The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) will ask Vice President Sara Duterte, former House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco and others named in a dismissed policeman’s sworn statement to respond to his claims that he hand-delivered suitcases of cash to members of the Duterte family. NBI Director Melvin Matibag said the bureau would extend an invitation, not a subpoena, to the vice president.
“What we will do is to invite the vice president—invite, not subpoena—for her to share or say anything in relation to what Gracioso presented,” Matibag said.
Rep. Paolo Duterte and Velasco’s wife are also on the list, the NBI chief added.
The move came on Monday, September 28, 2026, after Rodulfo Gracioso Jr. returned to the NBI with photographs and videos he said back up his account. Gracioso told reporters the videos show him delivering more than P2 billion to the vice president, P1 billion to former President Rodrigo Duterte and P100 million to the Davao City lawmaker. He has said he made more than 20 trips to the vice president alone, acting on Velasco’s orders. He arrived with Fr. Flavie Villanueva, the priest who has assisted families of drug war victims.
Outside the bureau, Gracioso challenged both Duterte and Velasco to undergo polygraph testing.
“Kay Ma’am Sara at kay Sir Allan Velasco, kung willing silang magpa-lie detector test dito sa NBI para kung sino ang nagsasabi sa amin ng totoo at hindi,” he said. (To Ma’am Sara and Sir Allan Velasco, if they are willing to take a lie detector test here at the NBI, so we can see who among them is telling us the truth and who is not.)
He said he had not heard from the former speaker since. “Wala na. Nasa ibang bansa na silang mag-asawa,” Gracioso said, indicating that Velasco and his wife are abroad.
The polygraph result the NBI announced days earlier, a 99-percent rating, has drawn scrutiny. Matibag clarified that the earlier questions covered only Gracioso’s identity and his ties to the people he named, not the contents of his affidavit. He said Gracioso has agreed to a longer round of testing based on the sworn statement.
“But now since meron siyang affidavit, we want to ask him ‘yung questions based on the affidavit,” Matibag said.
Gracioso’s service record also came under the spotlight. Philippine National Police chief Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. confirmed on Monday that Gracioso had been assigned to protect Velasco.
“He had been detailed as security or staff of former speaker Velasco… all of his security operation was covered with orders,” Nartatez said.
Nartatez said the former patrolman had faced administrative and criminal cases dating to 2021 or 2022, while he was assigned to the Calabarzon regional police office, and that those cases eventually led to his removal from the force. National Police Commission records obtained by GMA News show he was suspended three times before his dismissal, and a 2025 disciplinary ruling had already demoted him from corporal to patrolman. The dismissal carries the cancellation of his eligibility, forfeiture of retirement benefits and a ban on government reemployment.
When asked why he came forward only now, Gracioso said he received no help when he and his father fell ill.
The vice president has flatly rejected his story. “I do not know Rodulfo Gracioso Jr., nor have I ever received any money from him,” Duterte said in a September 26 statement. She described the claims as “another media stunt” and said her lawyers were waiting for an official copy of the affidavit to prepare cases against him.
“Once we are done dismantling the lies contained in his testimony, it will end up in the trash bin—just like the one from Ramil Madriaga,” she said.
Justice Secretary Fredderick Vida said the Department of Justice has received the affidavit and is evaluating it.
Velasco’s side has also denied wrongdoing. “The former Speaker of the House’s record of service in the government is untainted with corruption and his wife’s benevolence is widely known, leaving no basis for the illegal allegations now being suggested,” his spokesperson, Atty. Rowell Ilagan, said.
