Lead House prosecutor Gerville Luistro pushed back on Monday against online narratives portraying her as having been bested by Vice President Sara Duterte’s legal team when the two sides first squared off in the impeachment pre-trial.
She tied the characterization directly to organized digital messaging rather than to anything that happened inside the conference room. “That has been anticipated since we started these proceedings that there will be a lot of social media operations,” Luistro said.
The Batangas representative, who also chairs the House justice committee, has consistently framed the friction between the panels as a feature of the process rather than a breakdown of it. She has described the back-and-forth as disagreement between parties holding opposite positions — the prosecution alleging offenses, the defense asserting innocence — and said such clashes are inherent to an adversarial proceeding.
Duterte’s camp has offered a similar reading. Defense spokesperson and lawyer Michael Poa, speaking during a break in an earlier session, acknowledged that arguments occurred but maintained they were ordinary, telling reporters the contested points had been resolved in a way that would speed the pre-trial along.
The dispute over how the first encounter is being depicted comes as both sides work toward a fixed deadline. Under the impeachment calendar, the pre-trial order is set for release on June 30, after which the prosecution and defense have until July 5 to submit comments, with the trial proper scheduled to open on July 6.
Luistro has said the prosecution is prepared to list more than 30 witnesses in its pre-trial brief, a figure shaped by the rule barring any witness or exhibit not named in that brief from being introduced once the trial begins.
The Articles of Impeachment adopted by the House accuse Duterte of culpable violation of the Constitution, graft and corruption, betrayal of public trust, bribery, and other high crimes.
