Sara Duterte Impeachment Trial: COA Witness Testifies on Alleged Misuse of Confidential Funds

The House prosecution panel on Tuesday is set to continue its direct examination of the witness from the Commission on Audit (COA) testifying on an article of impeachment centered on the alleged misuse of P612.5 million in confidential funds by Vice President Sara Duterte. Roderick Wamil, former COA Intelligence and Confidential Funds Office (COA-ICFAO) state auditor, is expected to return to the witness stand once the impeachment court resumes the trial at 10 a.m. The defense team of Duterte is also set to conduct a cross-examination of the prosecution witness. Impeachment court spokesperson Regie Tongol said that the prosecution has yet to establish the connection between the testimony of Wamil and that of the two former LandBank managers last week. “Mr. Wamil was just talking about ‘yung mga ginawa niya pong audit at saka disallowance. Wala pa pong pagme-make ng connection ‘yan ng ating House prosecution panel. As you see po kanina, ‘yung mga initial mga documents pa lang is about the audit report,” Tongol said in a press conference on Monday. (Mr. Wamil was just talking about the audit he did and the disallowance. Our House prosecution panel has not yet made a connection. As you can see, the initial documents presented were only about the audit report.) “So hintayin po natin ‘yung House prosecution panel para po makapagtanong ng ganyang klaseng tanong po kay Mr. Wamil para makonekta po nila ‘yung nangyaring withdrawal na tinestigo po ng mga LandBank officials last week tsaka doon po sa paglabas naman po ng pera sa tinetestigo po ngayon ng COA auditor na si Mr. Wamil,” he added. (So let’s wait for the House prosecution panel to ask that kind of question to Mr. Wamil so they can connect the withdrawals that the LandBank officials testified on last week and the release of money that COA auditor Mr. Wamil is investigating now.) Aside from Wamil, the Senate impeachment court also earlier issued subpoenas to COA ICFAO state auditor Celine May Del Campo, as well as House of Representatives Legislative Information Resources Management Department director Marivic Pareja. This is in relation to Duterte’s alleged misuse of P612.5 million in confidential funds—P500 million from the Office of the Vice President (OVP), and P112.5 million from the Department of Education (DepEd). Violeta Constantino, former Landbank Shaw Boulevard branch manager, and Nenita Camposano, former Landbank DepEd branch manager, previously said the withdrawals in tranches of huge amounts of cash by the OVP and DepEd’s respective special disbursing officers were "unusual."