The defense and the prosecution clashed anew regarding the terminology to be used to address Vice President Sara Duterte during the Day 29 of the impeachment trial.
Defense lead counsel Sheila Sison argued with House prosecutor Manuel ‘Chel’ Diokno after he challenged the defense’s use of the term ‘accused.’ Diokno said that an impeachment trial is sui generis or unique and not a criminal proceeding.
Diokno expressed concern that using ‘accused’ might mislead the public and unfairly imply criminal nature.
‘The defense, or the counsel for the respondent did not refer to the respondent as accused by itself but as respondent-accused, Your Honor. If the prosecution wishes a clarification why the defense refers to the Vice President as respondent -accused in this proceeding even though the prosecution feels that this is not a criminal action per se, the articles of impeachment will show that the charges are criminal in nature, Your Honor,’ Sison said.
Diokno responded by saying, ‘This is clearly not a criminal case, by any stretch, there is no criminal liability involved in this case. This is a case involving the fitness of the Vice President to continue in office and as we all know sui generis. Therefore it would be improper and may even lead to misconceptions if the respondent’s counsel will refer to the Vice President as the accused.’
However, Sison said that records of the trial will show that ‘at no point in time, from the start of this hearing until today that the defense referred to the Vice President as accused alone.’
‘In fact we are consistent in referring to the Vice President as respondent-accused if the worry of the gentleman is supposed a misconception of the use the term accused in conjunction with the term respondent -accused then I think there is no greater danger than a misconception in the idea that the constitutional presumption of innocence does not apply in this impeachment proceeding or that the Bill of Rights under which that guarantee is imbedded does not apply to this impeachment case,’ Sison explained.
Presiding officer Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero sided with the defense and rejected the motion of Diokno to delete or have it stricken from the record.