Halfway through pretrial Day 4, 1,300 of 8,000 confi fund docs marked

MANILA, Philippines — A total of 1,300 exhibits in relation to Vice President Sara Duterte’s alleged misuse of confidential funds were marked for half of the fourth impeachment pretrial day, clerk of court Renato Bantug said on Wednesday.

Bantug reminded that there are 8,000 exhibits altogether from the defense and the House prosecution for impeachment Article I, pertaining to the supposed misuse of confidential funds.

“For today, for Article I, they were able to process about 1,300 documents. But I haven’t received a running account of the total 8,000 to be marked, how many have been marked so far,” he told the media.

READ: House wants Duterte’s tax records unveiled in impeachment pretrial

Each side brought around 4,000 exhibits relating to the said article.

The marking of documents for Article I began on Monday, on the second day of the pretrial conference, but Bantug has yet to receive the total number of marked documents for the article.

Bantug also shared that the pace of marking on Wednesday is much faster than the first two days after a fourth team was added to review what was left of the 8,000 documents.

The marking of evidence for Article I coincided with the marking for Article II, which refers to Duterte’s alleged unexplained wealth.

Defense spokesperson Michael Poa previously said there are “several documents” needed to be marked even for the second article, but the amount was not specified.

READ: Duterte impeachment: Prosecution seeks more pre-trial days

Due to this, a second marking team was put in place for Article II.

The pretrial is scheduled to end on Thursday, but there is a possibility that an extension until Friday would be made.

Bantug hoped that the pretrial order, which comes after the conference, would be issued by Monday or Tuesday, but even then the preparation schedule for the impeachment trial to be held on July 6 would be tight. /das