VP impeachment trial: What the prosecution presented in 3 articles

MANILA, Philippines — The House prosecution panel has concluded its presentation of evidence in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte , presenting witnesses and documentary evidence on allegations involving grave threats, confidential funds, and grave threats.

Despite requesting 62 trial dates in its pretrial brief, the prosecution completed its presentation on Monday, Day 38 of Duterte’s trial.

READ: VP impeachment trial: Court releases November schedule

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The allegations the prosecution panel covered under three of the four Articles of Impeachment were presented before the Senate impeachment court in this order:

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• Article IV, involving alleged grave threats and an assassination plot against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez
• Article I, involving the alleged misuse, misappropriation, and irregular liquidation of P612.5 million in confidential funds from the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd)
• Article II, concerning alleged unexplained wealth, inaccurate Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs), and failure to divest business interests.

Article III, which accused Duterte of bribery and related violations involving DepEd officials and procurement laws, was dropped by the prosecution and was no longer presented.

It should also be noted, however, that the prosecution in presenting their final offer, also dropped Articles IV and I, as the panel insisted that Article II alone would be enough to convict Duterte.

Despite this development, Inquirer is listing below all the key allegations, evidence, and witness testimonies presented by the prosecution in all the articles they presented:

Article IV: Grave threats

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The prosecution’s presentation of Article IV focused on Duterte’s November 2024 online press conference, during which she made statements about an alleged plan to have Marcos, the First Lady and Romualdez killed.

The prosecution presented three National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) witnesses to authenticate the videos where Duterte made the said statements and to explain the bureau’s investigation on the matter.

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NBI senior cyber investigation agent John Mark Calilung testified on the forensic authentication of the livestreamed videos containing Duterte’s statements. He said the NBI could investigate threats against the President and other high officials even without a formal complaint from the persons concerned.

NBI Regional Director Jeremy Lotoc, who previously headed the bureau’s Cybercrime Division, said Duterte’s statements were considered serious and warranted investigation. He testified that the NBI considered her own statements about speaking to a supposed assassin in assessing the allegations.

During cross-examination, however, Lotoc acknowledged that he had no personal knowledge that Duterte had actually contracted someone to kill the three officials.

NBI Director Melvin Matibag later testified that investigators sought to establish a “pattern of violence.” He cited similarities between statements made by Duterte and subsequent statements by her brother, Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte, as suggesting possible collusion.

The prosecution also presented a video of Duterte punching a sheriff when she was Davao City mayor and an affidavit attributed to former police officer Arturo Lascañas. The affidavit drew objections because it was not notarized, and its contents were treated as hearsay.

The prosecution eventually withdrew its planned presentation of Duterte’s chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, and House Legislative Security Bureau official Capt. Belinda Bello, saying their testimonies would be unnecessary after Calilung, Lotoc, and Matibag had testified.

Article I: Confidential funds

The prosecution also accused Duterte of misusing, misappropriating, and irregularly liquidating P612.5 million in confidential funds allocated to the OVP (P500 million) and the DepEd (P112.5 million) during her tenure in both offices.

The presentation of evidence on Article I ran from Days 10 to 23 of the trial, with 10 witnesses presented and two others whose testimonies were stipulated.

The prosecution presented bank officials, Commission on Audit (COA) auditors, Duterte’s aides, Philippine Army officials, and a national statistician.

First to testify was LandBank of the Philippines Shaw Boulevard branch manager Violeta Constantino, who said she personally oversaw the encashment of four checks worth P125 million each, totaling P500 million for the OVP.

Constantino said OVP representatives used three to four gym bags to carry away P125 million in cash. She described a P125-million withdrawal in a single transaction as “unusual” but said the bank did not consider it suspicious.

Another former LandBank branch manager, Nenita Camposano, described the DepEd’s large cash withdrawals under Duterte as the agency’s biggest transactions. 

The P112.5 million confidential funds were done in three encashments of P37.5 million each.

The two were followed by a former COA Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office auditor, Roderick Wamil, who testified that he had audited confidential and intelligence fund expenditures of more than 30 government agencies over 10 years.

He said the OVP relied on acknowledgment receipts without submitting actual invoice or official receipts, a practice that he said he had not encountered in his previous audits.

He identified irregularities in the liquidation of confidential funds, including expenses that COA disallowed for falling outside the purposes authorized under the Joint Circular rules governing confidential expenditures.

These included P40 million spent on medicines used as rewards and another P10 million in travel expenses related to confidential operations.

The auditor further testified that OVP and DepEd officials had asked COA to issue an “audit query” rather than a formal Audit Observation Memorandum if findings arose from their liquidation of confidential funds.

He also recounted attending a September 2023 meeting with OVP Chief of Staff Zuleika Lopez, defense counsel Michael Poa, and other officials regarding the liquidation and audit of DepEd’s confidential funds.

Following him is the prosecution’s presentation of Wamil’s successor, COA state auditor Xylene Mae Del Campo, who examined documentary evidence, including acknowledgment receipts submitted in support of confidential-fund expenditures.

House Archives Director Marivic Pareja was also called to verify documentary exhibits. She was excused after the defense agreed the documents she was asked to identify were authentic and regular.

Former OVP special disbursing officer Gina Acosta was another key witness for the prosecution. She was declared a hostile witness after confirming that Duterte was her superior and that she held a coterminous position in the OVP.

Acosta’s testimony concerned the handling and transfer of confidential funds. She confirmed the testimony of the LandBank official that named her as the payee of the said funds.

She said, per Duterte’s instruction, she entrusted and turned over the funds she withdrew to security officer Col. Raymund Dante Lachica, “for implementation” on ground.

During questioning, the prosecution presented acknowledgement receipts recording payments for purported information purchases and transportation rentals relating to confidential activities.

Some receipts contained unusual names—resembling food and other known personalities, which prosecutors highlighted during witness examination.

OVP Assistant Chief-of-Staff Lemuel Ortonio also testified in court. Currently serving as assistant secretary of the OVP, Ortonio was declared another hostile witness.

READ: Impeachment court approves prosec’s move to drop 3 of 4 charges vs VP

During his testimony, Lemuel Ortonio said the OVP requested confidential funds without detailed financial or mathematical plans, and he admitted he had no personal knowledge of how the P500 million was spent on the ground, placing ultimate accountability on Duterte and the security officer.

Following Ortonio were Cols. Manaros Boransing II and Magtanggol Panopio, who testified that they had no idea that the certifications they issued for DepEd’s participation in their Youth Leadership Summits would be used by the DepEd to liquidate P15.54 million in confidential funds.

Defense counsel and spokesperson Michael Poa, who also served as DepEd’s chief of staff and finance undersecretary, also took the witness stand as a hostile witness.

In his testimony, Poa said he relied entirely on reports from other officials when he prepared and signed the DepEd’s official reply to COA regarding the P112.5 million in confidential funds.

The prosecution team also intended to call DepEd’s special disbursing officer Edward Fajarda but having suffered a stroke, the defense team only stipulated that the confidential funds he encashed were eventually released to Col. Dennis Nolasco 

Finally, Philippine Statistics Authority Assistant National Statistician Marizza Grande testified for the prosecution and confirmed that several names listed as confidential fund payees could not be found in the agency’s civil registry records.

Despite the call of senator-judges for the prosecution team to call in security officers Nolasco and Lachica to testify on how they supposedly implemented the secret funds, the prosecution team opted not to call them.

Presiding officer Sen. Francis Escudero separately announced that the impeachment court may summon witnesses on its own should it see the need to, after both the prosecution and defense teams have presented their respective evidence in chief.

Article II: Unexplained wealth, SALNs and business interests

What takes the cake as the lengthiest part of the trial, so far, was the prosecution’s presentation of Article II, which accuses Duterte of betraying public trust for amassing unexplained wealth, failure to truthfully disclose assets in statements of assets, liabilities and net worth or SALNs from 2022 to 2024, as well as her supposed failure to divest from her private business interests after being elected vice president.

Taking Days 24 to Day 38 of the trial, Article II was also the last of the articles tackled by the prosecution panel after it decided to drop Article III, which deals with the bribery allegations against Duterte.

Retired Sandiganbayan presiding judge Amparo Cabotaje-Tang served as the prosecution panel’s first witness on Sept. 14, where she established governing principles on undisclosed and unexplained wealth, and prohibited business interests.

She explained before the impeachment court that both the President and Vice President are constitutionally barred from directly or indirectly participating in any business while in office, citing Article VII, Section 13 of the 1987 Constitution, as it leads to greater risk of abuse of power in the country’s two highest offices.

Tang also testified that unexplained wealth acquired by a public official may become grounds for removal or dismissal under existing anti-corruption laws.

Tang also maintained that investigations into a public officer’s alleged unexplained wealth can cover properties and assets belonging not only to their spouse but also to their minor children.

Second to stand as a witness for Article II was Atty. Karen Batu, officer in charge of the Records Division of the Office of the Ombudsman, who testified on Duterte’s SALNs and revealed that Duterte’s declared net worth rose by P91.4 million, or 1,260.7 percent, from 2007 to 2025.

She also said Duterte did not declare any cash on hand or in the bank from 2019 to 2025 in her SALNs.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Company Registration and Monitoring Department Director Gerardo del Rosario then testified next, tackling the businesses linked to Duterte.

Among the notable revelations in del Rosario’s testimony was the fact that Duterte did not appear as an incorporator or stockholder of GenCorp Industries Inc., one of the businesses linked to her, in SEC’s records despite declaring herself as such in her SALN.

However, del Rosario confirmed, based on records, that Duterte remained a stockholder of several companies despite being in public office, particularly Davao Emerging Taipans Corp., starting in 2004, when she was Davao vice mayor, and from 2008 to 2012 and 2016 to 2023.

She was also a stockholder of City Hall King Chow Foods Corp. and Davao Bounty Times Foods Corp. from 2007 to 2012 and 2016 to 2017, as well as of City Hall King Chow Foods Corp., which by then was already called Metro City Chow Foods Corp., from 2018 to 2025.

Duterte even declared in her own SALNs that she served as one of the directors of Metro City Chow Foods Corp. from 2022 to 2025 despite already being a vice president.

Meanwhile, it was also noted during his testimony that while Duterte’s name stopped appearing in some of these businesses’ General Information Sheet (GIS), no document showing that Duterte transferred ownership of the businesses linked to her to other people were received by the SEC.

Records cited by del Rosario also showed that a certain Jaime T. Cruz was also listed as an incorporator of the six businesses in which Duterte declared having stocks in her SALNs, and was eventually revealed to be the former special envoy for trade and investments for China during the administration of former President Rodrigo Duterte.

Next to take the witness stand was Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System or PhilGEPS division chief Rendell Sopeña, who disclosed that 49 food services contracts—worth P35,878,188—were awarded by government offices in the Davao Region to GenCorp., the same company linked to Duterte, from July 21, 2022, to June 23, 2026.  

Fifteen of these, according to Sopeña, were awarded by the Davao City government itself, to GenCorp., in which only four of the 15 food service contracts went through public bidding. Duterte’s brother, Sebastian “Baste” Duterte, was mayor of Davao City during this time.

After this revelation, Baste Duterte himself testified before the impeachment court after being summoned by subpoena.

In his testimony, Baste denied knowing his sister had business interests Gencorp Industries Inc., even insisting that if he knew about it, he would not have let it prosper.

He even claimed he only heard of GenCorp after it was mentioned before the impeachment court, even though the company was awarded several contracts by the Davao City government under his mayoralty.

Meanwhile, the next to testify for the prosecution were Davao City Register of Deeds IV Kathy Florence Baldonado and Samal Deputy Register of Deeds III Marco Pineda, who presented documents concerning Duterte’s husband, Manases Carpio’s, properties in the Davao region.

According to both property registrars, two parcels of land in the Davao Region purchased Carpio were not reflected in the vice president’s SALN—one a  379-square-meter parcel of land located in Juna Subd., Matina Crossing, Talomo, Davao City, Davao del Sur and the other in Matanos, Island Garden City of Samal, Province of Davao del Norte.

Following both registrars was Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) secretariat executive director Ronel Buenaventura, whose testimony revolved around both Duterte and Carpio’s covered transaction reports or CTRs (which refer to bank deposits over P500,000 made within a single day) and suspicious transaction reports or STRs (which refer to transactions flagged by banks because of red flags or doubts about their legitimacy) totaling P4.4 billion.

Among the transactions examined were seven interaccount transfers totaling P193.70 million on March 28, 2014, involving joint accounts of Duterte and her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte.

Buenaventura also testified that Carpio withdrew P41 million from two banks in six transactions on Aug. 6, 2024—P23 million from BDO Unibank and P18 million from Philippine National Bank—in a single day.

Yet Duterte’s 2024 SALN declared such cash.

Buenaventura’s testimony also uncovered remittances totaling P319.32 million received by Cale88 Foods Corp., one of the businesses linked to Carpio, from China through 141 CTRs and three STRs.

After transaction reports came, bank records were presented, with several witnesses from various banks testifying before the impeachment court.

In this part of the trial, the House prosecution panel presented several bank accounts belonging to Vice President Sara Duterte and her husband, Manases Carpio, which can be viewed here: Duterte, husband bank accounts presented before Senate impeach court

It also presented the year-end balances of GenCorp and Cale88—the full figures of which can be also be viewed here: Sara Duterte trial: Witness reveals CALE88, Gencorp balances, 2022-2025

It was also at this point when the prosecution attempted to show a pattern of concealment involving around P96 million in funds from a Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) account jointly held by Duterte and her father Rodrigo in 2016.

The father and daughter allegedly did so by purchasing a manager’s check from BPI which they used to move the P96 million out of their account to prevent it from appearing in their year-end balance.

With the conclusion in presenting the bank accounts, Duterte’s and Carpio’s tax records then followed with BIR chief of staff Anne Loraine Garcia-Marquez called to take the witness stand.

In her testimony, she revealed that the combined after-tax income of Duterte and Carpio from 2007 to 2025, at P85,343,803.23, was nearly as high as Duterte’s declared net worth for 2025, which was P98,656,131.20.

Marquez also bared that the BIR has no record of Carpio paying taxes on the transfer of his shares in Cale88 Food Corporation—which he allegedly sold in 2024—possibly rendering the sale non-binding to third parties outside the buyer and seller, including the government.

In fact, Marquez said the BIR has already issued a Letter of Authority (LOA) to Cale88, empowering revenue officers to examine Cale88’s books of accounts and accounting records.

This is also because Cale88 declared total sales from 2021 to 2025 at P208,493,5465, despite total remittances amounting to P700 million—an amount Marquez said should have been included in the company’s audited financial statements.

It was also revealed by Marquez’s testimony that Cale88 only had two employees.

The final witness was forensic financial analyst Atty. Alexander Cabrera who was called by the prosecution to the witness stand to tie together all the evidence presented by the panel.

In his testimony, Cabrera noted that Duterte failed to declare over P207 million worth of cash in different bank accounts belonging to her and her husband, which he based on declared cash assets in Duterte’s SALN matched with the year-end balances of the bank accounts under her, Carpio and their joint accounts.

He also noted several of Duterte’s “unusual banking behavior” which included Duterte’s recorded expenses through her credit card, which included a meal at Ginza Inakaya Tokyo in Japan worth P200,007.29 dated March 19, 2025; two transactions in a Nike store at a Davao City mall worth P93,750.00 and P205,392.00; and another Nike store in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, amounting to P256,882.50.

Cabrera also mentioned the manager’s checks purchased through her and her father’s joint account in 2016, which he tagged as a form of tinikling—as a total of P96 million merely moved back and forth their account without ever appearing in their year-end balances.

In concluding his report, Cabrera alleged that Vice President Sara Duterte had a total unexplained wealth of P817.87 million from 2022 to 2025.

However, he noted that Duterte’s unexplained wealth could reach as high as P1.5 billion if he had not taken a “conservative” approach in analyzing her financial records.

In closing their presentation, House prosecutor Chel Diokno stated that, based on the witnesses and evidence presented by the prosecution panel, Duterte is not as simple a person as she appears.

“If we look at what is at the heart of Article II, I think this is it: clean officials do not hide anything. It is also easy for officials to pretend that they are simple individuals, eating at canteens, clean, not hiding anything from their SALN, but with Article II, unexplained wealth, this is where we saw it,” Diokno said.

“Because what we check here are not witnesses alone, but the documents and the numbers. Like what Atty. (Alexander) Cabrera, what we looked at are bank records themselves, records from AMLC, BIR records, SEC records. And I believe — accounts have a saying — that the numbers do not lie,” he added.

What happens next?

With the prosecution panel having finished presenting its final offer, the defense is expected to submit a comment on it.

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After this, Vice President Sara Duterte’s defense counsel is scheduled to begin presenting its side of the case on Nov. 9, but only on Article II, as the prosecution dropped all other articles of impeachment. /jpv