Prosecution elated over Senate decision in their favor, says Quimbo
MANILA, Philippines–The prosecution team said Monday that they were happy with the “deluge of decisions rendered by the Senate,” on the resumption of the impeachment proceedings.
Marikina Representative and prosecution spokesperson Romero Quimbo, said that they were very happy with the decision of the Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, to admit all evidence and let the individual senator-jurors to decide on the weight of the evidence.
“That is effectively the rationale behind the acceptance of our formal offer of evidence in spite of all the objections raised by the defense,” Quimbo said.
All the evidence presented were accepted “except the evidence pertaining to the (Philippine Airlines) platinum card of the Chief Justice where he traveled 12 times for free abroad [which] was not admitted,” Quimbo said.
Quimbo also said they were very happy with the impeachment court’s decision to not allow any more evidence to be admitted on Articles 1, 4, 5, 6, and 8, and they will no longer render a decision on those articles.
The prosecution abandoned the articles after presenting evidence on Articles 2, 3, and 7 by resting their case.
“We are likewise elated with the decision on the part of the Senate … that all issues pertaining to the validity as well as the verification of the verified impeachment complaint [are] no longer going to be discussed by the Senate,” Quimbo said.
The Senate will no longer issue subpoenas for witnesses who will testify regarding the verification process of the impeachment complaint because that is closed already, Quimbo said.
The decisions came after on the first day of the resumption of the proceedings after a week long break to allow the defense to prepare for their presentation of evidence.
