Vice President Sara Duterte received ₱2.14 million as “return of capital” from GenCorp Industries Inc. from 2022 to 2025, stemming from a “loose investment” she made in a company later taken over by GenCorp, a defense witness told the Senate impeachment court on Wednesday, Nov. 11.
GenCorp, a food corporation that owns six Jollibee stores, was listed by Duterte as a business interest in her 2024 and 2025 statements of assets, liabilities, and net worth (SALNs). Her name, though, does not appear in its corporate records.
The Vice President also has a 20% stake in Metro City Chow Foods Corp., which operates a Chowking branch, but she did not receive any compensation, according to the witness, Suzette Balucanag-Punay, counsel of both GenCorp and Metro City Chow.
But Balucanag-Punay stressed that Duterte has no involvement in the operation, management, or finances of the two Davao City-based food firms.
More questions than answers
Her testimony on Duterte receiving payments from GenCorp, which Senator-judge Raffy Tulfo conceded was the first time they were hearing about, drew more questions for the prosecution and senator-judges than answers.
Duterte’s defense team presented Balucanag-Punay as its fifth witness on the third day of disputing the sole-article impeachment case that accuses her of unexplained wealth. House prosecutors, through a forensic analyst, earlier claimed Duterte and her spouse, lawyer Manases Carpio, have unexplained wealth of as much as ₱1.5 billion in the four years she served as vice president.
Chief among the questions about the witness’ testimony—apart from her use of terms such as “return of capital” and “loose investments”—was her admission that she did not know why the Vice President was receiving the payments from GenCorp, and the computation used in arriving at the amounts.
“Why did you not do any research? You’re a lawyer for 15 years, and you’re even an accountant; you should have at least done some research and done some asking,” a frustrated Raffy Tulfo told Balucanag-Punay during his interjection of the witness.
No document
Balucanag-Punay replied: “That’s what I did, and I did not find any verifiable document, so I cannot produce paper out of thin air. So, apologies if I cannot give a figure.” Tulfo countered: “Then you’re not a credible witness in that way, because you did not give us anything; only ‘I do not know.’”
On direct examination by defense lawyer Justin Gular, Balucanag-Punay said Duterte was not a shareholder of GenCorp, as shown in the company’s general information sheet.
House private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan asked the witness whether GenCorp had issued any public statement saying that Duterte is not among its shareholders. Balucanag-Punay replied in the negative.
Kapunan asked whether, as GenCorp lawyer, she informed her bosses that Duterte declared in her SALN that she had business interests there.
“My function…does not involve looking at other people’s SALN and adjusting our records because somebody declared being a stockholder in our corporation,” Balucanag-Punay said.
Kapunan shot back: “It’s not a somebody; it’s the Vice President.”
Balucanag-Punay found “inaccurate” and “inconsistent” in the corporation records the report of the prosecution’s forensic analyst, lawyer, and public accountant Alexander Cabrera that Duterte had a 20% stake in GenCorp.
“The total amount paid up per corporate records is just ₱1,250,000, and I do not know what will happen if we add 20%…Then the amount paid will be ₱1.5 million…I do not know where to put it, sorry,” the witness said.
‘Absurd’
Gular asked, “What do you call that situation?”
“It’s absurd,” Balucanag-Punay said, prompting Kapunan to object and ask the court to strike her reply from the record.
“Absurd, based on what? It’s a conclusion of fact and law, and more than that, it is an opinion. I can also say that her testimony is absurd for the same reason,” Kapunan said, prompting Gular to say the witness has rights and that Kapunan was badgering her.
The impeachment court’s presiding officer, Francis Escudero, intervened, saying both statements of Balucanag-Punay and Kapunan would be stricken from the record.
In his forensic report, Cabrera computed that Duterte had ₱212.6 million in undeclared income from GenCorp from 2022 to 2025. But Balucanag-Punay said GenCorp actually paid Duterte a “return of capital” of ₱2,142,369.14 from “loose investments” in a company that GenCorp later absorbed.
On Gular’s query, the witness noted a “very big difference” between the forensic report on Duterte’s supposed undeclared income and the actual GenCorp payments to her for the covered period.
Balucanag-Punay broke down the GenCorp payments to Duterte as follows: from June 2022 to December 2022, ₱337,500; 2023, ₱557,750,000; May 2024 to December 2024, ₱612,419.14; and for 2025, ₱636,700,000.
She said GenCorp issued checks to the Vice President through the Jollibee Times Square branch’s bank account.
‘Loose investment’
Escudero asked why GenCorp was making these payments, and the witness said it came from the loose investment carried to GenCorp. He asked her to explain what she meant by “loose investments.”
“I termed it loose investment…it is coming from the contribution that the Vice President made for Davao Bounty Times Food Corp.
The court’s presiding judge asked what investment GenCorp was returning to Duterte, how much her investment was, and documents related to the investment. Balucanag-Punay said she could not verify the information because “there is no record for this investment.”
Escudero asked whether this meant she did not know the reason for the GenCorp payments to Duterte and the nature of the “loose investments,” and the witness replied in the affirmative.
To the query of Senator-judge Erwin Tulfo, she said that in 2007 Duterte invested in Davao Bounty, which failed to secure a Jollibee franchise. “Whatever she spent for Davao Bounty, that was carried over to Jollibee Times Square,” she said.
No records of investment?
Kapunan asked Balucanag-Punay how much capital Duterte invested in GenCorp, and the latter reiterated that there were no records of the investment’s amount.
But the private prosecutor said that per Davao Bounty’s Articles of Incorporation, the Vice President had a paid-up amount of ₱46,875, noting a “mismatch” between her investment and return of capital.
“The capital she put in is only ₱46,875, and yet the return is ₱2.1 million for a company…that was dissolved and did not continue the franchise and was absorbed by GenCorp. How can that be explained?” she asked.
Escudero later pointedly asked the GenCorp lawyer why the corporation made payments to Duterte when she did not get any Jollibee franchise and did not have any leaseholdings on the property. “What is exactly the consideration for the monies being given to her?” he asked, telling the witness whether this did “not raise a big question mark” for her.
Balucanag-Punay replied, “It did.” She said she made inquiries and was told these were expenses before the Jollibee Times Square branch opened.
Escudero asked the GenCorp lawyer to “explain via submissions what these monies are for in order to clear the air, and prove there is nothing illegal or violative of any laws.”
Kapunan reminded Balucanag-Punay that the GenCorp payments to Duterte were considered income, “And as income, it should be declared…and income coming from a business.”
She said that the Vice President cannot receive any other income or have any business interest while in office, noting this was a “clear violation” of the Constitution.
Gular objected to Kapunan’s “misleading, compound” statement, but Escudero asked the witness to answer.
“I prefer not to answer,” Balucanag-Punay said. Escudero said her doing so and saying she had no knowledge are two different things, prompting the witness to say she did not know whether it was a constitutional violation. CS
