A state auditor testified before the Senate impeachment court that Commission on Audit rules create a legal presumption that Vice President Sara Duterte's office used confidential funds for personal benefit, because her office failed to properly liquidate the money despite a formal demand from COA. Former COA intelligence-and-confidential-funds auditor Roderick Wamil's testimony, delivered over multiple August hearing days and detailed in an Aug. 6 report, gives the House prosecution its clearest evidentiary hook yet in the unexplained-wealth strand of the impeachment case, with three additional witnesses scheduled to testify this week.
According to Philstar and the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Wamil cited Item 8.3 of Joint Circular 2015-01 — the government's guidelines on the entitlement, release, use, reporting, and audit of confidential and intelligence funds — which states that an accountable officer's failure to liquidate public funds "upon demand by any duly authorized officer" is "prima facie evidence that he has put such missing funds or property to personal use and benefit." House prosecution counsel Benjamin Tolosa Jr. argued that this presumption applies because the Office of the Vice President did not adequately liquidate its confidential fund disbursements when COA asked. Wamil's testimony also identified Duterte's own signature on three disbursement vouchers covering the first, second, and third quarters of 2023, together authorizing what prosecutors describe as ₱375 million in irregularly disbursed confidential funds, according to MindaNews.
The testimony builds on an earlier finding, reported by Pulpulitiko on Aug. 5, that Duterte's chief of staff Zuleika Lopez and then-spokesperson Michael Poa had separately asked COA auditors in September 2023 to downgrade any confidential-fund findings to an informal "audit query" rather than a formal Audit Observation Memorandum — a request auditors rejected because, they said, it had no basis in COA rules. Taken together, the two threads of testimony assembled by House prosecutors describe both an alleged attempt to soften the paper trail and a subsequent failure to produce the liquidation records the audit rules require.
The defense has not been silent. According to Philstar, Sen. Robin Padilla — widely seen as sympathetic to Duterte in the trial — argued the vice president's confidential funds were used against communist insurgents, an implicit defense that the spending served a legitimate security purpose even if paperwork requirements were not met. The Office of the Vice President has previously maintained that its confidential fund spending followed proper channels and has characterized the prosecution's characterization of the funds as misleading; the office did not have a specific rebuttal to Wamil's Aug. 6 testimony reported by the outlets reviewed for this article. Three additional witnesses were expected to testify this week, according to Philstar's Aug. 10 report, meaning the confidential-funds strand of the trial is likely to generate further evidence in the days ahead.
The legal weight of a "presumption" is not the same as a finding of guilt. Under the joint circular Wamil cited, the presumption is rebuttable — meaning Duterte's camp can still present liquidation records or other evidence to overcome it. The impeachment court, not COA, will ultimately decide whether the presumption holds and whether it is sufficient grounds for conviction on the article alleging unexplained wealth and misuse of public funds.
Context
Vice President Sara Duterte, daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, is being tried by the Senate on impeachment articles that include allegations of unexplained wealth and misuse of confidential and intelligence funds during her time as vice president and, earlier, as education secretary. Separate reporting by Rappler has detailed an alleged ₱6.7-billion mismatch between Duterte's bank transactions and her Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) declarations, a discrepancy lawmakers have called a potential "smoking gun" for the unexplained-wealth charge. The ₱612.5 million in confidential funds referenced in COA's broader audit — covering both the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education — has been a recurring flashpoint in the trial since hearings began.
Sources
- Auditor: OVP confidential funds 'personally' used (Philstar.com)
- COA auditor: No record presumes funds went to VP's personal use (Philippine Daily Inquirer)
- OVP confidential funds presumed spent for personal use — state auditor (MindaNews)
- Padilla: VP secret funds used vs Reds (Philstar.com)
- VP's secret funds: 3 more witnesses to be presented (Philstar.com)
- Sara Duterte's P6.7-B bank transactions don't match her SALN declarations (Rappler)