A member of the House prosecution team on Saturday said the leadership struggle rocking the Senate was an “extraneous matter” that would not have an impact on their evidence to convict Vice President Sara Duterte in her imminent impeachment trial.
The fight for Senate control between two factions—one of which is seen as pro-Duterte—provides the potentially unstable venue for the trial, which is scheduled to begin on July 6. Under current rules, the Senate president presides over the trial.
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“It’s an extraneous matter that doesn’t concern the prosecution panel,” Bicol Saro Rep. Terry Ridon, one of the 11 House prosecutors, said at the Saturday News Forum.
“We will present it (the case) based on the evidence, so whoever the presiding officer is, it does not really matter to the panel itself,” he said. “Truth to tell, we still have to convince each and every senator-judge in the course of the proceeding.”
He noted that the prosecution would still need at least 16 out of the 24 senators to vote for conviction.
Duterte was impeached on charges of betrayal of public trust, culpable violation of the Constitution, graft, corruption and bribery. She allegedly misused P612.5 million in confidential funds, had unexplained wealth and arranged for the assassination of President Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos and former Speaker Martin Romualdez.
Still confident of ’16’
Ridon said the evidence they would present to the senator-judges will include reports from the Anti-Money Laundering Act, which flagged bank transactions (deposits and withdrawals) amounting to P6.77 billion in Duterte’s joint bank accounts with her husband.
“Whether the (Senate) leadership changes or not, I’m quite certain that we will be able to muster the numbers to convict the vice president. We will get to 16 irrespective of who the leadership was and who the leadership is,” Ridon said.
In public statements, Duterte said she wasn’t taking sides in the Senate leadership dispute.
The leadership tussle is between the new 12-member majority led by Sen. Sherwin “Win” Gatchalian, 52, who was elected on June 3 as Senate President Pro Tempore and acting Senate president, and the 10-member minority led by ousted Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano, 55.
No Senate president, however, has been elected as the Constitution specifically requires that at least 13 votes are necessary to install a senator to the post.
The Gatchalian group has called on Cayetano, who insisted that he was the “legal, legitimate and moral” Senate leader, to resign.
‘Pathetic’
Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson criticized Cayetano for clinging to his post despite his tenuous position.
“He is pathetic,” he said in a statement on Saturday. “I do not know why he is acting weirdly lately. He is so detached from reality.”
He said Cayetano should “listen to reason” and accept that the position taken by the 12 senators on June 3 was recognized by Malacañang, the House of Representatives, retired Supreme Court Justice Adolf Azcuna, one of the framers of the 1987 Constitution, former Senate President Franklin Drilon, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, and law deans and professors.
The 12 senators said they were the majority based on the new count of senators who are able to participate in Senate sessions—22, instead of 24, after two of them were deemed outside of the “coercive jurisdiction” of the chamber, following a 1949 Supreme Court ruling on a similar case.
The current leadership shakeup began on May 11—the same day the House impeached Duterte—when then Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III was ousted by 13 senators who elected Cayetano to replace him.
The crucial vote came from Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who surfaced that day after hiding for six months to evade an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Two days later, Dela Rosa, who was under the Senate’s “protective custody,” sneaked out of the building and went into hiding again with the aid of Sen. Robinhood Padilla. The Department of Justice declared him a fugitive from justice. Padilla and Cayetano face a criminal complaint for obstruction of justice.
Root of dispute
A critical dispute between the then Cayetano-led majority and the then 11-member minority arose over a proposal by Sen. Rodante Marcoleta to amend Senate rules to allow senators who cannot show up at the Senate to participate in the sessions remotely.
Sen. Erwin Tulfo, who belongs to the Gatchalian camp, said this was proposed in anticipation of the possible arrest of several senators belonging to the Cayetano group over corruption charges.
The arrest of Sen. Jinggoy Estrada on plunder and graft charges and the fugitive status of Dela Rosa reduced the Cayetano group reduced to 11 members. The appearance of Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero on June 3 further reduced their ranks and raised the number those present during the session that day to rise to 12, thus establishing a quorum to conduct business.
In addition to electing Gatchalian, the new Senate secretary and security chief, they also replaced all the heads of the committees, including the blue ribbon committee, which was headed by Cayetano’s sister, Pia Cayetano and is now under Erwin Tulfo.
Only Win is recognized
Asked whether it was possible to have two different impeachment trials under two impeachment courts due to the leadership row, Ridon pointed out that the House had already recognized Gatchalian’s leadership.
“In our view, separate trials will not happen as there is only one group that has the capacity to convene, first, the plenary and the impeachment court—that is no other than under the leadership of Senate President Pro Tempore Sherwin Gatchalian,” he said.
He also believes that many senator-judges from both the majority and minority blocs would be convinced to vote for Duterte’s conviction once the pieces of evidence are presented to them, he said.
To display control over the Senate, Cayetano and his sister, led a rump session on Thursday of a blue ribbon committee inquiry into the flood control scandal.
The proceedings, however, did not have secretariat support, a sign of who was really in control of the Senate, after Gatchalian and Tulfo announced that the bonafide blue ribbon panel would hold its hearing on Monday, June 18.
The Thursday “hearing” was presided over by Marcoleta, who called on 18 men who claimed they had served as security personnel for former Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co, an ex-chair of the House appropriations committee. They were led by lawyer Levito Baligod.
Repeated claims
The Baligod group repeated earlier claims that they delivered hundreds of millions of cash packed in suitcases from Co to the President, Romualdez, Sotto, Tulfo, Lacson and other politicians.
They also said others who received money from Co included Mamamayang Liberal Rep. Leila de Lima, Ridon, members of the House Makabayan bloc and Rep. Gerville Luistro, the head of the House prosecution panel in the impeachment trial.
Tulfo and Sotto said they would file libel and cyberlibel cases against Baligod and his group.
Angered by the rump session, Tulfo warned that he would order the arrest of any Senator, including Cayetano, if they tried to hold another hearing.
“I don’t care if you are a former Senate President, former Speaker of the House, I don’t give a fuck,” he said in an interview with GMA news.
Lacson said that Cayetano “desperately dragged” his name in the “bogus” blue ribbon committee hearing “without an iota of evidence.”
“He exposed his loathsome behavior by using overstretched innuendos. He is disgusting,” Lacson said. INQ
