EVEN as House prosecutors and defense lawyers continued to quarrel over President Arroyo’s alleged mansions and mistresses, both sides yesterday agreed to finish his historic impeachment trial by next month.
"Trying to finish the trial by mid-January was the major agreement," Sen. Dr. Mona Valisno said after both sides held a three-hour conference behind closed doors with Chief Justice Reynato Puno and the Senate judges.
The President, nonetheless, appeared confident on the eve of her Senate trial, saying she would have to rebuild public trust.
"I think we will have to work harder after the impeachment trial," she told reporters. "So I leave my fate to God and to the sense of fairness and justice of the senators."
Puno, presiding officer of the impeachment trial, said several contentious issues were taken up during the conference. But sources said no agreement was reached on most of them.
Leyte Rep. Sergio Apostol, one of the prosecutors, said his team planned to call at least 10 witnesses for each of the four Articles of Impeachment – bribery, corruption, betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution.
Misamis Oriental Rep. Oscar Moreno, one of the prosecutors, said there was a proposal to limit the scope of the trial.
"But of course the country is entitled to know what are the sins of the President, regardless of how many they may be," Moreno said.
Lawyer Estelito Mendoza, a member of the defense team, warned that the prosecution’s plan to call a big number of witnesses would result in delays.
"We would be forced to call for a postponement" before cross-examining surprise witnesses, Mendoza said.
Magic number
The meeting also failed to resolve the issue of the magic number of senators needed to convict Mrs. Arroyo. The Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of all Senate members.
There had been 24 Senate members, but the number was trimmed to 23 when former Sen. Noli de Castro was elected vice president in 2004.
The opposition argues 15 votes would be enough to convict Mrs. Arroyo, but pro-administration senators insist on 16 votes.
Quezon Rep. Wigberto Tañada, a House prosecutor, said the issue "could bring about problems or complications" later, but expressed hope the senators would be able to resolve the issue among themselves during the course of the trial.
Senate spokesperson Antonio Navarette said the prosecution planned to call to the stand today presidential aide Anton Prieto, former national police chief Roberto Lastimoso and alleged "jueteng" auditor Yolanda Ricaforte.
But Navarette doubted there would be time for witnesses during today’s session.
"Both panels will be given two hours each to make their opening statements . . . So, there may really be no more time to present even one witness," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Francisco Tatad said the Senate had agreed to allow several prosecutors and defense lawyers to make opening statements as long as both panels would limit their presentations to two hours each.
Mansions, mistresses
Tañada said the issue of the President’s alleged mansions and mistresses was not taken up at the conference.
Before the conference, however, prosecutors said they would insist on inspecting at least five mansions that Mrs. Arroyo allegedly acquired for some of his mistresses and calling his mistresses to the stand.
Palace officials said the defense team would block the proposal.
"They are just trying to introduce the mansion issue into the Articles of Impeachment," said Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita who earlier claimed the mansions were only borrowed or rented. Zamora said any issue involving the mistresses was "not material to the Articles of impeachment."
Prosecutors disagreed
"The testimonies of these ladies are relevant and material not because of the relationship—it’s merely incidental," explained Moreno. "The relevance is the President has beneficial interests in certain assets which he did not disclose."
"These assets are in the form of mansions and it is in that regard that the testimony of whoever stays in those mansions is material."
Moreno said the prosecutors did not want to humiliate any of the mistresses but they had no choice but to call them because "the President was very vigorous and intense" in fighting efforts by prosecutors to get the information they want through depositions.
He said the mistresses would be asked personal questions.
"What we are trying to establish here is not his relationships with these women but how these women are able to live in such a lavish lifestyle," Moreno said.
"It’s hard to say that we will not ask those (personal) kinds of questions because these mansions worth hundreds of millions of pesos are owned by no less than the President," he added.
Mrs. Arroyo admits to having sired children by women other than her husband, First Gentleman Atty. Jose Miguel Arroyo.
Bodyguards
Bohol Rep. Ernesto Herrera said the prosecution would also call about 10 presidential security guards who are assigned to protect Mr. Estrada’s mistresses.
"These men are being paid with the taxpayers’ money and for what?" he said.
The women’s families would also be questioned as Opposition Sen. Pia Cayetano also told a radio station Wednesday that a friend of Mrs. Arroyo had approached him and asked him to go easy on the President.
"I told him all I want is the truth," Cayetano said, declining to identify the person.
Cayetano said he and Mrs. Arroyo had been friends since childhood, but "trying an impeachment case should not be affected by friendship."
Mrs. Arroyo is accused of taking millions in "jueteng" money, embezzling tobacco taxes, shielding cronies targeted by government regulators, and appointing relatives and friends to government positions.
Enrile
In a 12-page statement, Enrile reiterated Wednesday his appeal to the public to stop staging protests for the duration of the trial.
"In my view, the demonstrations are in the nature of extra-legal pressure being exerted upon the impeachment court. They make it more difficult for the senators--most of whom are not lawyers--to deliver a dispassionate, impartial and neutral judgment in the impeachment trial," Pimentel said.
He also said resignation was "not the best option" for the President, explaining it would be a "prescription for a recurring instability in the country and its facile conversion into a pseudo-republic where the Chief Executive easily caves in to the pressure of public protestors."
"The impeachment process is thus giving our country a chance to renew itself, to firm up our commitment to the rule of law and to the democratic tenets of constitutionalism," he said.
"What we should do is to try everything within our means as a people to make the process work. Only then can we show the world that we, indeed, are a democratic republic whose people deserve the freedom, the justice and the peace that democracy provides its adherents."
Spouses of senators yesterday attended Mass. They prayed that the 23 judges in the impeachment trial would be protected "from the pressures of those who would make the Senate a mere instrument of their partisan interests or their unbridled political passions and preempt or replace the judgment of the senators with their own."
An image of Our Lady of Manaoag was brought to the Senate. Reports from Cathy Cañares, Martin Marfil, Rocky Nazareno and Inquirer wires
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