Over three days —the 17th, 18th and 19th days of the trial — the testimony from two ranking officials of the Office of the Vice President pointed to Duterte and her former security chief, Col. Raymund Dante Lachica, as the two people with the clearest knowledge of how the funds were handled and spent.

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.