The unexplained wealth of Vice President Sara Duterte and her husband, Manases Carpio, could reach as high as ₱1.5 billion over three years since she took office in 2022, according to a forensic analyst.
Alexander Cabrera gave the figure on Monday, Oct. 12, during Duterte’s impeachment trial when Senate presiding officer Francis Escudero asked for a nonconservative estimate of the couple’s unexplained wealth based on their financial records.
The witness, presented by the House prosecution before the Senate impeachment court last week, had earlier estimated the amount at ₱817.8 million in his financial forensic analysis report.
“You’ve mentioned you’ve been conservative with respect to your estimates, whether it’s a percentage of a company or assumptions you’ve made. If this is the bare minimum, based on your expertise and based on your review of the documents, what is the maximum amount?” Escudero asked Cabrera. “If this is the bare minimum, what’s the maximum?”
Breakdown
Cabrera broke down the ₱1.5 billion estimate as follows:
• ₱475 million in confidential funds that Duterte allegedly misused, which he did not include in his report
• ₱100 million flagged by the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC)
• ₱250 million from GenCorp Industries Inc.
When added to the ₱817.8 million he earlier reported as the unexplained wealth of Duterte and her husband, he said this may reach ₱1.5 billion from 2022 to 2025.
Cabrera testified on Monday, Day 38 of the Senate impeachment trial, that Duterte and her husband’s 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 their financial disclosures.
That is why he said the statements of assets, liabilities, and net worth (SALNs) filed by the Vice President from 2022 to 2025 were “untruthful, with a substantial amount of assets belonging to [them] found to be unreported.”
8 hours on witness stand
For eight hours, Cabrera stood by his financial forensic analysis report, answering cross-examination questions from the defense panel and interjections from senator-judges.
Defense lawyer Kristine Ferrer repeatedly asked the accountant-lawyer whether he was not concerned that the prosecution gave him confidential bank, tax, and corporate records to examine “without the authority of the impeachment court.”
“I am not concerned,” he replied, saying that he was given the documents to analyze the records subpoenaed by the impeachment court.
At one point, Ferrer read provisions of confidentiality laws, saying she would no longer specify the penalties, but it included imprisonment. She made clear to Cabrera that they were “not meant to scare” him, but the witness said. “I’m not scared naman po.”
Ferrer also challenged Cabrera on his forensic accounting background, noting that he only devoted one year to external auditing. “That’s right,” he said.
The defense lawyer asked whether Cabrera had examined documents from Duterte and her husband. He said the couple did not reply to inquiries from the House justice committee and the Senate impeachment court.
“Had there been, I would have used po,” he said.
Firm in money laundering?
Asked by Senator-judge Raffy Tulfo about the operations of Cale88 Foods Corp., the banana chip manufacturer and importer where Carpio had a 47.5% ownership stake, Cabrera likened these to a “revolving door.”
These show a “symptom of money laundering,” he said when asked similarly by Senator-judge Risa Hontiveros.
The AMLC had earlier said Cale88 Foods had ₱1.2 billion in transactions from 2022 to 2024.
Cabrera said many things were “not in order” looking at the company’s financial statements. “It has no payables or receivables,” he said, noting that for a manufacturer or exporter, the company has “no inventory of raw materials and work in process.”
“No matter how much money comes in and goes out, it continues to incur losses,” he added.
Cabrera said he compared Cale88 Foods with five to six food exporters with ₱200 million in revenues like Carpio’s company. These exporters had “big properties, land, and buildings, as well as big inventories of raw materials, and had big receivables and payables.”
“Again, this is not in my report, and I am not saying that money laundering is taking place here. I am only saying that it is a symptom. When money enters the company and leaves on the same day or the following day, it means it has not added any value to the company,” he said, adding:
“That is why I call it a revolving door: money comes in, goes around, and goes out. That is what happens in typical money laundering transactions.”
Senator-judge Joel Villanueva asked Cabrera if he found proof from the financial documents that Cale88 Foods was purchased by Pikimong Pikimong Philippines given that this company only had ₱59,836 in capital.
Carpio’s name no longer appeared in the 2025 general information sheet (GIS) of Cale88 Foods and was replaced by Pikimong.
Cabrera said there was none, pointing out that “we need a menu of all the rest of transaction documents…that reflects the record of the transaction.” These included a deed of sale, a check payment in the bank, and the “extemporaneous” recording in the books, he said.
₱4-M cash withdrawal
Senator-judges also questioned Cabrera’s report on a ₱4-million cash withdrawal from Carpio’s account, which took only an hour and 13 minutes, on Aug. 6, 2024.
Cabrera said that there was a sense of rush in the cash withdrawal. The large amount could have been released through a manager’s check or transferred to another bank account, but it seemed no one wanted to leave a trail, he said.
“When a transaction lacks a trail, lacks a record, has no document evidencing it, but there was a transaction…that’s evidence,” he said.
Senator-judge Francis Pangilinan said he looked at the timing of the cash withdrawal.
“Just to place on the record, Vice President Sara resigned as DepEd (Department of Education) [secretary] on July 19, 2024, and then on July 30, 2024, drug charges were filed against Mans Carpio due to the magnetic lifter (issue),” Pangilinan said. He was referring to the missing ₱6.8 billion worth of shabu that was shipped through magnetic lifters.
Heated exchange
A heated exchange ensued between defense legal counsel Sheila Sison and public prosecutor and Akbayan Rep. Chel Diokno after she called Cabrera’s forensic report “unbridled and erroneous conclusion of law and fact.”
Diokno moved to have the impeachment court strike Sison’s use of “erroneous” in describing the report. “That will be a conclusion of law and totally out of order. It’s up to this honorable court to decide whether the opinion of Cabrera is acceptable or not. And it’s not in our place, whether I’m for the prosecution or from the defense, to make irresponsible statements,” he said.
Sison objected, noting that Diokno himself said Cabrera was expressing his opinion, and thus this was a conclusion and not based on facts.
Escudero overruled Diokno, saying that Sison’s statement was the defense’s position on the presentation of Cabrera.
Sison sought for the impeachment court to take judicial notice of a Supreme Court case where it said: “To separate a judicial personality of a corporation, the wrongdoing must be established clearly and convincingly, it cannot be presumed. Otherwise, an injustice that was never unintended may result from an erroneous application. It bears reiterating that piercing the veil of corporate fiction is frowned upon.”
She said she was reading this ruling “so as not to mislead the public,” as she noted that Cabrera testified that he did not have enough time and had not gotten all documents when drafting his forensic report. “I do not know where he got his opinion,” she said.
Diokno, in response, said Sison was “out of place meant for a closing argument, not this time, before this court.” But he, too, cited a high court decision that allowed for “piercing of corporate veil…if juridical entities are used as vehicles to commit illegal acts.”
He cited another case where “although mere ownership by a single stockholder or by another corporation is not of itself sufficient ground for disregarding a separate corporate personality, this can be disregarded if shown corporation is used in a fraudulent scheme.”
Sison contended that the cases mentioned by Diokno were “not inconsistent with the principle of law I stated earlier.”
Escudero said the court will take note of the cases they both mentioned and be given to senator-judges for info and reference.
Diokno, however, made a manifestation, saying that “what is not clear and convincing” on the fact that 69% of one of the three corporations in question was undeclared and unreported, and 51% was also the case of another corporation.
This prompted Sison to say that Diokno was already making conclusions and that he was “out of order.” But Escudero said the court will not strike Diokno’s statements off the record.
The Senate impeachment court will meet on Tuesday to consider the House prosecutors’ bid to drop the bribery charges against Duterte and rest its case against Duterte. This means the defense will now have its turn to present its witnesses to counter allegations against Duterte. CS
Read more: Analyst says VP, husband have ‘undeclared wealth’ of ₱817.8 million
