By Jose Cielito Reganit
MANILA – House Prosecutor Rep. Chel Diokno of the Akbayan Party-list said Wednesday the Senate impeachment court’s new voting-threshold ruling would not change the prosecution’s duty to present its evidence and prove the four Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Sara Duterte.
Diokno made the statement after the court voted 13–1, with six non-participants, to overturn the earlier interpretation automatically requiring 16 votes for conviction. The new rule will compute two-thirds from senator-judges who remain legally and factually capable of participating when the final vote is taken.
“Iginagalang po namin at nirerespeto iyong naging pagpapasya ng ating (We honor and respect the decision of our) impeachment court,” Diokno said during the post-trial press conference.
He said the prosecution’s task remained the same regardless of the eventual number required to convict.
“Para sa amin sa prosecution, wala namang pinagkaiba sa trabaho namin, sa tungkulin namin bilang prosecutor – i-present ang ebidensya, ilatag ang kaso (For us in the posecution, nothing changes in our task as prosecutors – present the evidence, lay out the case) to the best of our ability),” he said.
The court’s threshold ruling affects how the required two-thirds concurrence will eventually be calculated. It does not change the evidence already admitted, the testimony already heard or the prosecution’s burden.
“As far as we are concerned, that is still our focus, and we will continue to do that job until the end of this trial,” Diokno said.
Asked whether the refusal of six senator-judges to participate in the threshold vote could foreshadow how they might act on the final verdict, Diokno declined to speculate.
“I believe that that is an internal issue for the court,” he said. “As far as we are concerned, we will just continue to do our job as prosecutors.”
House prosecution panel spokesperson Ace Barbers said the panel’s immediate responsibility was to give the court a clear evidentiary basis for its eventual decision.
“Ang mahalaga sa prosecution panel is ilatag nang mabuti ang ebidensya at i-present ang mga testigo (What is important to the prosecution panel is to properly lay out the evidence and present the witnesses),” Barbers said.
He said the panel respected the threshold ruling and would avoid treating it as a forecast of the eventual decision on Duterte’s guilt or innocence.
The court, he said, must still hear the remaining prosecution witnesses, the defense presentation and any other evidence allowed during the trial.
The prosecution’s position mirrors Diokno’s oral argument before the court: whatever number the court constitutionally derives, prosecutors will present the same case and carry the same burden.