Sara Duterte's trips may be used as evidence of unexplained wealth, says Ridon

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The House prosecution team is considering presenting documents on the19 overseas trips of Vice President Sara Duterte from 2025 to 2026 as evidence to prove its allegation of her accumulated unexplained wealth, House prosecutor Terry Ridon said.

“The foreign travels of the Vice President are on the table. From 2025 to 2026, she had 19 out of the country trips. This is very important, because as discussed earlier, one of the indications of unexplained wealth under RA 3019 is having foreign travels in a non-official capacity,” Ridon said in a press conference.

RA 3019 is the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, while the witness is former Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje-Tang.

“The basic theory here is that the Vice President has unexplained wealth because the cost of traveling that much abroad does not match her salary. Because we need to compare the cost of these trips against her salary as Vice President, which is very easy to find out and stands at P4.2 million a year,” Ridon pointed out.

“These 19 [overseas] trips of the Vice President were done in a non-official capacity. And we would want to be able to look into it and compare it to the salary of the Vice President, which is around P4.2 million over the course of a year and her net worth [in her Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth], which stood at P88.5 million for 2024 and around a little less than that by 2025,” Ridon added.

Article 2 of the impeachment case against the Vice President accuses her of accumulating unexplained wealth through the following:

• failure to fully and truthfully disclose all her and her spouse's assets, liabilities, and net worth in her statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth (SALN) including in her SALN for the years 2022, 2023, and 2024; and
• failure to divest, and instead, willfully continued, all her business interests during her tenure as vice president for the years 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025.

Aside from documentary evidence in various government agencies, including subsistence allowance, Ridon said that testimonial evidence on overseas travels of the Vice President can also be elicited from those who approved her overseas trips in the Office of the Vice President as well as the Office of the Deputy Executive Secretary for General Administration of the Office of the President, a foreign travel agent for the purchase of tickets, among others.

“We will look into issuing a subpoena for documents relating to this, among other details. As one of the lead prosecutors for unexplained wealth, I think it would make real actual sense on unexplained wealth to look into the ongoing foreign travels of the Vice President,” Ridon added.

The Senate impeachment court already granted the prosecution's request for a subpoena on the bank records of the Vice President back in July 20. —LDF, GMA News