VP Sara Duterte Impeachment Trial: Defense Considers Showing Entire Video

MANILA, Philippines — Showing the entire two-hour, 26-minute video of Vice President Sara Duterte’s online press briefing in November 2024 is still an option for the defense team. In an interview with ANC, defense spokesman Michael Poa said they may still proceed with the plan to play the entire video since only the clip of Duterte chief of staff Zuleika Lopez’s meltdown was shown during cross-examination last Wednesday. During cross examination, defense counsel Carlo Joaquin Narvasa moved to unseal the USB used by prosecution witness, National Bureau of Investigation senior agent John Mark Calilung, on the supposed online briefing of Duterte. Poa defended the move of the defense’s plan to play the entire video. He said the defense is also preparing for the testimony of Lopez as a hostile witness of the prosecution. The Senate impeachment court subpoenaed Lopez to appear as witness on July 13 and 14 after the House prosecution said her testimony would be crucial to buttressing the fourth Article of Impeachment against the Vice President. House prosecutor and Iloilo Rep. Lorenz Defensor informed the impeachment court that the prosecution decided to call Lopez after the defense argued that her detention by a House committee in 2024 prompted Duterte to issue the alleged threats against President Marcos, First Lady Liza Marcos and former House speaker Martin Romualdez. The prosecution argued that Lopez’s testimony can be used to establish context and corroborate other evidence in relation to the threats. The prosecution also announced that Jeremy Lotoc, then chief of the NBI Cybercrime Division, would be its next witness on July 13. Another witness called in is House Legislative Security Bureau executive director Belinda Bello. Whatever triggered the Vice President to unleash the alleged kill threat against the President is “immaterial” in the impeachment case against her, House prosecutor and Mamamayang Liberal party-list Rep. Leila de Lima said. De Lima made the statement after the defense, during trial, attempted to justify Duterte’s kill remarks by bringing up “Operation Romanov,” the alleged plot to kill Duterte and her family. “It’s immaterial. They cannot use that as justification or reason,” De Lima said during the Saturday News Forum. She said the threat has been “consummated” since it was made openly and publicly when it was live streamed. The broader issue before the Senate impeachment court, De Lima said, is whether Duterte’s conduct demonstrated if she remains fit to continue holding public office, if her conduct, as the second highest official of the land, is appropriate in threatening the life of the country’s highest official. For his part, House prosecutor Akbayan party-list Rep. Chel Diokno explained that an impeachment is fundamentally different from a criminal prosecution. He said the evidence under the fourth impeachment article should ultimately answer whether Duterte remains fit to continue serving as Vice President. “Will this establish that the Vice President is fit or not to hold her office?” he said during the forum. — Daphne Galvez