Defense: Documents show Duterte’s SALN declares Carpio properties

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Sara Duterte’s defense team showed on Thursday that the land purchases of Duterte’s spouse, Atty. Manases Carpio, match those declared in the vice president’s statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN).

This, as defense counsel Atty. Lindon Bacquel cross-examined Davao City Register of Deeds IV Kathy Florence Baldonado and Samal Deputy Register of Deeds III Marco Pineda.

Both persons earlier testified that the documents in their registries did not match the SALN declarations of Duterte.

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Matina property in Davao City

In Carpio’s supposed July 2024 purchase of a 379-square-meter parcel of land located in Matina Crossing, Talomo, Davao City priced at P6 million, Baldonado said the property was not in the 2025 SALN of Duterte.

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She said that the deed of sale and the transfer certificate of title of the Matina Crossing property does not match in terms of price, and location, to any of Duterte’s declared properties.

In refuting this, the defense presented an August 2024 tax declaration to show that the P6-million lot in the Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) is the same as a property declared in the SALN located at Brgy. 74-A in Matina, Davao City.

Baldonado identified that the property in the tax declaration had the same identification number of the P6-million property in the TCT.

READ: Carpio’s land purchases in Davao not reflected in VP’s SALN – witnesses

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The document read that the property had an assessed value of P82,046.

Upon reviewing Duterte’s 2025 SALN, the Brgy. 74-A property had the same exact assessed value, Baldonado also stated.

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Bacquel explained the differing locations on the two documents, saying that Brgy. 74-A is Matina Crossing, and asked the court to take judicial notice of maps proving such.

“We looked further into it, and there’s actually an official Facebook account of Brgy. Matina 74-A Davao City,” Bacquel added.

Samal property

On the other hand, Pineda was also confronted with the documents to show otherwise.

He earlier testified that Carpio’s supposed P3-million Island Garden City of Samal (IGaCoS) land did not match any of the properties declared in Duterte’s SALN

Bacquel presented another tax declaration of a Carpio property in San Isidro-Kaputian, Samal with the same property identification as the P3-million lot in Brgy. Matanos, Kaputian.

Though also differing in declared locations, Pineda later said that the locations may change due to shifts in tax mapping.

In 2019, its assessed value under the tax declaration stood at P346,960, and Pineda identified the same in a property declared in Duterte’s 2024 SALN. 

Pineda earlier noted, however, that the property in the SALN Bacquel was referring to had an acquisition date of 2013, while the deed of sale of the property in contention states that it was acquired in 2018.

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He said: “Based on the patent distinction that the value or cost of acquisition is not that same as that appearing in the deed of absolute sales at the same time the year.”

He explained that this is “because it was acquired, as per the perusal of the deed of absolute sale, in 2018, but this one is 2013 (in the SALN).”

In reconciling the five-year gap in acquiring the properties, Presiding Officer Francis “Chiz” Escudero referred to Duterte’s previous SALNs.

“In the SALN of the vice president in 2015 and 2016 and 2017, she declared a property in IGaCos, stating that she bought a property in 2013. But it first appeared only in her SALN in 2015,” Escudero said.

“And then, she wrote installment in 2015, deferred installment in 2016, which she described as deferred installment again in 2017, and in 2018, declared it as a sale,” the senator-judge noted.

Afterwards, Escudero asked Pineda if it is possible that the property was only declared in 2018 when it was fully paid.

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Instead of a direct answer, Pineda responded that a deed of sale is only registered once ownership is transferred. /apl