‘May anger issues?’: Ridon, Cendaña castigate VP Duterte lawyer

Their tirades stemmed from Ferrer’s cross-examination of Commission on Audit (COA) state auditor Xylene del Campo during the continuation of respondent Duterte’s Senate impeachment trial.

During cross, Ferrer and private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan, who earlier conducted direct examination on Del Campo, had some feisty–if not heated–exchanges.

“Una sa lahat parang may anger issues yung defense (First of all it looks like the defense has anger issues),” Ridon, one of the 11 solon-prosecutors in the trial, said of Ferrer.

“Parang sinisigawan niya yung witness, sinisigawan niya yung opposing counsel, sinisigawan niya yung presiding officer. Hindi niyo ba nakita yun?” he said, referring to Del Campo, Kapunan, and Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero, respectively.  (It seems she was shouting at the witness, shouting at the opposing counsel, shouting at the presiding officer. Didn’t you see that?)

Ridon insinuated that such manner of cross-examination betrayed weakness on the part of Duterte’s defense team. “So kung ganyan yung takbo ng cross, parang tapos na yung boxing (So if the cross is going like that, then the fight is over).”

Shameless statement

For his part, Cendaña branded Ferrer’s particular remark on misleading questions during cross as “shameless”.

“‘Misleading questions are allowed,’ sabi ng defense counsel ni VP Sara (said VP Sara’s defense counsel). What a shameless statement,” he said in an X post.

Mader Perci added: “Hindi na lang ito strategy o tactic ng defense. Values na ito na tinatayuan ng opisina. Pagkatao na yan ni VP Sara.”  (This is no longer just a strategy or tactic of the defense. These are values being upheld by the office. That is already the character of VP Sara).

“Para sa kampo nila, kapag inconvenient ang katotohanan, ang solusyon ay i-mislead ang taumbayan,” said the 2025 and 2026 impeachment complaint endorser.  (For their camp, when the truth is inconvenient, the solution is to mislead the people). — Ellson Quismorio