Impeachment prosecutors renew bid for VP Sara Duterte's BIR records

The House prosecution panel has asked the Senate impeachment court to order the submission of an expanded list of Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) records of Vice President Sara Duterte, her husband Manases Carpio, and the businesses they own. House prosecutors Gerville Luistro of Batangas and Chel Diokno of Akbayan party-list made the announcement in the aftermath of the Senate impeachment court’s decision to return a box of tax records, which was the result of a subpoena issued by the House prosecution panel during its deliberations on the impeachment complaints, back to the BIR. “About the BIR box, we understand the position of the impeachment court. Nevertheless, we filed a new request for issuance of subpoena and that pertains to an expanded list of documents of the BIR. Not only the ITR, which we believe are contained in the documents because that sealed BIR box was submitted to us in the HRep [House of Representatives] because of our issuance of subpoena of income tax returns,” Luistro said. “We [sought for a subpoena for an expanded list because we ] need that to be able to support the Articles of Impeachment. When we present a case, we want to present the clear picture, the complete picture. We cannot do partial presentation, or just a certain portion of the story. We need to present the entire complete story of what happened, and that is why we are requesting for all the pertinent records of the BIR,” she added. While the National Internal Revenue Code provides for confidentiality of tax records, Luistro said that the prosecution is hopeful that the Constitutional mandate on public accountability should prevail. “There is a challenge under the National Internal Revenue Code as to whether these BIR records should be disclosed, but nevertheless, wee believe that impeachment court should give paramount importance to the accountability mechanism,” Luistro said. “We remain hopeful that through the new request for subpoena of expanded list, eventually, we will be able to present this before the impeachment court,” she added. House prosecution panel spokesperson and former Surigao del Norte congressman Robert Ace Barbers, for his part, disputed the defense team’s argument seeking the impeachment of the Vice President who was elected with 32 million votes or more than 60% of the votes cast is going against the people’s will. “Being elected with 32 million votes is not a license to violate the law, especially if you are a public official. The Constitution clearly provides for accountability of public officials,” he said. “Just because you're the most powerful person in the government and because you were able to get X amount of votes, does that give you a license to commit all these violations? I don’t think that is the intent of the Constitution here. The Constitution provides for accountability mechanism for public officials to protect the interest of the public,” Barbers added. — BM, GMA News