Sara Duterte trial recap, Sept. 1: Military men, DepEd's P15.5-million confidential funds

MANILA, Philippines — The impeachment court on Tuesday, September 1, heard the testimonies of two military officials whose signatures are on documents the Department of Education, under then-Secretary Sara Duterte, used to liquidate its confidential funds in 2023. Duterte's trial entered its ninth week today with the prosecution's relatively brief presentation of witnesses Col. Manaros Boransing II and Col. Magtangol Panopio, as the defense chose not to cross-examine both military men. Both Boransing and Panopio testified that their units, the Army's 1st Infantry Division and 7th Infantry Division, respectively, received no funds from DepEd, the Office of the Vice President, or the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group for their divisions' conduct of 2023 Youth Leadership Summits and information campaigns. Boransing attested that the Army's total operational spending across all eight summits, through a rough on-the-spot computation, likely stayed under P500,000, with local governments covering most youth participants' costs and other agencies shouldering their own expenses. DepEd nonetheless submitted Boransing's certification to the Commission on Audit as what the agency called proof of success of an information-gathering or surveillance activity, one of its bases for P15.54 million in confidential funds it claimed went to rewards payments for informants. Private prosecutor Reynaldo Robles said the amount covered a large number of individual payments, roughly P100,000 to P200,000 each, some listed under names he described as unusual, and that the figure covered only the first two quarters of 2023. The certificates signed by Boransing and Panopio, however, both make no mention of any amount. Boransing acknowledged the certificate did more than state the successful conduct of activities, as there was a sentence that the Army "successfully collaborated with the Department of Education," resulting in "zero reported [communist terrorist] recruitment." Boransing agreed that it amounted to a claim of success. Both Boransing and Panopio said they had only learned their certificates were submitted by DepEd to justify its confidential spending during the 2024 House good government committee hearings that sought to probe Duterte's use of secret funds. Boransing stated that DepEd's inputs were not confidential in nature, but rather information on school schedules and permission to speak with students, distinguishing them from anything resembling intelligence work. He further said DepEd gave his division no confidential or surveillance information at all, but rather "open-source information," including which students showed leadership potential and which schools made suitable venues. Panopio gave a similar account but added that the claim that DepEd information had "enabled" the Army's civil-military and intelligence operations referred to input from teachers on the ground, not DepEd officials at higher levels. He said this information covered matters happening in the community—including communism, terrorism, drug abuse and family issues—and that he could not say definitively whether any of it counted as confidential. Pressed to specify what, if anything, DepEd shared that he would call confidential, Panopio speculated, "Maybe the personal circumstances like teenage pregnancies or other personal information na maging confidential because it is their personal life." The defense, however, argued that each certificate closes with the line "for whatever legal purpose it may serve"—language they said shows the officers signed knowing the documents could be put to legal use.