Sen. Santiago’s blood pressure shoots up over alleged violation of rules in impeach trial

MANILA, Philippines – Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago said Tuesday that she was very angry because she thought so many rules were being broken in the proceedings.

Santiago, who is suffering from hypertension, had to leave the plenary hall after her blood pressure shot up to 170/90 during her questioning of the request for issuance of subpoena on the basis of a document that came from an anonymous source.

“A subpoena cannot be issued just because the lawyer said somebody gave him information, that is hearsay evidence,” Santiago said.

She also said that “the issuance of subpoena cannot be on the basis of what one reporter or columnists said, that is outside of the rules of evidence.”

“If we allow those, then any anonymous person can trick us or any columnist can influence us,” Santiago said.

She said that the judicial system would not like that what went on inside a court room would be affected by what was being said outside. She mentioned that under the rule of sub-judice, “it is not allowed to talk about who is winning or who is right.”

What can only be discussed are what happened in the court room and that no opinions can be given about the case, Santiago said.

She said that in an actual trial court, witnesses were needed to testify to the truthfulness of what was indicated in a request for subpoena.

The prosecution had allegedly received bank accounts in the name of Chief Justice Renato Corona from Philippines Savings Bank (PSBank) through Oriental Mindoro Representative Reynaldo Umali who said they were handed to him by a “small lady.”

The prosecution used the document as basis for a request to ask the Senate to subpoena the bank account records and the officers of PSBank.

The witnesses, PSBank president Pascual Garcia and PSBank Katipunan branch manager Annabelle Tiongson, denied in their testimony that the document came from the bank, prompting the senator-judges to question the prosecution how they obtained it.