A former aide to Vice President Sara Duterte has walked away from a perjury charge after Taguig prosecutors concluded the complaint against him could not survive scrutiny in court, citing “lack of prima facie evidence with reasonable certainty of conviction.”
The 19-page resolution, authored by Taguig Assistant Prosecutor Duke Thaddeus Maog, stopped well short of endorsing Ramil Madriaga’s version of events. Prosecutors acknowledged that the material Duterte submitted cast doubt on his claims, but said doubt was not enough. “While the evidence submitted by complainant raises questions regarding the respondent’s version of events, it does not independently establish that the respondent knowingly and deliberately asserted falsehoods under oath upon material matters,” the resolution stated.
The office was careful to draw a line around what its ruling meant. Dismissing the complaint, it wrote, “does not constitute a judicial or prosecutorial declaration that the respondent’s affidavit is truthful or that the factual allegations contained therein are accurate.” It added that “the dismissal of the present complaint signifies only that the evidence presently submitted is insufficient to establish the particular offense of perjury under the applicable prosecutorial standard.”
The charge grew out of explosive accusations Madriaga leveled earlier this year. He alleged that Duterte financed her 2022 vice-presidential bid with “dark money” tied to drug traffickers and the outlawed Philippine offshore gaming operators. He further claimed to have hand-carried duffel bags of cash — sourced, he said, from Duterte’s P125-million confidential funds — to three drop points: the Department of Education, which she led until 2024; a Quezon City bar; and the parking area outside the Office of the Ombudsman.
Duterte’s response came in March, when she lodged the perjury complaint. Her legal team returned in August with a second perjury filing, this one targeting statements Madriaga made in an April supplemental affidavit. During an April impeachment hearing in the House of Representatives, Madriaga had asserted that the P125 million was spent not over 11 days but within a single 24-hour window.
For Madriaga’s camp, the outcome carried weight beyond the paperwork. His counsel, Mark Anthony Palad, framed the ruling as an “important vindication” of his client. “The strength of a case is not measured by the volume of papers filed, the amount of media attention generated, or the stature and position of the person making the accusation. In the end, allegations must still be tested against the evidence and the law,” he said.
Duterte’s side signaled it had braced for the result. Her new spokesman, Paolo Panelo, described the complaint as “airtight” yet said the dismissal was no surprise. “I warned of this possibility. We understood the realities,” he told “Storycon” on One News, arguing the matter had been dragged into politics.
Separately, the impeachment proceedings against Duterte have opened a new front involving her husband. House prosecutors are weighing whether to summon Manases Carpio as a hostile witness when they present evidence on the article alleging unexplained wealth. Bicol Saro Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon, who sits on the prosecution panel, said Carpio could be tapped should his name surface in relevant bank and financial documents. The panel has contended that Duterte’s bank movements — totaling P6.77 billion across 2006 to 2025 — did not square with the assets she declared.
Carpio has pushed back on his own. He filed a complaint against Ridon and other lawmakers and officials over the release of financial records involving him and his wife. The Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office turned that complaint away on jurisdictional grounds without prejudice, a disposition Carpio’s camp characterized as untethered to the merits, leaving open the option of refiling before the ombudsman.
