An accountable officer who fails to settle public funds when required is presumed to have taken them for personal gain — that was the finding state auditor Roderick Wamil affirmed on the witness stand Tuesday, August 4, moments before the exchange that would dominate the day.
Pressed on whether that presumption reached the unliquidated disbursements of the Office of the Vice President, Wamil pointed to a Commission on Audit circular treating an accountable officer’s failure to liquidate on demand as prima facie evidence of misuse. Vice President Sara Duterte fit that description, he confirmed. As agency head during her stint as education secretary, he explained, she bore responsibility for overseeing confidential funds and seeing that reporting requirements were met.
“Ang ibig sabihin po ng prima facie evidence under 8.3 ay nagkaroon po ng presumption na ginamit ‘yung funds for the personal use and benefit of the accountable officers,” Wamil said.
That testimony gave prosecution counsel Lorna Kapunan her opening. She rejected the technical framing outright: “Hindi prima facie evidence kung akong tatanungin. Scam ito!”
Defense counsel Michael Poa moved at once to strike the statement, branding it out of order. The court agreed and ordered the words removed from the record shortly before lunch recess.
Poa had spent much of the questioning on his feet, objecting that Kapunan’s queries pushed the witness toward legal conclusions on issues the court has yet to decide. The bench sided with him on the point that prompted her outburst, sustaining the objection just before she made the remark.
Wamil stands as the third witness called under Article II of the Articles of Impeachment, the provision dealing with confidential funds at both the Department of Education and the Office of the Vice President. He is scheduled back before the court on August 5 to face questioning from the senator-judges.
