Dear Editor,

I am just an ordinary Filipino trying to understand this impeachment trial. The prosecutors dropped three of the four articles of impeachment. They spent months preparing. They spent millions of our money, and then just walked away from those charges. And now they don't want the defense to answer the evidence they already presented? 

It’s not fair to accuse someone of stealing, shout it to the whole world, then say "never mind," but not let Vice President Sara Duterte clear her name.

Imagine ₱25 million being spent every day for more than 40 days on this impeachment trial. Gone. It could have funded classrooms, hospitals, roads, and food for hungry families. It’s money wasted on charges that were later dropped. 

A spokesperson for the Vice President, Atty. Paolo Panelo, estimated that when you add the salaries of congressmen acting as prosecutors, consultants, media people, and the House's own mini-trial, the total cost could go over ₱1 billion. One billion pesos. For cases that were abandoned before a single vote.

The senators said they could not even provide coffee for the defense team. They rejected a request from the Office of the Vice President to shoulder catering for the defense lawyers and witnesses because of budget limits. Therefore, there are hundreds of millions for a prosecution that goes nowhere, but no coffee for the other side? Wasteful and absurd.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Noel Gimenez Tijam explained it clearly. He said the prosecution's evidence on the three dropped articles remains in the record and has never been erased. So the defense should still be allowed to present evidence to answer it. To deny them that right is a ground for a mistrial. A mistrial means the trial is no longer valid and must be stopped. Because fairness demands both sides be heard. The Filipino people already heard the prosecution's side. They cannot un-ring that bell.

Justice Tijam also said there is another option: erase the prosecution’s evidence from the record. But the Senate can cite prosecutors for contempt for wasting its time or obstructing justice. 

Contempt means they can be penalized. Congress can sanction them with suspension or removal for unethical conduct because they wasted millions of public funds on a case they themselves withdrew.

The Ombudsman, as the government's watchdog against corruption, should step in. It can investigate whether wasting millions of pesos on a bogus and malicious prosecution that was later withdrawn amounts to plunder. Plunder means large-scale theft of public funds. If ordinary people burned ₱1 billion of taxpayers’ money on nothing, we would be in jail. Why should prosecutors be treated differently?

This is our money. Congress must act, too, by removing the prosecutors. Filipinos don’t deserve a prosecution that treats our taxes like play money and our justice system like a show.

Sincerely,

A concerned Filipino