LAOAG CITY – Indeklar ti Senate impeachment court ni Office of the Vice President (OVP) Assistant Secretary ken Chief of Staff Lemuel Ortonio kas hostile witness ita nga aldaw, Agosto 25.
Iti maika-18 nga aldaw ti impeachment trial ni Vice President Sara Duterte, pinalubosan ti korte ti prosekusion a mangidatag ti leading question para ken ni Ortonio.
Ni Ortonio ti maikadua nga opisial ti Office of the Vice President a nagtestigo mainaig iti panaggastos ti confidential funds.
Basar iti korte, ti hostile witness ket maysa nga indibidual a pinaayaban ti partido iti panangusig uray pay saan nga umanamong daytoy.
Iti offer ti prosecution, ti formal declaration ti purpose of evidence, kiniddaw ni Private prosecutor Mae Divinagracia nga indeklerar ni Ortonio kas hostile witness tapno mapaneknekan dagiti sumarsaruno:
1. The [OVP] confidential funds answer to no legitimate confidential purpose
2. The respondent’s handprints are on every document that mattered.
3. The reports were written to fit the rules, not the facts.
4. Five days after COA questioned the medical-and-food-aid item, the line disappeared while the report still totaled exactly P125 million.
5. In two years, not one area, not one operation was ever named.
6. The liquidation was late, irregular and back-dated.
7. The certifications vouch for nothing—and were signed by the man who received the money.
8. The P500 million bought protection the Vice President already had against threats which the AFP and the PNP were already paid billions to watch.
9. The justification for the confidential funds shifted with every finding.
10. The officials who knew answered nothing; the man who says he knew nothing answered everything.
11. The explanations for the confidential funds are a sham, and the failure to account for the funds gives rise to the presumption of misappropriation.
Mainaig iti daytoy, nilappedan ni Defense counsel Kristine Ferrer ti nadakamat nga 11 items ni Divinagracia nga arig “all conclusions of fact and law” ken saan nga “speculation conjectures not being proven to this honorable court.”
Kabayatanna, kuna ni Presiding officer ken senator-judge Francis “Chiz” Escudero a napaneknekan iti agtultuloy a panagtrabaho ni Ortonio iti babaen ni Duterte nga adda adverse interest-na iti napasamak.
Malaksid iti panagbalin nga assistant chief-of-staff, nagserbi pay ni Ortonio kas assistant secretary iti Office of the Vice President.
