Batangas 2nd District Representative Gerville Luistro expressed feeling stymied during her questioning by Senators Robin Padilla and Pia Cayetano throughout Wednesday’s open court proceedings.
Speaking at a news conference following Wednesday’s Senate impeachment trial involving Vice President Sara Duterte, the lead prosecutor acknowledged that the inquiries from the senator-judges were a standard aspect of judicial process.
”Of course, ‘yung mga ganung interjections, that’s part of the trial. They are senator-judges and they have the prerogative to raise clarificatory questions anytime they want,” Luistro said.
Reflecting on her exchanges with Cayetano and Padilla—both viewed as allies of Duterte—the lawyer-legislator shared her frustration over her limited ability to elaborate.
“I feel deprived, deprived of the opportunity to explain,” Luistro said.
“It’s hard to be confronted with a question of ‘yes or no’ only because it’s important that you give context to your yes or to your no,” she added.
Padilla and Cayetano aggressively questioned Luistro regarding the prosecution’s witnesses. Cayetano specifically interrogated Luistro on the purpose behind entering self-confessed hitman Arturo Lascañas’s affidavit into evidence.
She demanded a straight answer on whether the document was being presented as factual truth or simply as part of the National Bureau of Investigation’s (NBI) inquiry into Duterte’s alleged death threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
Padilla focused his inquiries on the procedural aspects of the affidavit, including whether the document had been properly notarized.
The prosecution noted that the affidavit was referenced by NBI Director Melvin Matibag during his testimony to illustrate a alleged pattern of violent behavior by the Vice President.
They emphasized that the document was submitted solely to outline the timeline of the NBI’s investigation, rather than to validate the truth of its underlying allegations.
To address the situation, Luistro entered a formal manifestation before the impeachment court after feeling blocked from providing complete answers during Cayetano’s cross-examination.
“Hindi ko lang siya masyadong na-gets agad kahapon because apparently she tried to limit my answer to yes or no only, and I was not given opportunity to explain. And that is why I really tried na ma-manifest kanina to put it on record,” she explained.
Luistro pointed out that Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero, presiding over the trial, had repeatedly clarified during Matibag’s testimony that the Lascañas affidavit was admitted strictly to demonstrate the progression of the NBI investigation and for no other purpose.