Defense panel respects House prosecutors' decision to drop Trillanes as witness

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The defense team of Vice President Sara Duterte said Thursday it respects the prosecutors' decision to drop former senator Antonio Trillanes IV as a witness in her impeachment trial.

Michael Poa, spokesperson of Duterte's defense team, said they have no qualms if the prosecutors decide to withdraw any of their witnesses.

"If they think na better for their strategy to drop a witness, whoever it may be, not specifically [former] senator Trillanes, but whoever it may be, we will continue to respect that," he said in a press briefing after the Day 32 of the impeachment trial of the vice president.

Trillanes clarified that it was him who asked the House prosecution panel to withdraw his name from being a witness in the trial. This was after House lead prosecutor Gerville Luistro made the manifestation that they will no longer present the former senator as a witness.

The former senator, a staunch critic of the Duterte family, said he would instead have a press briefing on Friday, October 2, as the impeachment court is currently tackling the alleged unexplained wealth of Duterte.

Nonetheless, Poa said the defense team is ready to defend the vice president even if Trillanes continued to testify as a witness.

"Sa amin naman po, we were really prepared with the list of witnesses that they gave initially. So kami po, naghanda po kung sino ang naka-assign," he said.

(On our end, we were really prepared with the list of witnesses that they gave initially. So we prepared based on who was assigned.)

The Senate impeachment court decided to move the next trial session to Monday, October 5 after it granted the defense panel's request to prepare for prosecution's direct examination of Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura.

"Nagpapasalamat din po kami sa understanding ng ating presiding officer, dahil nakuha lang namin 'yung summary this morning. Bago po kasi 'yun. We really need to look into that. May mga detalye doon na we feel we need to look into,” said Poa.

(We are also thankful for the understanding of our presiding officer, because we only received the summary this morning. Since that is new, we really need to look into that. There are details there that we feel we need to look into.) — VDV, GMA News