Sixteen days before the one-year ban on filing of impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte ends, former senator Antonio Trillanes IV and members of The Silent Majority civil society group went to the Office of the Ombudsman Jan. 21 and filed charges of graft and corruption, bribery, culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust and other High Crimes against her.
Joining Trillanes in wanting to make the vice president accountable were Jocelyn Marie Acosta, Margaret Corazon . Aquino, Ruby Anne E. Gonzales, Lucilyn m. Mersado, Casilda I. Guevarra, Epifanio H. Ramirez, Jr., Annie S. Bartolome, Gay G. Benueza, and Evelyn G. Abella.
The Trillanes and Silent Majority complaint included information provided by Ramil Madriaga, a former intelligence operative and founder of the Inday Sara Is My President,
Mandriaga in a notarized affidavit dated Nov. 29, 2025 claimed that Col. Raymund Dante Lachica, security chief at the OVP, made him deliver large sums of money taken from Duterte’s confidential funds at the OVP and the DepEd to several persons “thus confirming how Respondent Duterte and her corespondents converted the subject confidential funds to their own personal use, contrary to the actual purposes for which the same was earmarked and/or purportedly disbursed.”
The complaint also said “ Mr. Madriaga also confirmed the fact that Respondent Duterte’s campaign for Vice President received funding not only from known drug dealers but also from POGO operators, having himself identified said personalities in his “frequent pick-ups of cash-filled bags in locations such as The Gate in Pampanga, Vertis North Mall and Seda Hotel in Quezon City and in Grand Hyatt in BGC.”
This is the second complaint filed against Duterte at the Ombudsman. On December 15 last year, a coalition of priests, academics, rights advocates, and journalists, led by Ramon Magsaysay awardee Fr. Flavie Villanueva, Fr. Roberto Reyes, former Finance undersecretary Maria Cielo Magno filed multiple criminal complaints —over her alleged misuse of P612.5 million in confidential funds.
Photos and video by Bullit Marquez for VERA Files
