Four and a Half Hours of Questioning for a Former Auditor
On Monday, August 3, the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, being heard in the Philippine Senate, reached its 11th day. On this day, the House prosecution panel called a new witness, Roderick Wamil, a former state auditor with the Commission on Audit’s (COA) Intelligence and Confidential Fund Audit Office (ICFAO). Questioning by private prosecution counsel Lorna Kapunan ran for roughly four and a half hours, from around 10 a.m. to nearly 2:30 p.m.
That day, an extraordinary volume of documents relating to “confidential funds” disbursed to Duterte’s Office of the Vice President (OVP) — 15 boxes worth — was brought into the courtroom. Kapunan explained that she planned to present 50 pieces of evidence through Wamil’s testimony alone.
The Issue Shifts to Whether the Money Was Properly Used
Until now, the hearings had centered on tracing “how the money moved” — referring to ₱6,125,000 in confidential funds (editor’s note: the correct figure is ₱612,500,000) — but from this day the proceedings moved into the core question of whether that money was used for its proper purpose.
Wamil testified that while the Office of the Vice President had purchased items such as desks, chairs, and medicine in 2022, he could not produce sufficient evidence to substantiate funds said to have actually been paid to informants. Specifically, payment records made out to individuals — such as ₱70,000 paid to a “Mary Grace Piatos” as a “token of appreciation (for medicine)” and ₱295,000 paid to a “Miko P. Halina” for goods — have come under scrutiny.
The Fight Over “No Stipulation”
The prosecution asked the defense to “stipulate” — that is, formally agree without further proof — to the fact that the ₱125 million in confidential funds the Office of the Vice President received on December 20, 2022, was spent in full within just 11 days. Defense counsel Michael Poa, however, refused, stating “No stipulation.” As a result, the prosecution must now present and prove this point individually as well.
Notable Testimony: Only the Vice President Was Ever Audited on Confidential Funds
Wamil testified that, among all vice presidents and education secretaries who served between 2014 and 2024, Duterte was the only one whose confidential funds were ever audited. The audits reportedly covered ₱500 million at the Office of the Vice President and ₱112.5 million at the Department of Education (DepEd) during her time as education secretary.
The Next Day’s Developments: Narrowing Down the Evidence
Senate President Francis Escudero, presiding over the trial as its presiding officer, announced that both sides had agreed to treat evidence from 10 of the 15 boxes as common documents, making individual presentation in court unnecessary. He cautioned, however, that the defense had not budged from its refusal to stipulate on 845 acknowledgment receipts (ARs) covering December 21 to 31, 2022, meaning the prosecution would still need to prove that portion individually.
Background
Vice President Duterte was previously impeached by the House of Representatives once before, in February 2025, on charges including the alleged misuse of confidential funds, an alleged threat to assassinate President Marcos, the First Lady, and the House Speaker, and alleged involvement in extrajudicial killings of drug suspects (passed by an overwhelming 215 votes in the House). That impeachment was later voided by a Supreme Court ruling, and the current trial is a separate, renewed proceeding.
Analysis: Slim Odds of Conviction, So Why Continue the Trial?
A conviction in the Senate requires 16 votes out of 24 seats in favor. At present, however, the prosecution appears likely to secure only around 12 votes, and there is a strong view that, numerically, acquittal remains the more likely outcome.
Even so, there is a view that political calculation lies behind the Marcos camp’s decision to continue the trial. It is said that within the Marcos camp there is wariness that Sara Duterte herself might retaliate over the surrender of former President Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court (ICC), and that the underlying aim is to secure a conviction that would strip her of eligibility to run for president in the future.
Even if a conviction is not reached, there also appears to be a calculation that repeatedly airing the allegations against Duterte over the course of a lengthy trial will damage her popularity and block her path to winning the next presidential election. Even with the numbers stacked against them, this kind of political calculation is seen as the reason the trial continues.
コメント