Impeach court to tackle VP tax, bank records

MANILA, Philippines — The Senate impeachment court will next tackle the subpoenaed bank and tax records of Vice President Sara Duterte and her husband Manases Carpio as well as their businesses as part of the Article II for alleged unexplained wealth of the Vice President.

This means the court will dispense with the prosecution’s presentation on the alleged confidential funds misuse (Article I), which has been allotted 31 trial dates based on the pre-trial order, impeachment court spokesman Reginald Tongol told radio dwIZ yesterday.

The prosecution is done with its presentation of evidence on grave threats (Article 4) made by the Vice President in a livestreamed press conference in November 2024 that she has allegedly hired a hitman to kill President Marcos, First Lady Liza Marcos and former House speaker Martin Romualdez if she would be killed.

Tongol said the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has complied with the subpoena of the Vice President’s tax and bank records, and submitted to the Senate four red boxes on Thursday.

These boxes contain the tax records of the Duterte couple, as well as the tax records of 19 corporate entities and one law firm tied to the couple.

The subpoenaed documents covered the period 2007 to 2025, including the time when Duterte was Davao city mayor and vice mayor.

The court allowed the documents covering the time when Duterte was not yet an impeachable officer to establish the financial baseline of her wealth as Vice President.

Besides the BIR, the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) and the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), BDO Unibank, Philippine Savings Bank, Metropolitan Bank & Trust Company, Landbank of the Philippines and Security Bank Corporation have complied with the subpoena on relevant documents to the Duterte couple.

The AMLC has furnished the court with copies of its reports on covered and suspicious transactions involving Duterte and her husband.

The court secretariat will be busy photocopying these “voluminous documents” so that all parties – prosecution, defense and the senator-judges – will be provided copies, Tongol said.

Both the prosecution and defense can choose which documents are relevant to their case, but these need to be pre-marked before being presented in court.

The defense team stressed that the admissibility of the tax records of the Vice President and her husband is not automatic, even if the President has given the green light to open the BIR boxes.

Defense spokesman Michael Poa said they may employ legal remedies to question the decision of the President.

“Not just the legal remedies outside the impeachment court but within the proceedings itself. We can still object if we think that there are things that should not be admitted as evidence here,” Poa said.

He also maintained that the defense team is not afraid of the documents inside the BIR boxes. — Bella Cariaso