panel, efforts to question the 16-vote threshold in convicting the Vice President is not a priority. - Delon Porcalla, Daphne Galvez