Bucoy: We trust senator-judges, but SC a last resort
The House prosecution panel said it trusts the impeachment process for the trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, but it is ready to bring it up to the Supreme Court as a last resort should senator-judges dismiss the case even without a formal hearing.
“We trust the process of impeachment. We (also) trust that the senator-judges will perform their constitutional duty and abide by their oath,” prosecution panel spokesperson Antonio Bucoy said.
“If we do not trust the process, there will be chaos. We are a democracy. We are governed by rules. We are governed by law. That is why the law is there – for order. That is why the rule of law is primordial,” he added.
Senate President Francis Escudero earlier said the impeachment court may vote on the case even without hearing evidence.
Asked if it is possible for the impeachment case to be dismissed without going through a formal trial, Escudero said: “Everything is possible.”
Bucoy, a lawyer by profession, admitted that the House prosecutors cannot stop the senator-judges from doing so.
In such a scenario, he said the matter may be raised to the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, Bucoy dismissed as absurd the claim by the Vice President’s camp that the absence of a written contract undermines the charge of ordering assassinations, noting that such acts are illegal by nature and are never formalized through documents.
“The contracting of a murderer, you don’t write that. That is not written as ‘I agree to kill.’ There is no such thing because it is illegal,” he said.
“So what contract are we talking about? A notarized contract?” he added.
In her Answer Ad Cautelam submitted to Congress, the Vice President’s defense team noted there was no written contract to support the claim Duterte plotted to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez.
Duterte made the remarks in a recorded interview, where she said she was not joking when she claimed to have already talked to an assassin.
The threat was now among the bases for the Articles of Impeachment against Duterte, alongside charges of corruption and misuse of public funds.
