The defense in Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial may have gone too far in its tone when it cross-examined retired Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje-Tang, according to University of the Philippines College of Law Dean Gwen Grecia-De Vera.
Grecia-De Vera said that the defense team during Chief Justice Renato Corona’s impeachment trial also questioned retired magistrates who were summoned as witnesses, but it maintained decorum.
Cabotaje-Tang was a witness for the prosecution and testified about the anti-corruption laws and public accountability, including public officials’ statements of assets, liabilities, and net worth.
She was allowed to testify over the objections of defense counsel Mark Vinluan.
Speaking on Bilyonaryo News Channel’s “On Point,” Grecia-De Vera said it is part of lawyers’ toolkit to question the credibility of witnesses whose testimony they want to discredit.
She also said former justices should not be given special treatment.
“But I thought, maybe the way that the questions were phrased and the tone may have gone too far, considering that Presiding Justice Cabotaje-Tang had been on the witness stand for a while by the time the cross-examination started. I thought she answered questions from both the prosecution and the intervention of the senator-judges due to her background, not just as a legal professional but as a judicial magistrate,” she said.
She said the defense’s tone “ought to have been improved” in how it phrased its questions.
Vinluan asked Cabotaje-Tang whether she was “anti-Duterte” or “Kakampink,” whether she was promised anything in return for her testimony, and whether she was applying for an ambassador position.
He also brought up favoritism allegations against her and her attempts to apply for a Supreme Court seat.
Cabotaje-Tang, who had 44 years of experience in government, said her testimony is not for sale and she is not political.
Grecia-De Vera noted that this was not the first time a justice or retired justice was put on the witness stand in an impeachment trial.
She said Corona showed up during his impeachment trial and was treated with respect by the prosecution.
She also said former Supreme Court Justice Conchita Carpio Morales, then the Ombudsman, was summoned as a hostile witness by the Corona team.
“But even at that point, [defense counsel] Justice [Serafin] Cuevas did not break from the decorum of the impeachment trial still as a court and did not depart from how to question even though he himself was a justice,” she said.
“So no reason, I think, regardless of who the witness is, to take—again, I mean no offense to the defense or to Atty. Vinluan—but maybe a respectful tone would have helped present the matter in a better light for everyone concerned,” she added.