House impeachment trial spokesperson, Kabataan Party-list Rep. Renee Co says the prosecution panel welcomes the Senate's tentative schedule for Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment trial.

However, this didn't stop Co from airing legitimate concerns about it.

In a statement Friday, May 22, the assistant minority leader welcomed the Senate’s announcement that the trial proper could begin as early as July 6 as an encouraging sign for the impeachment process.

“Well, for now, we welcome the announcement that there will be already the schedules that the Senate is arranging,” Co told a cable news network.

“As to whether it's going to be satisfactory, we'll have to see whether the half-day schedule would be sufficient. But if it will be happening every day, as per the rules of the Senate and as already candidly shared, then we'll see that the trial proceeding forthwith will satisfy that mandate,” said the lawyer-solon.

Co said the 11-person House prosecution team cannot determine as yet whether or not these half-day hearings, three times a week would be enough time for a proper litigation.

Senator Erwin Tulfo has said the proposed trial schedule would run three days a week, starting around 2 p.m. or 3 p.m., leaving the remaining days for committee hearings, pending motions, or regular sessions.

For Co, the effectiveness of the schedule would ultimately depend on how consistently hearings are conducted and whether enough time is allotted to fully present the evidence and testimonies tied to the four articles of impeachment against Duterte.

“For me, at least, personally, we'll see if it will happen every day. There’s a lot to discuss,” she said.

She compared the projected Senate trial schedule with the previous hearings conducted by the House Committee on Justice, which typically ran for several hours each day, particularly during the clarificatory hearings that led to the finding of probable cause and the approval of the articles of impeachment against Duterte

“For example, in the House Committee on Justice hearings, I would remember that it would start at 10 a.m. and then more or less it would end at around 4 p.m. If the trial would start at 2 p.m. and then continue on until around 6 p.m. or 7 p.m., it would considerably cover the same amount of hours that the House Committee on Justice took every day for the eight hearings that it has,” she recounted.

“So if it's going to have three hearings per week, susunod-sunod naman po, makikita naman natin na may exhaustion of materials na pwedeng gawin sa mga oras na iyon,” Co added.

(So if it’s going to have three hearings per week, held consecutively, we will see that there is an exhaustion of materials that can be done during those times.)

The youth solon explained, however, that while the prosecution could estimate the length of direct examinations for witnesses, the duration of cross-examinations and succeeding proceedings would remain unpredictable.

“What we can maybe estimate would be direct examination,” she said.

“Direct examination, we generally have a field kung what questions to field, ‘yung expected answers, and how long it would take before we arrive at the conclusions of law we'd like to establish after laying out the evidence and the testimonies that would accompany it,” she added.

“What we can't really say how long it would take would be the cross-examination, the redirect examination, and then the re-cross,” Co further said.

The Senate convened as an impeachment court on May 18 and has since issued a writ of summons to Duterte. Her office received the summons and a copy of the articles of impeachment on May 20, giving her until June 1 to file her answer before the court.

Vice President Duterte's conviction via impeachment trial is being sought over her offices' alleged misuse of P612.5 million worth of confidential funds; untruthful declarations in the filing of her statements of assets, liabilities, and net worth; unexplained wealth; and death threats to President Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House Speaker Leyte 1st district Rep. Martin Romualdez.