Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero, presiding over the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, ordered her defense panel to conduct a joint re-examination of thousands of documents concerning the alleged misuse of confidential funds.
The directive came after the defense team refused to stipulate to 4,492 acknowledgment receipts (ARs) submitted by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) to the Commission on Audit (COA).
The impasse slowed proceedings during Day 13 of the trial as prosecution witness Xylene del Campo, a COA auditor, struggled to individually identify the voluminous records in open court.
Defense counsel Atty. Kristine Ferrer argued that del Campo was merely turning pages without verifying the receipts against earlier records, prompting prosecution lawyer Atty. Lorna Kapunan to counter that the delay stemmed directly from the defense’s refusal to stipulate during the pre-trial phase.
Ferrer objected to initial proposals to identify documents outside open court, citing potential evidentiary issues and expressing doubt over the documents held by the prosecution:
“We will not stipulate. We didn’t stipulate for the case for Wamil; the case is in the same position, and the same position is maintained for the case of this witness. Because after the ARs have been submitted to the COA, the OVP (Office of the Vice President) and DepEd (Department of Education) no longer had control over the ARs, so we do not know what the receipts are provided by COA and how many receipts were given by COA to the prosecution,” Ferrer explained.
To address the trust deficit, Kapunan offered to use the defense team’s own marked copies of the receipts to move the examination forward:
“Maybe we can even use their own documents. If they do not trust the prosecution’s documents or photocopies of the prosecution’s documents, then we will use their documents, because we are certain that their documents is the same as our documents,” Kapunan pointed out.
Intervening to break the deadlock, Escudero sought to clarify the purpose of the proposed document comparison:
“Apparently, the respondent, or counsel for respondent has a different purpose and/or intention with respect to the ARs from that of the prosecutor. Therefore, that’s why they refuse. A common marking on the same AR, is that correct? So they have their own set of ARs and you have your own set ARs that was marked during pre-trial. Correct, counsels?” Escudero asked.
Escudero reassured the defense that comparing the documents would not compromise their arguments regarding authenticity:
“We will not touch in to that, counsel for respondent, so your concern with respect to authenticity and purpose will not be touched on. Only in so far as that it is the same AR that you received, it is the same AR that you sent to the COA that you also have a copy of that AR presented. And in so far as the ARs that you did not send to COA or did not come from you, then you can point that out to as the case may be or as may be appropriate,” he told Ferrer.
Although the defense conceded to a review session provided they are not forced to stipulate, both panels have yet to finalize a specific date and time to compare the records.