Impeachment lawyer clarifies remarks cited by court

MANILA, Philippines — A lawyer for the prosecution said on Friday his statements during media interviews were not meant to influence the Senate Impeachment Court toward convicting Vice President Sara Duterte, adding it would be good to hear the entire clip of his remarks to provide context.

Counsel Benjamin Tolosa Jr. said the Senate Impeachment Court’s order that he explain why he should not be cited for sub judice violations referred to a Sept. 8 press briefing.

A copy of the show-cause order quoted him as saying that presenting additional evidence will be just “cumulative,” since the prosecution believes the documents are already “enough.”

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READ: Not sub judice: Tolosa hopes impeach court would hear entire clip

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But he said the next sentences would have provided context and clarified matters.

“One of the … statements was about when we declared why the prosecution decided not to present additional evidence anymore with respect to the article on confidential funds. What we stated there is it’s because we [were] already able to hit our evidentiary targets,” Tolosa told reporters.

“Unfortunately, it ended there. The next statement … explaining what I meant about evidentiary targets, explaining this is just internal to us, [was not included], and we clearly said … this does not mean we are saying it is enough to reach conviction, because … that matter [is] for the impeachment court to determine,” he added.

Another quote not included in the show-cause order was his explanation on how presumption of innocence applies to criminal cases but is up to the senator-judges.

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“This discussion was just in general about how to apply this rule in criminal case[s], civil [cases], and admin[istrative] cases, and then I also stated there that how to apply this for this case [is] for the court to determine,” he said.

Tolosa said “if the court sees the whole context, it would be clear that we did not do any prejudgment, we did not weigh the weight of evidence, the merits of the case. We merely repeated matters as allowed under that exemption of fair and true reporting.” INQ