Explosive allegations were made against Vice President Sara Duterte and her father by a man claiming to be her former aide and bagman at the resumption of the impeachment proceedings conducted by the House justice committee on Tuesday.
Ramil Madriaga was occasionally overcome by emotion as he read aloud a supplemental affidavit that he swore to on April 11. The affidavit detailed how, upon the orders of her father, then President Rodrigo Duterte, Madriaga assisted Sara Duterte in her vice presidential campaign and conducted “high-risk” activities on her behalf, and how he was abandoned by her when he sought help regarding the kidnapping case filed against him in 2022.
Madriaga was in handcuffs and protective gear when he arrived at the House of Representatives in Quezon City from his detention quarters at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City. These were removed when he was called to testify.
As her camp had announced, the Vice President did not attend Tuesday’s hearing, the second of four hearings by the House justice committee intended to find probable cause for the transmittal to the Senate for trial of two impeachment complaints it has found sufficient in form, substance and grounds. Still, the committee chair, Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro, continued to urge her to present evidence rebutting the allegations raised throughout the 10-hour hearing.
Luistro also constantly reminded the committee members that only “clarificatory” questions, and not “probing” questions, may be asked of the resource persons based on the submitted documents.
‘Lied under oath’
Madriaga turned out to be the key resource person at the hearing, saying at the start that the Vice President “lied under oath” in the perjury complaint she filed against him on March 4, in which she denied any personal or professional relationship with him.
He said this was what prompted him to swear to a supplemental affidavit, so he could “provide further details” to his affidavit of Nov. 29, 2025, in which he first detailed his involvement with the Duterte father and daughter and “their close associates,” including what he has done for them, such as “campaign and organizing activities, intelligence gathering, and sabotage, and transportation of large sums of money under the direct instructions of either PRRD (President Rodrigo Roa Duterte) or Sara.”
At one point during Madriaga’s testimony, a video he had presented to the justice committee was played. It showed Sara Duterte holding a sign that read “Happy birthday Ram Madriaga” and saying: “Happy birthday, Sir Ram. I wish you good health and happiness.”
Reading from his affidavit, Madriaga said it was the late Rep. Roilo Golez who introduced him and endorsed his services to Rodrigo Duterte in late 2015 or early 2016. Rodrigo Duterte was considering running for president at that time, and Golez was supportive of his candidacy.
Madriaga said he worked as a political officer of Golez, specializing in intelligence-gathering and sabotage operations. He said Golez told Rodrigo Duterte that he was the congressman’s “No. 1 asset in the National Security Council (NSC)” during Golez’s term as national security adviser.
When Duterte won the presidency in 2016, Madriaga said, he was directed to serve as a counterintelligence agent for the NSC. He said he was “directly employed” by PRRD and received a monthly salary of ₱120,000 to ₱150,000.
Trillanes, etc.
“As part of my duties, PRRD specifically instructed me to monitor, operate, and sabotage former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV,” Madriaga said. He added that the then President was “apprehensive” in ordering the killing of the senator due to the latter’s support and contacts in the military.
In 2018, Madriaga said, PRRD told him to take care of Sara Duterte. He said that henceforth he would meet with her, and that she instructed him to be in touch with her as much as possible by phone rather than by text messaging.
“Furthermore, PRRD also asked me to profile individuals with Sara because she is his favorite among his children,” Madriaga said, adding that PRRD wanted her to be in politics instead of his sons Paolo and Sebastian, “who he characterized as ‘baliw’ (crazy) and ‘bading’ (gay), respectively.”
As computed by Kabataan Rep. Renee Co after Madriaga’s testimony, the latter received a total of ₱1,689,250,000 from Rodrigo Duterte. Madriaga said he had used some of the money to purchase high-end motorcycles and accessories for the operations of their group, Initiative for Social Justice, Innovation, and Progress Philippines (or Isip).
Bank accounts
Madriaga also said that “close associates” of Rodrigo Duterte had opened bank accounts in his name, and that he served as a “dummy for the transfer of large amounts of money.” He named four banks and two other banks carrying such accounts, to which money was transferred for “intelligence operations and for laundering.”
Madriaga said Rodrigo Duterte instructed him to withdraw money from these banks “and bring it to Malacañang or to designated individuals.” On three separate occasions, he said, Rodrigo Duterte instructed him to pick up ₱100 million from a bank in a mall in Lubao, Pampanga, which was delivered in the Palace.
Madriaga submitted to the committee copies of two manager’s checks amounting to over ₱89 million under his name, that Rodrigo Duterte said were to be delivered to one of their safe houses in Quezon City.
He later issued a bank secrecy waiver allowing the House justice committee to access the bank accounts in his name.
“For the record,” Luistro said, “Mr. Ramil Madriaga is submitting his waiver on the bank secrecy law, which means he is giving his conformity to the committee to look into the accounts in his supplemental affidavit.” She directed the committee secretary to receive the waiver, “to form part of the records of the proceedings of this case.”
In his testimony, Madriaga named three persons and their alleged financial contributions to Isip, which he said was initially organized to help promote Sara Duterte’s presidential candidacy in 2022: ₱175 million from Lin Wei Xiong, the financial officer of Pharmally Pharmaceuticals, and ₱100 million from Maestrado Lim and Michael Yang, the friend and presidential adviser of Rodrigo Duterte.
Madriaga became emotional when he read his recounting of Sara Duterte’s decision not to run for president. He provided a screenshot of the video conference he and fellow Isip leaders had with her, which he posted on his Facebook page on Sept. 29, 2021.
With Sara Duterte running as vice president with Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as president, he said, he helped in her new campaign and provided photos of them both in the campaign sorties.
It was in one of their activities that he learned of land-grabbing incidents in Bataan and a group of farmers seeking their help, Madriaga said.
He said he informed Sara Duterte of the farmers’ plight more than a year later. He said she agreed to meet with them, but backed out when he told her that First Bataan Mariveles Holdings Corp. was supposedly behind the land-grabbing.
Money deliveries
Also based on Representative Co’s computations, Madriaga handled ₱205,000,000 from the Vice President and her team.
Madriaga said he delivered money to certain people as instructed by Sara Duterte. He said coordination was handled by Col. Dennis Nolasco, one of his “best” students at the Presidential Security Group, whom he had recommended to assist in providing security for the Vice President under the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group (VPSPG).
He said Nolasco tapped Col. Raymund Dante Lachica to head the VPSPG.
Madriaga said he worked with Nolasco and Lachica from July 2022 to April 2023 “for tactical transport services, security of Sara and other VIPs, handling and conveying of highly confidential information, and the transportation of large amounts of money to several persons as instructed by Sara.”
He said these included two money deliveries on Dec. 20, 2022, on the Vice President’s instructions. He said he and his men, on board SUVs, delivered two of four duffel bags with ₱30 million to ₱35 million for a politician in Cabuyao, Laguna, and to a comedy bar called Nommu Basho on Tomas Morato Avenue in Quezon City.
The next day, he said, they brought the two remaining bags to the parking area of the Office of the Ombudsman. He also said that upon the instructions of Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter, he delivered money to Ombudsman Samuel Martires or lawyer Ryan Quilala, “which I usually placed inside an open trunk of a designated car.”
Madriaga also said it is not true that ₱125 million of the Office of the Vice President’s confidential funds in 2022 was spent in only 11 days. “This is wrong because I personally disposed [of] the money in less than 24 hours,” he said.
Here are other allegations made by Madriaga:
• That Sara Duterte’s husband, Manases Carpio, had sought his help in the release of construction equipment flagged and seized by the Bureau of Customs, which he later found to be actually magnetic lifters with 500 kilograms of shabu worth ₱4.3 billion, and which ended up “mysteriously missing.”
• That in 2021, Rodrigo Duterte told him of meeting with Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sen. Imee Marcos for a possible alliance in the 2022 national elections, and that the agreement was for Marcos to step down as president in 2025 to give way for a Sara Duterte presidency; that after the 2022 elections, Rodrigo Duterte met with retired military generals to discuss scenarios to unseat Marcos by 2025, “in case he reneges on his promise”; that one of the plans included sabotaging Marcos’ administration by using some of his officials to “reveal supposed corruption issues that will serve as a precursor for an impeachment complaint”; and that other “extraordinary” measures included “assassination, mass resignation of government officials, civil disobedience, and even an armed assault of Malacañang Palace.”
“It was also considered by PRRD to arrange assassinations or armed hits of government officials in order to cause massive civil unrest. The resulting civil unrest will be used as basis to organize a group of military officers to stage a coup,” Madriaga said.
Prison visit
According to Madriaga, the Vice President tried to visit him in October 2025 at Camp Bagong Diwa. He said he saw her through the metal railings in the passageway of the office of jail warden Jose Sabiniano, where “she smiled and waved at me.”
He said Sabiniano handed him a phone and asked if he knew lawyer Joyce Dapat. When he took the phone, he said, he heard the Vice President’s voice: “She asked me about my well-being and conditions inside the detention facility. She was also apologetic for failing to do something or assist me in my ongoing criminal case.”
Madriaga said he was disappointed when Harry Roque, PRRD’s former spokesman, filed the kidnapping case against him, “in retaliation after I tried to expose his land-grabbing activities in Mariveles, Bataan, with his Philippine offshore gaming operators partners.”
He said Roque and partners wanted to convert the area into a Pogo hub after facilitating the transfer of 60 land titles to their company.
“More importantly, I felt betrayed that despite all my efforts to support Sara, to the extent of even committing high-risk acts for her and her family, she did not lift a finger to stop Attorney Roque, who is her known ally and supporter, from filing the unfounded kidnapping case against me,” Madriaga said.
The Duterte camp described Madriaga’s testimony as “pure fiction.” Martires denied Madriaga’s claimed money delivery.
Also at the hearing, Carolyn Pitoy, the Questioned Documents division chief of the National Bureau of Investigation, presented its findings on 36 acknowledgment receipts involving the Vice President’s confidential funds.
Pitoy said there were groups of receipts with highly personalized signatures revealing “significant similarities.”
“Their alignments were similar, and the writer’s habit is the same, too, same as the manner of the execution of strokes, that it is written by one and the same person,” Pitoy told the committee. CS
