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The week’s most prominent witness was Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte, who was subjected to searching questions by prosecution counsel Theodore “Ted” Te over 19 city government contracts worth about P33.2 million awarded to GenCorp Industries Inc., a company his sister had declared as a business interest in her SALNs.
On day 29, Sept. 23, after oral arguments from the prosecution and defense, the impeachment court voted 13-1 to reverse Presiding Officer Francis “Chiz” Escudero’s July 6 ruling that 16 votes—two-thirds of the 24-member Senate—were required to convict Duterte.
On Thursday, the court named retired chief justices Artemio Panganiban, Reynato Puno and Hilario G. Davide Jr., and retired associate justice Adolfo Azcuna as amici curiae, or friends of the court, to advise it on whether the 16-vote requirement should be changed in light of the nonparticipation of four senator-judges.
The ninth week of Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial ended with an important question still hanging over the prosecution’s case: Where did the P15.54 million in the Department of Education’s confidential funds go, and who is responsible for claiming that the money paid for activities that the Philippine Army said it funded itself?
COMMENTARY: However, there is a method to the madness of Padilla’s statements. They collectively serve to obfuscate the issue that he wishes to target and that coupled with the DDS machinery produces propaganda that keeps their following convinced of the so- called righteousness of their cause.
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.
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.
For two days, Aug. 11 and 12, Commission on Audit supervising auditor Xylene Mae del Campo returned to a deceptively simple point: Acknowledgment receipts may show that someone received money, but they do not, by themselves, establish why the money was paid, whether the expense was authorized or whether a claimed confidential operation actually succeeded.
Five weeks into the trial, the proceedings have become about more than the fate of one elected official. They have evolved into an examination of how the Philippine government accounts for billions of pesos in confidential funds and whether the existing safeguards are sufficient to protect public money from misuse.
The decisive questions lie in the financial documents that have only begun arriving at the Senate: whether the money was lawfully spent, whether Duterte's declared income matches her accumulated wealth, and whether prosecutors can prove their allegations beyond political rhetoric.
