Duterte faces impeachment trial over 'unusual' liquidation of confidential funds

MANILA, Philippines – To end three days of intense questioning and poring over documents, including those that bore names like Renan Piattos, Nova Santos, and Mico Harina, veteran lawyer Lorna Kapunan on Wednesday, August 5, put her foot down and offered her defense counterpart a compromise. “Perhaps to restore a level of trust on the side of the defense.… Let’s use the defense’s documents. Then, they will not say we do not trust these documents because it’s their own defense documents,” said Kapunan, the private counsel for the prosecution. With minutes left before the impeachment court was supposed to call it a day to make way for the Senate’s regular session, the prosecution and defense in Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial were still arguing over the admission of documents. Three days before, the two camps had a similar debate just before state auditor Roderick Wamil, formerly of the Commission on Audit’s (COA) Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office (ICFAO), began his testimony. “Maybe that will solve the problem of this court. Will you still question using your own documents? Will you still question the authenticity of your own documents?” added Kapunan, who led the direct examination of Wamil. Play Video The past two days, it was Kapunan who led an ensemble prosecution team in weaving — during an impeachment trial that’s streamed online and the center of the Philippine political world — a narrative that the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) under Duterte misused or misappropriated a bulk of the P612.5 million it received in intelligence funds. Days 10 to 13 of the impeachment trial were devoted to discussions of Article 1, the second in four articles of impeachment against the second-highest official of the land. “These matters are very unusual,” lawyer Benjamin “Jay” Tolosa, Jr., private prosecutor and legal spokesperson for the House panel, said in a press conference on Wednesday. Referring to the apparent failure of both the OVP and the DepEd — but the OVP especially — to properly explain before COA how it spent confidential funds, Tolosa added, “Clearly, there are important questions that must be addressed.” Message discipline? The story the prosecution had been trying to tell started on Wednesday, July 29, when they presented bankers who oversaw the encashment of both the OVP and DepEd’s confidential funds. The encashment of those checks, the two bank managers admitted to the court, was “unusual” even if it was not suspicious — after all, all the right signatories and personalities from the government agencies signed off on the monies’ release. “Unusual” found its way back into the impeachment vocabulary on Wednesday, August 5, as Wamil enumerated some of the oddities he encountered in auditing Duterte’s confidential funds: No official receipts to prove purchase of items (medicine, supplies), just acknowledgement receipts; An agency apparently approaching COA to “request” that an audit query and not an audit observation memorandum be issued; and An agency paying supposed recipients in medicine or supplies, not cash. Wamil was part of COA-ICFAO from February 2014 to September 2024 — a tenure that covers three vice presidents and several DepEd chiefs. While former vice president Jejomar Binay once asked for confidential funds as housing sector chief, Wamil had not overseen its liquidation. That means it was only under Duterte that Wamil audited confidential funds of a vice president. It was Wamil, too, who testified that Duterte had literally signed off on the liquidation reports, and that, as head of agency, she was ultimately accountable for the funds’ use. Wamil repeated these points under direct examination by Kapunan and through hours of interpolation or interjection by senator-judges. The three days have also been a grind for the prosecution — whether it be Kapunan on the Senate plenary hall or its different talking heads in press conferences, chance interviews, and media guestings — to push forward a narrative they’ve been building, first through LandBank officials and then through Wamil: that the haste in encashing the fund, in spending the fund, and even in accounting for the fund, forms a pattern of mishandling or misuse of hundreds of millions of pesos. Kapunan called it a “scam” — a remark that was quickly stricken off the impeachment court’s record, although it had already made its mark in livestreams and clipped videos across the internet. But who hears the story? Tolosa, speaking to Rappler right after the impeachment trial, called it a week and beamed over some wins that the prosecution had scored: he considered Wamil’s testimony clear and Kapunan’s deft lawyering effective. Presiding officer Senator Francis Escudero had also ruled in their favor by rejecting the defense’s attempt to block parts of Arturo Lascaña’s affidavit and taking judicial notice of previous House proceedings that cover the allegations against Duterte. While the impeachment court made it clear that in both cases, it’s not yet an acceptance of the truth of both the affidavit and the House hearings, Tolosa said it would still “help expedite the proceedings.” Tolosa said they hoped for a “more cooperative and reasonable” defense team when it comes to accepting documents as evidence. Next witnesses for the prosecution include COA-ICFAO supervising auditor Xylene Mae del Campo and Legislative Archives and Museum Management Service Director Marivic Pareja. The prosecution also wants a subpoena issued to summon Gina Acosta and Edward Fajarda, the special disbursing officers for the confidential funds of the OVP and DepEd under Duterte, respectively. The Supreme Court on Wednesday also rejected a petition to junk the House proceedings that led to Duterte’s impeachment in the first place. Expert Speaks [Rear View] Memo to the prosecution: It’s the story, not the merits But the prosecution has a two-fold issue to solve before the confines of the impeachment court: making sure the trial is still on the radar for most Filipinos, and that the stories and conclusions they’ve worked to weave together resonate with that public. For both the defense and prosecution, and even the senator-judges, it will be either a restive or restful weeklong break. At least one lawyer in the room was explicit about her weekend plans. After saying they were willing to accept the defense’s own documents, Kapunan quipped: “‘Wag na tayo mag-compare-compare. Thursday, Friday — manonood pa ako ng Odyssey (There’s no need for us to compare documents. Thursday, Friday — I have plans to watch The Odyssey).” Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey is, in part, a commentary on how chaos ensues when powerful people start skirting and violating long-established norms and rules. The impeachment trial of Duterte continues at 10 am on Monday, August 10. – Rappler.com