The confidential funds meant to bankroll secret informants under the Office of the Vice President instead went toward tables, chairs, printers and medicine — and the paperwork to prove any informant was ever paid was largely missing. That was the account a Commission on Audit auditor gave the Senate impeachment court on Monday, August 3, as the prosecution pressed its case on the misuse of P612.5 million in secret government money.
Roderick Wamil, who reviewed the OVP’s confidential expenditures at COA’s Intelligence and Confidential Fund Audit Office and now heads an audit team at COA Pasig, took the stand as the prosecution’s third witness on Day 11 of Vice President Sara Duterte’s trial. The proceedings this week center on Article I, which accuses her of misusing P500 million in confidential funds at the OVP and P112.5 million at the Department of Education.
A 2015 joint circular sets a narrow test for how confidential funds may be spent: payments to informants require approval by the agency head, must be tied to a specific confidential activity, and must come with documents showing that the information-gathering or surveillance actually worked. Wamil testified that the OVP produced receipts and little that satisfied those conditions.
Prosecution counsel Lorna Kapunan walked him through a series of acknowledgment receipts from 2022. Among them: P70,000 paid to a “Mary Grace Piattos” as a reward in the form of medicines, P295,000 to a “Mico P. Harina” for supplies, and others issued under names including Nova Santos, Renan Piattos, Janice Revilla, Patty Ting and Andi Lim.
“Hindi ito properly supported ng documents evidencing success, which is required by the joint circular,” Wamil said of the Piattos receipt.
Most of the receipts, he told the court, arrived without the supporting documentation that would show whether any intelligence work succeeded. Others accounted for the purchase of office equipment — tables, chairs, desktop printers and computers — with nothing linking them to any covert operation.
“Since ang involved ay purchases, these should be supported by sales invoices and receipts at hindi lang acknowledgment receipts,” he said.
Asked whether even the store where the medicines were bought was itself confidential, Wamil drew a distinction. “Ang confidential ay paggagamitan at hindi pinagbilhan. Magkaiba yun,” he said. Defense counsel Michael Poa moved to strike the answer, arguing the witness was not competent to give it, but presiding officer Senator Chiz Escudero overruled him, holding that Wamil could explain the judgments he made as the auditor who examined the submissions.
The gaps extended to categories of spending the circular does not permit at all. Wamil confirmed the OVP charged P40 million for medical and food aid and another P10 million for incentives and travel against its confidential funds — neither medicine nor food appearing among the allowable expenses. Both entries surfaced in a revised accomplishment report the OVP filed on the same afternoon that auditors tried to serve an Audit Observation Memorandum at its office and found no one authorized to accept it. The revised version named specific confidential activities the original had left out, but the prosecution’s point was that it still carried no proof that any payment to an informant had produced a result.
Wamil said he issued a notice of suspension over the fourth-quarter 2022 funds, a flag COA raises when disbursements appear illegal, irregular or improper. Its annex showed P25.66 million liquidated with receipts dated December 2023 — a full year after the money was spent — and P3.27 million backed by receipts bearing no date at all. The receipts also added up to P125.15 million, overshooting by P150,000 the P125 million the OVP had itself reported.
The defense declined to concede much of the underlying record. Of more than 3,000 documents tied to Article I, the OVP’s lawyers agreed to stipulate to most, sparing the court 10 of 15 boxes of evidence, but refused to stipulate to the 845 acknowledgment receipts covering the office’s fourth-quarter 2022 spending.
Wamil said he does not know how the OVP eventually answered the suspension notice; he had already been reassigned to another COA unit. The court adjourned at 2:30 p.m. and will resume at 10 a.m. Tuesday, with the prosecution continuing its direct examination.
