A single number sat at the center of Monday’s clash in the Senate impeachment court: 11 days. That was how long, according to state auditors, it took the Office of the Vice President to spend P125 million in confidential funds at the close of 2022 — and it was the one figure Sara Duterte’s lawyers would not sign off on.
On Day 11 of the trial, August 3, prosecution counsel Lorna Kapunan asked the defense to stipulate that the OVP received the P125 million on December 20, 2022 and disbursed the full amount within 11 days, based on Commission on Audit records. Defense lawyer Michael Poa refused. “No stipulation,” he told the court.
Poa did agree that the OVP was allotted the P125 million in confidential funds in 2022, but with the counter-stipulation that the amount was approved through the proper channels — the crux of the defense’s argument on the spending’s speed. When the trial opened in July, lead defense counsel Sheila Sison had traced the compressed timeline to the government’s own release process, noting that the money reached the OVP only on December 20, after passing through the Department of Budget and Management and Malacañang, which left the office just 11 days before the fiscal year closed.
The 11-day figure is not new. It first surfaced in September 2023 during House deliberations on COA’s proposed 2024 budget, when Marikina Representative Stella Quimbo disclosed that the fund had been spent not in 19 days, as one computation held, but in 11.
The prosecution’s broader case under Article I accuses the Vice President of misusing P612.5 million in confidential funds — P500 million at the OVP and P112.5 million at the Department of Education, which she led from 2022 to 2024. Auditor Roderick Wamil, the prosecution’s witness Monday, testified that Duterte signed the OVP’s liquidation report certifying that the purpose of the P125-million cash advance had been accomplished, even as the supporting documents omitted the specific confidential activities required under the rules.
The speed of the spending has drawn scrutiny from an unexpected quarter as well. In April, an alleged former Duterte “bagman,” Ramil Madriaga, told the House justice committee that the money had not taken 11 days to move at all — claiming in a sworn affidavit that he personally disposed of it in less than 24 hours through a series of cash handoffs. Those claims have not been tested at the trial, and a person Madriaga named has called him a fabricated source.
The court adjourned Monday afternoon and resumes Tuesday at 10 a.m.
