Prosecutors Receive Copies Of VP Sara’s Bank, Tax Records

The prosecution team of the House of Representatives is now in possession of bank documents and tax records of Vice President Sara Duterte and her husband Manases Carpio, as allegations of unexplained wealth against her will take centerstage in the next phase of her impeachment trial.

Rep. Terry Ridon (Bicol Saro party-list), also a member of the team, confirmed receipt Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 2, of the financial records from several banks as well as from the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

“So, in the next few days we will be studying and scrutinizing every detail of all these documentary evidence. And this will constitute our last important pillar of the incriminating evidence that we will be using for the unexplained wealth article,” Ridon told reporters.

He said the prosecution panel is in the process of evaluating whether it would still push through with the presentation of Impeachment Article III that deals with bribery and procurement irregularities involving Department of Education officials when the Duterte was still its secretary. The unexplained wealth allegation is under Article II of Duterte’s impeachment case.

Ridon said that if the panel decides to skip Article III, it would go straight to Article II.

The House committee on justice headed by Rep. Gerville Luistro earlier uncovered, as per the testimony of the Anti-Money Laundering Council, that the Duterte couple had about P6.7 billion in bank transactions for a long period of time. 

The Luistro panel, however, was not able to peruse the tax records because of questions over rules.

“The team handling the unexplained wealth is also ready, and we also acknowledge that there are conversations as to the pursuance or not of the bribery article, and the direct presentation on the unexplained wealth article,” Ridon said. 

House trial spokesman and impeachment adviser Robert Ace Barbers, meanwhile, warned that subordinates of Duterte who handled confidential funds could eventually be left personally accountable for the questionable transactions. 

The former Surigao del Norte congressman issued the warning as the impeachment trial examined who could ultimately answer for confidential-fund cash passed outside the designated disbursing officer.

“Whoever is the SDO (special disbursing officer) may end up accountable. And that is exactly the purpose of this Joint Circular (of the Commission on Audit), because it has to be very clear as to who has the power and who handled the expenditures of this funding,” he said. 

Joint Circular 2015-01 assigns the SDO responsibility for disbursing confidential funds and maintaining the records and supporting documents required for liquidation.

The testimony of former OVP SDO Gina Acosta revealed the transfer of confidential funds to security officer Raymund Lachica, while former DepEd SDO Edward Fajarda similarly identified security officer Dennis Nolasco as the person to whom the education department’s cash was turned over.

“So in this case, the personnel who will ultimately be held responsible are the underlings – the SDOs and the security officers. Because as per their testimony, they disbursed the funds to these security officers upon the direct instructions of the VP,” he pointed out. 

“We’re taking a look at the Joint Memorandum Circular dated 11 years ago. We find there are certain provisions that need to be modified or revised. We have identified areas that need further looking into, on what are the certain documents evidencing payments, the specific data that should be contained, how we should be able to identify aliases and code names, and how to protect the identity of informants,” Commission on Audit Commissioner Mario Lipana Mallillin said. “The present circular does not exactly prohibit nor does it really straightforwardly allow the use of aliases.”  – With an additional report from Marc Jayson Cayabyab