The witness, along with several documents, were scrutinized by the other bench.
On Wednesday, July 8, the Impeachment Trial of Vice President Sara Duterte resumed for its third day with the cross-examination of the first witness, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) senior agent John Mark Calilung, by the Defense counsel.
Atty. CJ Narvasa led the cross-examination and confronted Calilung with several pieces of documents, some having noted as not part of the pre-marked documents by both sides, such as a screenshot of the About Us page of the company that trained Calilung on a digital forensics system for two weeks, as noted by the Prosecution the day prior.
Apart from that, attachments on the submitted documents from the NBI were also brought to light.
He also questioned the NBI senior agent on the documents related to the agency’s investigation on the alleged threat made by Vice President Sara Duterte on November 23, 2024 against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez — where the Article IV of the Impeachment Complaint transmitted by the House of Representatives revolves around.
Narvasa also asked whether a complaint was filed by the parties involved before the NBI launched their investigation, which the senior agent later explained that it was “motu propio” (which is a Latin phrase for zon one’s own impulse”), meaning that the NBI conducted even without a complaint from the three personalities, citing the gravity of the supposed threats made.
Later on, the questioning doubled down on the other parts of the more than two-hour-long video conference held by the Vice President on that November night, especially the comments made by her Chief of Staff Zuleika Lopez.
The Defense counsel scrutinized the transcription of the video conference which Calilung said he personally did during the gathering of the evidence.
The senator-judges then had their time to ask their own questions directly to the witness, with some having sought to clarify matters regarding the technology like artificial intelligence (AI), the systems or applications used to identity such, as well as other merits and certifications of Calilung.
Supposedly, a second witness in NBI Regional Director Jeremy Lotoc was put on the agenda for the day. However, the Prosecution panel noted that he will instead appear on Monday, July 13.
Lopez, who previously served as an Undersecretary of the Department of Education during VP Duterte’s tenure as the Education chief, was also issued a subpoena by the Impeachment Court for the following week.
That prompted the hearing for the third day, which also ended the first week of the trial, to end shortly before 5:00 pm, its earliest since the commencement of the process last Monday, July 6.
