VP Sara impeach trial could last 7 months

MANILA, Philippines — The upcoming impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte could last seven months, based on the proposed trial days of both prosecution and defense panels, Senate Secretary Renato Bantug said, making it the longest impeachment trial ever.

Speaking to radio dwIZ yesterday, Bantug said this was his assessment based on the request of 62 trial days by the prosecution and 30 trial days by the defense.

For a total of 92 trial days held only three times a week, this would make the whole proceedings run at least seven months.
But the timeline could be shortened if multiple witnesses are presented per day.

“If we are indeed reaching 92 trial days, that will be the longest impeachment trial so far,” Bantug said.

For comparison, the 2012 impeachment trial of the late chief justice Renato Corona ran 44 days. Meanwhile, the trial of deposed president Joseph Estrada lasted 23 days because it was aborted by the prosecution’s walkout over the refusal of the Senate impeachment court to open the controversial “second envelope,” which triggered the second EDSA people power uprising that ousted Estrada in 2001.

The Senate impeachment court is scheduled to open the trial on July 6.

With a months-long trial before it, the challenge now lies with how the Senate would juggle its function as impeachment court and its regular legislative role of passing laws and tackling the national budget.

Already, Senate finance   committee chair JV Ejercito yesterday said he hopes the trial would not affect the Senate’s deliberations on the proposed 2027 national budget.

Following the Department of Budget and Management’s announcement that the government is seeking a P7.2-trillion budget next year, Ejercito said in a dwIZ interview that the finance committee under him has its work cut out for it.

Another logistical challenge is how to manage the crowd of people when the impeachment trial coincides with the usual Senate committee hearings.

“That is a big challenge we need to face, and I think we can and will do it,” Bantug said.

Upon instructions of Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian, Bantug said his office would work over the weekend to finish drafting the pre-trial order that would summarize the five-day pre-trial conference proceedings that ended last Thursday.

The order would be released to both parties tomorrow for their comment, subject to revision based on the feedback.

‘Mystery box’

The defense has responded to the prosecution’s request to unseal and mark as evidence the green Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) box containing the tax records and income tax returns of the Vice President and her husband, Manases Carpio.

After aggressively blocking even the basic physical marking of the sealed box during the five-day pre-trial conference, the defense has now submitted a filing accepting its opening “in principle.”

However, House prosecution panel trial spokesman Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong questioned why the defense bottlenecked the pre-trial hearings if this was their eventual direction.

“If this was going to be the defense’s position all along, why wait until after the pre-trial conference to say so? If they were prepared to agree in principle to the opening of the BIR box, why oppose even the simple marking of the sealed box during the hearing?” Adiong asked at the Saturday News Forum in Quezon City.

The defense’s new conditional acceptance comes with strings attached: they proposed that the unsealing and pre-marking of the tax records happen in a separate executive session, while reserving their right to object to the documents’ ultimate admissibility.

Prosecutors warned that this layout could introduce unnecessary delays.

“Is another executive session necessary simply to unseal and pre-mark the box, or will it add another procedural step before the pre-trial order can be issued and the trial can formally begin? That is now for the impeachment court to determine,” Adiong said.

“Opening and pre-marking documents do not automatically make them evidence. Those issues will still be decided by the impeachment court during the trial,” he said.

Technicalities

As the Senate prepares the formal pre-trial order to establish the rules of engagement for Duterte’s trial, House prosecutors criticized her 51-page answer for having “no plan” to face core corruption and grave threat allegations, claiming her defense is merely hiding behind “recycled” procedural technicalities.

Adiong said the Vice President’s newly publicized submission relies almost entirely on arguments that the Senate proceedings are void due to alleged bad faith and manifest partiality.

“It only confirms our initial observation that the defense could not provide particular counter-evidence or argument to challenge, even to contest, the allegations contained under the Articles of Impeachment,” Adiong said.

Adiong noted that the submission directly contradicts the defense’s previous public assertions that they were prepared to dismantle the allegations on their merits at the proper venue.

No absolute freedom

House prosecutors rejected Duterte’s claim that her public remarks ordering the assassination of top government officials are protected free speech, warning that normalizing such threats could have dangerous societal consequences.

The prosecution panel’s statements followed the filing of the Vice President’s answer before the Senate impeachment court, where her camp argued that her controversial November 2024 press conference remarks fall within the ambit of freedom of expression.

During that Zoom briefing, Duterte stated she had instructed someone to kill Marcos, the First Lady and then-speaker Romualdez if an alleged plot against her succeeded, explicitly adding that it was “No joke.”

“All lawyers would agree that there’s no such thing as absolute freedom. All freedoms are also subject to some regulation,” Adiong said.

For his part, Deputy Speaker Paolo Ortega V drew a sharp comparison between Duterte’s situation and the 2020 arrest of public school teacher Ronnel Mas, who was jailed for jokingly offering a P50-million bounty on Twitter to anyone who could kill then-president Rodrigo Duterte.

“An ordinary teacher can be jailed for offering P50 million, on a social media post, to assassinate the president. But when it’s the Vice President saying she spoke to someone who would kill the President, First Lady and Speaker if anything happens to her, suddenly it’s free speech?” Ortega said.

Ortega argued that the Vice President’s statements carry far more weight, since she is the immediate constitutional successor to the presidency, making her words a matter of public trust rather than private opinion.

Adiong also addressed the recent appeal from former Davao City court sheriff Abe Andres to be excluded from the witness list.

Andres, whom Duterte famously punched during a 2011 demolition operation, asked to be spared from the “partisan political matters.”

While acknowledging Andres’ reluctance to relive the “embarrassing” encounter, Adiong maintained that the decision is no longer up to him or the prosecution, especially if the court issues a subpoena to potential witnesses. — Neil Jayson Servallos