Duterte tax docs stay sealed as cautious House panel passes box to Senate

MANILA, Philippines — The House justice committee voted 38-6 on Wednesday, April 29, not to open a sealed box containing the income tax returns of Vice President Sara Duterte and her husband, Manases Carpio, opting to leave the decision to the Senate should the impeachment case reach trial.

The vote came during the committee's fourth and likely final hearing on the two impeachment complaints against Duterte. Even House members who had initially pushed to unseal the records argued opening the box now could expose the proceedings to another legal challenge.

The sealed green box debated on the first half of the impeachment hearing today was delivered by the Bureau of Internal Revenue to the committee on April 22. It carries tax returns and VAT records of the vice president and her husband and their linked businesses from 2007 to 2025.

It is one of the pieces of evidence that the panel subpoena'd as the two impeachment cases against Duterte involve allegations of unexplained wealth. 

Caution wins

Rep. Chel Diokno (Akbayan) was among the lawmakers who said they opposed opening the box "out of an abundance of caution."

Diokno expressed his opinion that it was more prudent to leave the matter to the Senate as an impeachment court. 

He noted that, for once, he disagreed with Rep. Leila de Lima (Mamamayang Liberal), who was among the six House members who moved to unseal the records.

House Deputy Speaker Rep. Jay-Jay Suarez warned that opening the box could trigger legal challenges that will delay the proceedings. "In my view, let us just open this mysterious green box at the Senate," he said in Filipino.

De Lima, a former Justice secretary and then senator, made the strongest case for opening the records. She told the committee that no statute — including the tax code's confidentiality provisions — can override the constitutional power of impeachment.

"The constitutional duty vested upon this body cannot be impeded, curtailed or conditioned by statute," she said. "Any law, however worded, must yield when it stands in the way of a direct constitutional command."

She rejected the argument that the box could simply be forwarded unopened to the Senate. "We cannot just send it to the Senate without knowing what's inside," she said in Filipino. "We will be the prosecutors later."