The Senate Impeachment Court declared former Department of Education (DepEd) chief of staff Michael Wesley Poa a hostile witness, paving the way for the House prosecution to cross-examine Vice President Sara Z. Duterte’s defense lawyer using leading questions.
Presiding Officer and Senate President Francis Escudero issued the ruling shortly before private prosecutor Benjamin “Jay” Tolosa Jr. initiated the examination of Poa regarding DepEd’s P112.5 million in confidential funds.
“The Chair will proceed to declare Atty. Poa as a hostile witness, therefore giving Atty. Tolosa the right to ask leading questions, but again, as a reminder, not to ask misleading questions,” Escudero declared.
Poa served as DepEd undersecretary, chief of staff and spokesperson during Duterte’s tenure as education secretary. He currently serves on her defense team in the ongoing impeachment trial.
Lead defense counsel Shiela Sison acknowledged that because Poa is actively serving as one of Duterte’s legal representatives, he could not be expected to adopt the prosecution’s theory of the case.
The prosecution requested the hostile-witness designation as it prepared to press Poa on his involvement in responding to Commission on Audit (COA) findings regarding DepEd’s confidential fund disbursements.
Tolosa informed Escudero that Poa had previously admitted to having no personal knowledge of how the confidential funds were actually spent on the ground prior to being tasked with addressing the audit observations.
“Why is it that the Vice President tasked one of her trusted aides to respond to the AOMs [Audit Observation Memoranda] issued by the COA when he confessed that he knew nothing about it? That is very material,” Tolosa argued.
When asked by Escudero to clarify what was meant by “knew nothing,” Tolosa explained that Poa “had no personal knowledge about how the confidential funds were, as he mentioned it, operationalized or used on the ground.”
The prosecution panel continues to scrutinize the circumstances surrounding the utilization and liquidation of P112.5 million in DepEd confidential funds during 2023. The transactions form a core pillar of Article I of the impeachment charges against the Vice President.