House prosecution panel mulls dropping bribery case vs Sara Duterte

MANILA, Philippines — The House prosecution panel is considering skipping the bribery case against Vice President Sara Duterte, public prosecutor Rep. Joel Chua said on Wednesday.

Instead, the House may proceed with tackling Duterte’s alleged unexplained wealth after it finishes its presentation on the vice president’s alleged misuse of P612.5 million in confidential funds, Chua said.

“We are considering dropping one article, so for now, pinagaaralan namin kung we will proceed na after next week sa unexplained [wealth], although wala pa talagang final, pero isa yan sa mga kinoconsider namin,” he told the media.

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(We are considering dropping one article, so for now, we are studying whether we will proceed after next week with the unexplained [wealth], although nothing is really final yet, but that is one of the things we are considering.)

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“Yung first two articles na sinampa namin, naniniwala kami na matibay na. Hindi mo naman pwedeng idrop ang unexplained wealth dahil lahat inaabangan na ito,” Chua explained.

(The first two articles we filed, we believe are solid. You can’t drop unexplained wealth because everyone is waiting for it.)

READ: Survey: Many Filipinos see ‘bribery’ as strongest case vs Sara Duterte

He was referring to Duterte’s alleged grave threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and her alleged misuse of confidential funds.

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Chua added that by skipping an impeachment article, the impeachment trial may end by December this year.

“Hopefully by end of November tapos na pati defense so kung matatapos kami ng first week ng October or mid-October makakapagsimula na nag defense so they have until November dahil marami namang common witnesses kami eh, naipresenta rin eh. So hopefully by December magkaroon na ng decision ang impeachment court,” the lawmaker shared. 

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(Hopefully by the end of November the defense will be finished, so if we finish by the first week of October or mid-October, we can start the defense, so they have until November because we have many common witnesses, they have also been presented. So hopefully by December the impeachment court will have a decision.)

The impeachment court allotted eight of the 92 trial days for the prosecution to present its case on Duterte’s supposed bribery of Department of Education Officials. /jpv