Outside the courtroom, Butuyan confronts another challenge: a public narrative that, he says, still justifies violence. “Kasi Duterte said there was a drug war. There was really no drug war. There was really a massacre.”

COMMENTARY:I am asking — I am telling — that we break it now, while the train is still approaching, on schedule, with a hundred lights visible to anyone willing to keep watch and stop the run and put a single honest hand on the lever.

Acosta’s testimony thus left the court with two competing questions: Duterte’s alleged authority to order the release of the money, and whether the person who received and supposedly implemented the confidential activities had the authority to handle the funds.