SENATE impeachment court presiding officer Sen. Francis Escudero ordered the issuance of subpoenas on Wednesday night for two former branch managers of Land Bank of the Philippines.
To be summoned to testify in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte next Wednesday are Violeta Constantino and Nenita Camposano, former managers of Landbank-Shaw Boulevard (Mandaluyong City) branch and Department of Education (DepEd) branch, respectively.
They are to be presented by the House prosecution panel to testify on charges that the Vice President of culpable violation of the Constitution, graft and corruption and betrayal of public trust by allegedly misusing P612.5 million in confidential and intelligence funds released to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and DepEd when she was education secretary.
The charges are contained in Article 1 of the four Articles of Impeachment.
House lead prosecutor Gerville “Jinky Bitrics” Luistro of Batangas told the Impeachment Court that Constantino would testify first, followed by Camposano.
Defense counsel Mark Vinluan asked if more than one witness would be presented next Wednesday, to which Escudero answered, “We will be issuing the subpoena for both, in case.”
“I have no idea if it’s going to be a short direct (examination) and cross (examination) and/or re-cross. So we shall see. Kindly prepare for the two witnesses on that day,” the presiding officer said.
Of the P612.5 million confidential and intelligence funds under question, P500 was released to the OVP and P112.5 million to the DepEd.
Of the entire amount, prosecutors have revealed that P448 million has been disallowed by the Commission on Audit (COA), including P73 million that has been ruled as questionable with finality and which the Vice President and two other responsible officials have been required to return to the government.
The COA has also reported that all of the P112.5 million given to DepEd was used in just 11 days.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) has certified that many of the supposed recipients of the funds have no personal details in its database and are therefore considered non-existent, including a certain May Grace Piattos.
On the other hand, the NBI forensic examination division has reported that many of the signatures on acknowledgement receipts of alleged recipients were similar and executed only by one person.
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