House panel spox says Senate counterpart already ‘lawyering’ for Sara
“Et tu,” Tongol?
The spokesperson of the House prosecution panel cautioned the Senate impeachment court’s mouthpiece against sounding like he was already “lawyering” for Vice President Sara Duterte.
Antonio Bucoy said his Senate counterpart, Regie Tongol, was practically giving hints of Duterte’s legal strategy in his recent remarks.
In an interview Friday on ANC, Bucoy called out Tongol for saying that if he were the Vice President he would file a motion to have the impeachment case dismissed.
“Why is he hinting? Why is he telegraphing? He is the spokesperson of the Senate, so we can assume he is speaking the minds of the Senate,” he said. “Like me, I’m the spokesperson for the prosecution. What I say might bind them, or it can reflect the mindset of the prosecutors.”
“In his case, when he made that statement, not only is it grossly inappropriate. It is wrong, outright wrong,’’ said Bucoy, adding:
“He (Tongol) is following in the footsteps of some of the biased senators. The likes of Senator [Ronald ‘Bato’] dela Rosa, who as a judge moved to dismiss (the case).”
Tongol could not be immediately reached for comment.
Early show of bias
Bucoy also echoed concerns that some senator-judges— namely Dela Rosa, Imee Marcos, Robin Padilla, and Christopher “Bong” Go—had already shown partiality toward Duterte before the trial proper could even begin.
Dela Rosa, in particular, was “seemingly acting like a defense counsel” when he filed a motion to dismiss the case during the first session of the Senate impeachment court, he noted.
But the House panel spokesperson said asking them to inhibit from the trial might only cause further delays and allow them to dodge their constitutional duty.
Bucoy cited Article 18 of the Senate impeachment rules which says senator-judges must refrain from making any comment or public disclosure on the merits of a pending trial.
“We’re hoping that the judges will open their eyes and weigh the evidence accordingly,” he said. “We know there are identified senator-judges who are seen as leaning toward the impeached officials. There are also swing votes. Those who are leaning, we’re hoping that the evidence will convince them to be impartial and to vote.”
A constitutional law expert, Michael Henry Yusingco, agreed with the observation that some senators had “purposely shown their partiality and who were not embarrassed to say that they will favor the impeached official.”
The unexpected kind
In an interview with the Inquirer this week, Yusingco lamented that they apparently “don’t understand the value of their oath.”
“It’s why (inhibition from an impeachment trial) is a matter not found in the Constitution because the Constitution expects senators to take their oath seriously,” said Yusingco, a senior research fellow at the Ateneo Policy Center.
“The Constitution did not expect that we will ever have these kinds of senators.”
The House prosecution team can move for their inhibition “and I don’t think that’s unconstitutional, irregular or improper,’’ he said.
“But on the other hand, I’m on the fence (about whether such a motion should be accepted) because it’s the duty of the senator judges.”
Yusingco urged Senate President Francis Escudero to use his authority as the impeachment court’s presiding officer to “shut his colleagues up [and] issue a directive to all the senators to not comment on the pending impeachment trial.”
