A financial forensics analyst testified on Friday that Vice President Sara Duterte and her husband, lawyer Manases Carpio, have ₱817.8 million in undeclared wealth amassed over the three years since she took office in 2022.
According to lawyer-accountant Alexander Cabrera, the undeclared wealth consists of hidden assets such as cash, personal and other real properties, and hidden income from three corporations whose financial details were omitted from the couple’s financial disclosures.
Cabrera said this is why the statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs) filed by Duterte from 2022 to 2025 are “untruthful, with a substantial amount of assets belonging to [them] found to be unreported.”
“Year on year, their SALNs were undeclared substantially,” Cabrera told House public prosecutor and Akbayan Rep. Chel Diokno on Friday, Oct. 9, in explaining his financial review of the bank, corporate, and tax records of Duterte and her spouse that the Senate impeachment court had subpoenaed.
In her 2025 SALN, Duterte declared a net worth of ₱98.6 million.
Cabrera is the prosecution’s final witness under Article II of the impeachment complaint against Duterte, which alleges that she had amassed unexplained wealth.
‘Not a stranger’
Predictably, Duterte’s defense team objected to Cabrera’s taking the witness stand on Day 37 of the Vice President’s impeachment trial.
Lead defense lawyer Sheila Sison scoffed at the “supposed forensic report” Cabrera prepared as she protested his “taking possession of and examining” the Vice President’s financial records that are “protected by the law.”
“The respondent will never consent to sharing data with this stranger,” Sison said.
In response, Diokno corrected Sison’s retort that Cabrera’s report was a “supposed forensic report.”
“It’s a forensic report, and he’s not a stranger,” Diokno said of Cabrera, whom he described as an expert financial analyst “properly engaged” by the House prosecutors to review Duterte’s financial and corporate records.
In his testimony, Cabrera said he arrived at the supposed ₱817.8 million in unexplained wealth of Duterte and her husband “based only on the limited documents examined, excluding documents in [the couple’s] possession.”
With Diokno, Cabrera presented Table 38, which he said was a “summary of the findings” of this alleged unexplained wealth, which comprises undeclared assets and undeclared income from 2022 to 2025.
Under undeclared assets, he listed total undeclared cash (₱60.2million in 2022; ₱80.7 million in 2023; ₱23.1 million in 2024, and ₱43.6 in 2025) and total undeclared other personal and real properties net (₱76.1 million in 2022; ₱3.9 million in 2023; ₱52 million in 2024; and ₱11.3 million in 2025).
Under undeclared income, Cabrera listed three items which were total computed undeclared income of the couple (₱50.4 million in 2022; ₱12.1 million in 2023; ₱28 million in 2024; and ₱21million for 2025), undeclared income from Cale88 and Metro City Chow Foods Corp., (₱3.7 million in 2022; ₱14.7 million in 2023; ₱86.9 million in 2024; and ₱36.6 million in 2025), and undeclared income from GenCorp Industries Inc. (no amount in 2022; ₱55 million in 2023; ₱74 million in 2024; and ₱82.8 million in 2025). All these items totaled ₱817, 874, 867.
Diokno asked Cabrera whether he may have committed “double counting” of the items given the huge amount. Cabrera replied that he used a “conservative” method in arriving at the figures. “That is the one we took care of: no double counting, no duplication of count,” he said.
Asked whether dollar accounts were included in the count, Cabrera replied in the negative, “except for Cale88.”
He said that among the “omitted assets” were land, house and lot, buildings, as well as service, office and restaurant equipment, and among undeclared personal properties were 17 insurance policies and the ‘historical firearms.”
Cabrera also noted “unusual or banking behaviors” in credit card purchases, where Duterte allegedly made purchases of hundreds of thousands of pesos in just one transaction. These included payments of ₱250,000 in a restaurant in Japan; ₱300,000 at a Nike store in a Davao City mall; and two more transactions at a Nike store in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for ₱256,800.
‘Infringements’
In conclusion, Cabrera said Duterte continued to participate in various businesses during her three-year vice presidency. He said she had businesses either as an individual or as a stockholder or director of a corporation.
Duterte listed Metro Chow and GenCorp as business interests in her SALNs, but her name did not appear in the General Information Sheet of these corporations. Carpio, on the other hand, was the sole proprietor of Cale88, the banana chip company that bank records showed had inward remittances of over ₱300 million.
“The above-mentioned infringements that happened in 2022-2025 established a pattern of constitutional violations year on year,” Cabrera said.
Duterte also allegedly violated or may have violated the National Internal Revenue Code, Forefeiture of Unlawfully Acquired Property, Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, Anti-Graft and Corruption Practices Act, New Government Procurement Act, Security Regulation Code, and Commission on Audit Rules.
“Following the law is one of the ways to show your integrity. Paying taxes is showing integrity. Integrity has a cost,” Cabrera said.
The defense will cross-examine Cabrera on Monday.
LOAs on screen
Before Cabrera testified, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) chief of staff Anne Loraine Garcia Marquez took the witness stand for cross-examination on her earlier testimony about the couple’s tax records and financial statements.
What surprised prosecution lawyers and Marquez herself was defense lawyer Kristine Ferrer’s presentation of the two letters of authority (LOA) issued by the BIR against the couple dated April 29, 2026, which meant they were being subjected to a tax audit.
According to Ferrer, Duterte’s LOA covered all internal revenue taxes from Jan.1, 2026, to Dec.31, 2025, or a span of 20 years. Carpio’s LOA, on the other hand, covered the period from Jan. 1, 2024, to Dec.31, 2025.
Marquez herself pointed out that the LOAs were confidential after Ferrer flashed the copies of the letters on screen.
“We are the clients,” Ferrer replied.
Private prosecutor Erwin Matib made it clear that it was the defense “who put the LOAs on the screen, which, according to them, are supposed to be confidential.”
Ferrer said a client could waive the right to confidentiality, as Marquez said an exception to the confidentiality rule was a taxpayer’s consent.
Matib said they found it “ironic” that the defense team was flashing these documents on screen.
“Stranger things have happened, Attorney Erwin,” court presiding officer Sen. Francis Escudero said.
In the presentation of the LOAs, Ferrer tried but failed to get Marquez to state the progress of the two tax audits because of the confidentiality rule.
Marquez, meanwhile, raised concern about the LOAs on screen because these revealed the names of revenue officers conducting the tax audits. The trial is livestreamed online and on television programs.
Escudero said the BIR officers’ names will be redacted in the documents to be submitted to the impeachment court.
But Marquez insisted the revenue officers’ names have already been seen, prompting Matib to say that there has been “a violation of the privacy of the people involved.”
Escudero said they will consult Marquez before she ends her testimony. Eventually, the presiding officer ordered the original livestream showing the revenue officers’ names to be taken down and re-uploaded with the names redacted.
“We would like to remind not only Attorney Kristine and the counsels for the respondent, but also the counsel for the prosecution to be careful next time insofar as revealing names or addresses,” Escudero said.
He asked the media as well to be mindful of the Data Privacy Act when showing the original livestream of the court proceedings. CS
Read more: ‘There’s a gap, a difference’ in VP’s SALN and tax records
