Vice President Sara Duterte’s defense team on Wednesday said it decided to forgo the cross-examination of one of the prosecution’s witnesses on Article I of the impeachment complaint to avoid unnecessarily prolonging the proceedings and ‘being petty by asking unnecessary questions.’
Defense spokesperson Michael Poa, who also served as the counsel assigned to Wednesday’s cross-examination, said this after skipping the cross-examination of former LandBank department manager Violeta Constantino during the 10th day of Duterte’s impeachment trial.
‘There was nothing questionable or damaging in what the witness presented. The witness merely identified the checks, which is something we are not even disputing,’ said Poa in a press conference after the trial.
‘So, I didn’t want to prolong the proceedings and, you know, be petty by asking questions when they weren’t even necessary,’ he added.
Meanwhile, while Poa cross-examined the second witness, former LandBank’s DepEd branch manager Nenita Camposano, the entire process took only two short questions.
Constantino was the House prosecution panel’s first witness in tackling Article I nvolving Duterte’s alleged misuse, misappropriation and irregular liquidation of confidential funds, as she personally oversaw the encashment of four checks worth P125 million each by former Office of the Vice President Special Disbursing Officer Gina Acosta.
Camposano, on the other hand, oversaw the Department of Education’s P37.5 million encashment of confidential funds back when Duterte still led the department as its secretary.
Asked why he didn’t even choose to question the witnesses’ characterization of the encashments as ‘unusual,’ Poa explained that he viewed the pronouncements merely as personal opinions of the two former LandBank executives.
‘I don’t see how it will affect the case. It’s not even an issue here. We’re not questioning the validity of the encashment, are we?’ said Poa.
‘So I really thought it would have been petty to dwell on it. The only question I raised was to clarify why they exited through the fire exit,’ he further said, adding that he asked this question simply to remove any negative connotations about exiting the bank through the backdoor