ASEANEWS HEADLINE-VP DU30 IMPEACHMENT 8.3.26 DAY #11 | MANILA: OVP use of secret funds ‘irregular’– COA exec
BOXES OF EVIDENCE Lawyer Roderick Wamil (top photo, on witness stand), former state auditor for the Commission on Audit’s (COA) Intelligence and Confidential Fund Audit Office, testifies as the Senate impeachment court on Monday tackles Vice President Sara Duterte’s use of her office’s confidential funds. House prosecutors and defense lawyers inspect the documents contained in boxes delivered by the COA to the impeachment court. —NIÑO JESUS ORBETA
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FULL TRIAL: Impeachment Trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, Day 11 – August 3, 2026
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House prosecutors on Monday presented acknowledgment receipts bearing questionable names and incomplete documentation in the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) liquidation of confidential funds, arguing these reflected a pattern of irregularities that amounted to betrayal of public trust by Vice President Sara Duterte.
On the 11th day of Duterte’s impeachment trial before the Senate as an impeachment court, prosecutors relied heavily on the testimony of Commission on Audit (COA) auditor Roderick Wamil to show that the OVP failed to comply with government rules governing confidential funds released in the last 11 days of 2022.
A certified public accountant and lawyer, the 35-year-old Wamil served under the COA’s Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office (Icfao) from 2014 to 2024. He conducted an audit of the liquidation and confidential expenditures of the OVP from December 2022 to September 2023 and the Department of Education (DepEd) from January to September 2023.
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The prosecution’s third witness for Article 1 involving the alleged misuse of P612.5-million confidential funds in the OVP (P500 million) and DepEd (P112.5 million) testified on the insufficiency of the documentary submissions for the liquidation of confidential funds of the two offices that Duterte concurrently headed.
The prosecution focused on the OVP’s liquidation of the P125-million confidential fund released in December 2022, one of four quarterly allocations totaling P500 million received by Duterte’s office from late 2022 to the third quarter of 2023.
Questionable recipients
Private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan presented several boxes containing 845 acknowledgment receipts showing payments ranging from P50,000 to P295,000 to several individuals, including the controversial “Mary Grace Piattos,” whose identity had earlier been questioned during congressional inquiries.
Also reflected in the receipts were recipients identified as “Renan Piattos,” “Mico P. Harina,” “Andy C. Lim,” “Gabriel Bisaya,” “Alejandro A. Pikit,” “Nova Santos” and “Patty Ting.”
The prosecution stopped short of branding all the names as fictitious but maintained they were sufficiently questionable to warrant scrutiny.
Those names, at the very least, were “questionable,” Manila Rep. Joel Chua, one of the impeachment prosecutors, told reporters after the hearing.
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Missing support
“What is being shown for now are the COA’s findings,” said Chua, who chaired the House committee on good government and public accountability that investigated the OVP’s use of confidential funds.
Wamil testified that the receipts formed part of the OVP’s liquidation documents covering confidential fund expenditures from Dec. 21 to 31, 2022.
He identified one receipt showing Mary Grace Piattos receiving P70,000 for “payment of rewards—medicines” but said the document itself did not explain the transaction.
“I cannot determine based on this document. That’s why we asked for the submission of additional documents,” Wamil told senator-judges.
Other receipts showed payments of P110,000 to Renan Piattos, P295,000 to Mico Harina, P50,000 to Andy Lim, P70,000 to Gabriel Bisaya, P90,000 to Alejandro Pikit, and P85,000 to Nova Santos for the purchase of various goods.
According to Wamil, these transactions were supported only by acknowledgment receipts and not by official receipts or sales invoices required under Joint Circular No. 2015-01 governing the use of confidential and intelligence funds.
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“Since these involved purchases, they should have been supported with sales invoices and official receipts, not merely acknowledgment receipts,” he said.
He also testified that the OVP failed to identify the specific confidential activities for which the funds had supposedly been spent.
“It was noted that the Office of the Vice President did not enumerate its specific confidential activities,” Wamil said.
The state auditor said documents submitted by the OVP likewise failed to establish that rewards supposedly given to informants led to successful intelligence or information-gathering operations, another requirement under the joint circular.
“All their submissions for payment of rewards do not have supporting documents showing the success of the information-gathering activity or surveillance activity on account of the information given by the informer,” he testified.
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Disallowed expenses
Wamil also flagged expenditures that, according to the COA, were not allowable charges against confidential funds.
These included around P40 million for medical and food assistance and about P10 million in travel-related expenses.
He said the COA also questioned P34.85 million worth of goods distributed as rewards, P24.93 million worth of medicines, P11.81 million in supplies, P3 million in computers, and P500,000 worth of tables and chairs, resulting in the issuance of a notice of disallowance.
The prosecution also highlighted discrepancies in the OVP’s liquidation documents.
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Wamil said his audit showed inconsistencies between acknowledgment receipts and accomplishment reports submitted by the OVP, with the documents indicating expenditures exceeding the P125-million confidential fund allocation by P150,000.
He likewise testified that some liquidation documents reflected payments made in December 2023 even though they were charged against the 2022 confidential fund allocation, beyond the period allowed under the governing rules.
“There were no other supporting documents submitted, only these acknowledgment receipts,” he said.
Throughout his testimony, Wamil emphasized that confidential funds remain public funds subject to strict accounting and auditing requirements.
“We follow strict compliance because public funds are involved, so accounting and auditing rules must be strictly observed,” he said.
‘Only Vice President’
Wamil also told the impeachment court that Duterte was the only vice president whose confidential funds he audited during his decade at the Icfao because her predecessors, former Vice Presidents Jejomar Binay and Leni Robredo, had no confidential fund appropriations.
He added that Duterte was likewise the only education secretary whose office received confidential funds during his tenure as an Icfao auditor.
The OVP received P125 million per quarter from the fourth quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2023, or P500 million in all, while DepEd received P112.5 million in confidential funds during the first three quarters of 2023, when Duterte concurrently served as education secretary.
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Prosecution’s case
Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong, one of the prosecution’s spokespersons, said Monday’s evidence was intended to establish that Duterte failed to properly account for confidential funds entrusted to her office, constituting betrayal of public trust.
The documents presented covered only one quarter of the OVP’s confidential fund releases and formed part of hundreds of acknowledgment receipts examined by COA auditors.
Outside the courtroom, prosecution panel spokesperson Benjamin Tolosa Jr. said public opinion remained a consideration in presenting the House’s impeachment case but emphasized that legal strategy would ultimately determine how the prosecution would proceed.
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“At the end of the day, for now we have no decision to drop any of the articles of impeachment,” Tolosa told reporters. INQ
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