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Prosecution spokesman Antonio Bucoy, who donated P1 million to Alan Cayetano’s 2013 campaign, says he’s disappointed with the senator for leading efforts to remand the impeachment articles to the House
When Alan Peter Cayetano ran for reelection in the Senate in 2013, he received P113 million in contributions, the largest in the senatorial ticket of then-president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino.
One of his dozens of campaign donors was lawyer Antonio Bucoy, who, years later, would find himself speaking on behalf of the prosecution in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.
Bucoy, in his debut press briefing and subsequent media appearances, criticized the Senate for remanding the impeachment articles to the House — an idea that originated from Cayetano.
What does he make of it?
“I’m disappointed,” he said in a RapplerTalk interview on Thursday, June 19.
Cayetano’s statement of contributions and expenditures from 2013 showed that Bucoy gave P1 million to the then-reelectionist senator.
The top contributor was Manny Villar, president and founder of Cayetano’s party Nacionalista, and business executive Raoul Antonio Littaua, who donated P10 million each.
“I don’t know him personally nor does he know me personally. I just believe in the cause. ‘Yung kanyang paninindigan noong panahon na ‘yan,” Bucoy said on RapplerTalk.
“But let’s just leave it at that,” he added.
Numerous allegations of unconstitutional actions have been hurled at the House and the Senate during the still developing impeachment saga, but for Bucoy, the most obvious violation of the Constitution was the Senate’s remanding of the impeachment articles.
“Ang akin pong pakiramdam, by remanding it without any legal basis, put a major stumbling block to move the impeachment trial forward. Kaya ngayon nakabinbin tayo, ipit tayo, nakabitin tayo, so dagdag na naman ‘yan na pampahaba, dagdag na delay na naman ‘yan,” Bucoy said.
(My sense is, remanding it without legal basis, put a major stumbling block to move the impeachment trial foward. That’s why we’re now in limbo, we’re caught, in suspension, so that will add to the delay.)
Only a few days into the job, Bucoy has already provided feisty soundbites criticizing the Senate, some of which did not sit well with his Senate counterpart, impeachment court spokesman Regie Tongol.
Bucoy said he was tapped by friends from the private prosecution team to serve as their spokesperson, and while it took him days of convincing, he accepted the offer with the condition that they will trust him to “be circumspect, be direct, and not compromise the impeachment effort.”
“Most important to me was they cannot dictate what I say,” he said. – Rappler.com
