Vice President Sara Duterte’s defense spent its first four days presenting six witnesses without directly confronting the prosecution’s estimate of P817 million in unexplained wealth. Instead, it offered explanations for individual property records, payments and personal expenses that left major questions unresolved.
Most of the witnesses struggled to recall basic details, drawing repeated criticism from senator-judges, while the defense also withdrew all 16 bank officials it had initially lined up to testify on Duterte’s financial records.
The six witnesses took the stand in sequence from Nov. 9 to 12: Davao City assessor Jaime Adalin and Samal City assessor John Kenneth Enumerables on properties; Davao City accountant Vingelin Bajan on a P64,000 salary differential; corporate counsel Suzette Balucanag-Punay on Duterte’s investments and business interests; and lawyer Anel Martin Antero and Chadrin Parian on dining and shopping expenses charged to her husband’s credit card.
Their testimonies addressed specific transactions but did not provide a comprehensive explanation of the wealth questioned by the prosecution. The difficulty some witnesses had answering questions compounded the problem. Assessors could not fully reconcile property records, while Bajan struggled to recall details of official and corporate documents.
The repeated claims of “I do not recall” tested the patience of senator-judges, some of whom raised the possibility of contempt citations. Presiding officer Francis “Chiz” Escudero later reminded the parties that unsatisfactory answers alone were not grounds for contempt and urged them to respect witnesses’ rights.
Investment questions
The week’s most consequential testimony came from Punay, corporate counsel for GenCorp Industries and Metro City Chow Foods. She disclosed that Duterte received P2.14 million from 2022 to 2025 as “return of capital” from what she called a “loose investment” in a Jollibee branch in Davao City.
The payments were P337,500 in 2022, P555,750 in 2023, P612,419.14 in 2024 and P636,700 in 2025.
But Punay admitted that “loose investment” had no technical definition. She could not produce a written agreement establishing how much Duterte initially invested or the terms of the arrangement. She also could not fully explain why payments came through companies that operated the franchise when the original investment was supposedly made in another corporation.
Escudero said the arrangement raised a “big question mark” and directed Punay to submit documents explaining the disbursements. Punay agreed with senator-judges that the money Duterte received represented income and that she had profited from the investment.
Her testimony also raised questions about Duterte’s business interests while serving as vice president. Senator-judge Risa Hontiveros cited Article VII, Section 13 of the Constitution, which bars the vice president and other specified officials from engaging in business or holding financial interests in certain enterprises during their tenure.
Asked whether the prohibition covered indirect business interests, including a “loose investment,” Punay said she was unsure, although she confirmed that the provision was in the Constitution. The exchange did not establish a violation but put Duterte’s business interests under scrutiny.
Punay separately confirmed that Duterte held a 20% stake in Metro City Chow Foods Corp., a Chowking franchisee, and was listed as a director from 2022 to 2025, when she was already vice president. She said Duterte neither attended board meetings nor did she take an active role or receive compensation. The company was losing money, which explained why it paid her no returns, Punay said.
Property discrepancies
The defense’s first two witnesses were called to explain property records involving Duterte and her husband, lawyer Manases Carpio. Their testimonies exposed discrepancies they could not fully resolve.
Adalin testified on Nov. 9 that a 379-square-meter property in Matina Crossing owned by Carpio was the same property reflected in Duterte’s Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth. The fair market value in the SALN matched the tax declaration, but the acquisition costs differed: the SALN listed P10 million, while the deed of sale indicated P6 million.
Adalin was initially unsure whether photographs of a building bearing a “Prime Bistro” sign showed the property. He confirmed this only after consulting his staff. Senator-judges also noted that Duterte had appointed him city assessor when she was mayor.
The following day, Enumerables could not reconcile the location of a Samal property in the title and SALN with other records. Some documents identified it as being in Barangay Matanos, others in Barangay San Isidro. He said the city’s tax maps did not show a Barangay Matanos in Samal. The deed of sale was dated 2018, while Duterte’s 2025 SALN listed 2013 as the acquisition year.
Also on Nov. 10, Bajan explained that Duterte received P64,194.72 in January 2023 as salary differentials for her service as Davao City mayor in 2020 and 2021. Bajan attributed the delayed payment to paperwork, but her difficulty recalling details of official and corporate documents drew further questions from the senator-judges.
Personal expenses
The defense’s final two witnesses, presented on Nov. 12, explained expenses charged to Carpio’s credit card.
Antero said 11 friends, including Carpio, shared the P205,007.29 bill for a dinner at Ginza Inakaya in Tokyo in March 2025. They used Carpio’s card because some of them had run out of cash and agreed to reimburse him. Antero said he paid 40,000 yen but acknowledged that the group had no photographs or documents proving the repayments.
Parian said the P256,882.50 purchase of Nike shoes in Kuala Lumpur in 2025 was for members of a youth basketball team after winning a competition. The players and their parents deserved the gifts, he said, particularly because not all families could afford such shoes.
Prosecution spokesperson Zia Alonto Adiong said the explanations fell far short of answering the main financial allegation. The dinner and shoes together cost less than P500,000, he noted, compared with the P817-million estimate by financial forensic expert Alexander Cabrera.
“What we were expecting was for the defense to explain the P817 million. They should debunk the P817 million,” Adiong said. “What they showed was only more than P200,000 worth of bill and another P250,000 worth of shoes. If you sum it up, that’s only less than P500,000.”
Bank witnesses withdrawn
The defense also abandoned its plan to present 16 bank officials, but did so in two stages.
On Wednesday, defense counsel and spokesperson Michael Poa announced that the team was dropping 15 bank representatives to save time and shorten the proceedings. It retained one witness for Thursday: Bank of the Philippine Islands senior vice president Paul Roderick Ysmael, who was expected to testify on bank records involving Duterte and Carpio.
On Thursday, however, the defense withdrew Ysmael as well. Poa said he had been called only to authenticate a letter he had written, but had already acknowledged its authorship in open court. The letter had been marked as defense evidence, making his testimony unnecessary, Poa said.
None of the 16 bank officials therefore took the stand. They had been subpoenaed to testify on accounts held by Duterte individually or jointly with Carpio.
In a press briefing, House prosecutor Joel Chua said presenting the BPI official would expose him to cross examination, which could open a Pandora’s box, such as questions on the joint account of Sara and her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, at the Julia Vargas branch in Pasig City.
The BPI account issue resurfaced in early October when Anti-Money Laundering Council Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura testified that the Duterte father-daughter’s account had a P9.1 million over-the-counter withdrawal in a single transaction on April 8, 2013, based on a covered transaction report identifying both as account holders.
Former senator Antonio Trillanes IV first disclosed about the bank deposits during Rodrigo Duterte’s 2016 presidential campaign. Trillanes claimed the joint account had as much as P227 million deposits that were not reflected in their SALN. Both Sara and Rodrigo Duterte denied on various occasions having hundreds of millions of pesos in undeclared funds. Rodrigo acknowledged having BPI accounts but disputed Trillanes’ claims about their balances. He did not sign a bank secrecy waiver sought by Trillanes to allow the accounts to be examined.
The dropping of the 16 bank executives from the list of the defense witnesses deprived prosecutors the opportunity to question Ysmael about BPI records, including a letter indicating that the vice president had dollar accounts. Private prosecutor James Bryan Ibrahim Alih said the prosecution had wanted to examine those records but could no longer question the bank official.
Escudero upheld the defense’s right to choose its witnesses. He said prosecutors could address the records in rebuttal or in a memorandum after the defense rested, but could not offer interpretations of documents that had not been presented in court.
By the end of Day 43 on Nov. 12, the defense had presented six witnesses but had yet to directly challenge Cabrera’s P817-million estimate. Lead defense counsel Sheila Sison said eight to 10 witnesses remained. Hearings were set to resume on Nov. 19.
