MANILA, Philippines—Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile wants the prosecution and defense panels of the impeachment trial of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renator Corona to agree whether it is possible to reduce the number of witnesses that would be presented in court.
Enrile pointed out that even in adversarial proceedings, the two opposing parties are allowed to agree on the witness line-up.
“That is within the rules,” he said in an ambush interview on Monday.
Enrile remains unsure however, whether the suggestion would be taken up and if a shorter list of witnesses would result.
The prosecution announced on Friday it intends to present more than 100 witnesses including 13 Supreme Court justices, its spokesperson and some personnel, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, and the doctors of former President and Pampanga Representative Gloria Arroyo.
The prosecution’s list was whipped up after Senator Miriam Santiago was peeved when lead counsel and Iloilo Representative Niel Tupas was unable to answer how many witnesses the panel intended to present last Wednesday.
In contrast, defense lead counsel Serafin Cuevas immediately answered that his panel plans to call on 15 witnesses at the appropriate time.
Santiago demanded that both panels submit their lists of witnesses that time.
“Because of the volume of the announced number of witnesses and documents to be presented … I would suggest that the two panels sit down and see what they can agree upon,” Enrile told reporters.
The Senate President said he considers the possibility that in the case of some witnesses, “there is no more need for testimonial or documentary evidence to be presented and what they will prove.
“You see, under our system which we call adversarial proceedings, the two parties can agree the things that need to be presented (ano ang mga puwedeng pag-usapan) ang those thart need not to be (hindi na kailangang litisin pa),” he explained.
“I will suggest that (the meeting be done) openly. So it would be transparent and there would be no secrets (walang usapan na sikreto),” Enrile added.
Meanwhile, the House prosecution team on Monday said that the number of witnesses that they will call could be lessened if the defense will admit to certain facts.
Quezon representative Lorenzo R.Tañada III said that they are calling the witnesses because they will prove facts. “If [the defense team] admits certain facts,” then the witnesses that need to be called would be less, Tanada said in a press conference.
Marikina representative Romero Quimbo said that the defense should also just admit facts that are public documents instead of raising many procedural objections.
Quimbo said that the defense raised many objections regarding the presentation of the Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) documents of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona but afterwards also admitted them as their evidence.
The entire presentation of SALNs could have just taken a few minutes if the defense had admitted to the SALNs since they would use the same as their evidence also, Quimbo said.
Nevertheless, when asked if the prosecution will accept an order by the Impeachment court to hold a pre-trial conference, Tanada said that they will follow if there is an official order.
The Senate President voiced his opposition to a pre-trial conference before the impeachment trial formally began on January 16.
He said he was initially against it to dissuade accusations that compromises were being forged between prosecution and defense.
“In the beginning, I did not want to call a pre-trial because I feared it would be misunderstood by the public, that there would be suspicions of ‘lutong Macau’ (rigging). That’s why I did not agree with it,” Enrile recalled.
“But now, after that announcement that there would be so many witnesses and that there would be thousands, or rather, hundreds of documents, that would take a lot of time. That’s why, as much as possible, the two panels should iron this out (pag-usapan ng dalawang panig),” he added.
“I will not force them. This is just a suggestion,” Enrile clarified.
To carry this out, Enrile said the lead counsels of both panels should be the ones to head the dialogue along and choose who among their colleagues should join the talks.