The Senate impeachment court has ordered Davao City Mayor Sebastian "Baste" Duterte to testify on Sept. 22 about whether his city government did business with Gencorp Industries Inc. — a company Vice President Sara Duterte lists as a personal asset in her Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth. Prosecutors say Gencorp, which also operates under the name Timesquare Bee Foods Corp., collected roughly ₱14.32 million in food and catering contracts from the Davao City government between 2022 and 2025 — years that span both Baste's term as mayor and his sister's time as vice president.
Presiding Officer and Senate President Francis Escudero approved subpoenas on Sept. 17 for Baste and four other witnesses: Civil Service Commission Assistant Commissioner Ariel Ronquillo, Securities and Exchange Commission official Gerardo del Rosario, Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System division chief Rendell Sopeña, lawyer Gary Samonte, and police Maj. Jerrickson Sangalang. House lead prosecutor Rep. Gerville Luistro told the court the first three would testify in sequence — Ronquillo, then del Rosario, then Sopeña — before Baste takes the stand.
Prosecution counsel Benjamin Tolosa Jr. was specific about what the panel wants from the mayor: "We just want to know here, in his capacity as mayor of Davao, right, if this company had dealings with the city government." Tolosa also noted that subpoenas from an impeachment court are mandatory and cannot be refused, and that Baste could be classified as a "hostile witness" if his answers prove adversarial to the prosecution's case. House trial spokesperson Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong, for his part, was careful to frame the mayor's role narrowly: "Witness si Mayor Baste, hindi respondent" — Mayor Baste is a witness, not a respondent.
That framing doesn't make the underlying numbers any less pointed. A city government spent ₱14.32 million on food and catering with a company that its own mayor's sister — then already vice president — has listed as her asset, over a period covering three budget cycles. Whether that money moved through competitive public bidding, a negotiated procurement exception, or something in between is exactly the kind of detail neither the subpoena announcement nor any official statement so far has supplied. The inclusion of PhilGEPS's Sopeña among the witnesses suggests prosecutors intend to establish precisely that — how the contracts were procured, not just that they existed.
What remains unknown, and unaddressed by either camp: the number and size of individual contracts making up the ₱14.32-million total, whether Gencorp went through open bidding or a negotiated process available to LGUs for small-value procurement, what services were actually delivered, and whether Duterte's SALN entries for the relevant years disclosed the company consistently or at all. Malacañang and the Duterte camp have not issued a specific response to the Gencorp allegations as of this writing.
The timing compresses an already dense trial calendar. Baste's Sept. 22 appearance falls one day before the court is scheduled to hold oral arguments and vote, on Sept. 23, on Senator-judge Erwin Tulfo's challenge to how the two-thirds conviction threshold should be interpreted — the same threshold question retired justices have told the court fixes conviction at 16 of all 24 senators, not 16 of those present.
Context
The Gencorp allegation is part of the prosecution's broader unexplained-wealth track against Vice President Duterte, which has already featured testimony from a retired Sandiganbayan justice calling repeated SALN omissions a "red flag" for concealment, and evidence-gathering by House prosecutors drawing on tax and bank records. Local government procurement involving companies tied to an official's family raises questions under the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials (RA 6713), which requires public officials to avoid conflicts of interest between their public duties and private financial interests — a standard that would apply differently depending on what Baste's testimony and the procurement records actually show.
Sources
- Tolosa: Baste Duterte can testify if Davao dealt with Sara-linked firms, Inquirer.net, Sept. 16, 2026
- Baste Duterte, 4 others subpoenaed as impeachment threshold vote nears, PTV News, Sept. 17, 2026
- Baste Duterte could be classified as hostile witness, The Manila Times, Sept. 17, 2026
- Subpoena bids include Baste, Daily Tribune, Sept. 19-20, 2026
- Impeachment court issues subpoena to Baste Duterte, GMA News Online, Sept. 17, 2026