MANILA, PHILIPPINES — The Senate Impeachment Court on Thursday, October 8, permitted the House prosecution panel to present summaries and tables prepared by its Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) witness as the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte resumed.
However, Presiding Officer Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero barred the prosecution from displaying the actual source documents or original BIR records containing the tax information of Duterte and her husband, Atty. Manases “Mans” Carpio, at this stage of the proceedings.
Escudero also reminded prosecution lawyer Atty. Erwin Matib to seek the court’s permission before presenting any source documents.
“The court, therefore, rules that the summary and table where the information was simply culled from the subpoeaned documents, without ruling on the confidentiality or prohibition to show the actual documents, will allow at this juncture the showing of the tables or the summaries, if any, which will be furnished to the parties and the senators,” Escudero said.
He likewise cautioned the prosecution against displaying documents that could contain information originally submitted by the BIR under a presidential letter authorizing the records to be provided to the impeachment court.
“As well, with the reminder to counsel Atty. Erwin not to flash any, subject to the reminder of Senator Pia Cayetano, not to flash any of the source documents that may contain information that was originally submitted in part of the submission of the BIR covered by the presidential letter allowing it to be submitted to the impeachment court,” he said.
Escudero instructed Matib to first obtain the court’s approval before showing such documents, noting that the Senate Impeachment Court could issue a separate ruling on the matter.
“Before doing that, kindly ask the permission of the court as the court may make a separate ruling on that matter,” the presiding officer said.
Before issuing the ruling, Escudero cited the 2012 impeachment trial of former Chief Justice Renato Corona as a precedent. He recalled that then-BIR Commissioner Kim Jacinto-Henares appeared before the Senate Impeachment Court and brought copies of Corona’s tax documents during the proceedings.
The ruling came as senators resumed hearing the impeachment case against Duterte, with the prosecution seeking to present information obtained from BIR records while observing restrictions on the disclosure of the underlying documents.