The Senate impeachment court can still change the current voting threshold of 16 senators to convict Vice President Sara Duterte, according to three former chief justices of the Supreme Court. Hilario Davide Jr., Artemio V. Panganiban, and Reynato S. Puno said the number of votes to remove an impeached official should not be fixed at...
Tag: Sara Duterte
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Duterte net worth rose to ₱98M in 2025 even without corporate acquisition costs
Could omitting corporate acquisition costs in her statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) mean Vice President Sara Duterte’s net worth, which 2025 records showed was a whopping ₱98 million, is undervalued? Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian raised this question on Tuesday, Sept. 15, after House prosecutors presented Duterte’s SALNs from 2007 to 2025 at...
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Prosecutors plan to call Duterte to testify in her impeachment trial
House prosecutors intend to call Vice President Sara Duterte as a witness in her own impeachment trial after presenting evidence on all four allegations they raised against her under the articles of impeachment. “The testimony of the Vice President will be material to all four articles—grave threats, misuse and misappropriation of funds, unexplained wealth, and...
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Duterte secret fund recipients were minors, dead or missing in PSA records
Beyond odd-sounding names, supposed recipients of Vice President Sara Duterte’s confidential funds from her office and the Department of Education (DepEd) in 2023 were recorded as minors, dead, or missing in the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). The youngest was a 2-month-old baby who died in 1965, or 60 years before supposedly signing acknowledgment receipts (ARs)...
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Witness says he didn’t know Duterte assigned security officer to handle DepEd secret funds
One of Vice President Sara Duterte’s “most trusted” officials acknowledged on Wednesday, Sept. 2, that he was unaware that she had tasked a security officer, Lt. Col. Dennis Nolasco, with handling multimillion-peso confidential funds at the Department of Education (DepEd). Michael Poa, a former education undersecretary and chief of staff, said he learned of Nolasco’s...
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Witness says she entrusted Duterte security chief with secret funds
The former special disbursing officer (SDO) for Vice President Sara Duterte’s ₱500 million in confidential funds admitted on Monday that she placed complete trust in former security aide Col. Raymund Dante Lachica, accepting without question his explanation and the documents he gave her to justify fund spending. Gina Acosta repeatedly told the Senate impeachment court...
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Duterte security officer handled secret funds but not cited in documents submitted to COA, says witness
The former special disbursing officer (SDO) at the Office of the Vice President (OVP) admitted on Monday, Aug. 17, that Col. Raymund Dante Lachica was not mentioned in any of the documents submitted to the Commission on Audit (COA) in justifying the disbursement of ₱125 million in confidential funds in December 2022. Gina Acosta made...
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COA studies post-audit of Duterte secret funds
The Commission on Audit (COA) is studying the possibility of conducting a post-fraud audit of the multimillion-peso confidential funds of Vice President Sara Duterte in view of the “aliases” and odd-sounding names of their supposed recipients in her office and the Department of Education (DepEd). Xylene Mae del Campo, state auditor of the COA-Intelligence and...
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COA’s document-based audit of secret funds disappoints senator-judges
Senator-judges in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte expressed deep frustration on Wednesday, Aug. 5, over the Commission on Audit’s (COA) failure to go beyond the liquidation documents it reviewed regarding the alleged misused multimillion-peso confidential funds. Roderick Wamil, a former state auditor of the COA’s Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Unit (Icfau),...
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Duterte execs sought COA ‘query’ on secret funds instead of memo, says witness
Vice President Sara Duterte’s camp had tried to persuade the Commission on Audit (COA) not to issue an audit observation memorandum (AOM) during its review of multimillion-peso confidential funds spent by her office and the Department of Education (DepEd) in 2023, according to state auditor Roderick Wamil. Rather than an AOM, Roderick Wamil told the...