MANILA — Prosecutors in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte have more witnesses and evidence lined up for the Article II of the impeachment complaint, which accuses Duterte of unexplained wealth, discrepancies in her statement of assets, liabilities and net worth and continued business interests.
House lead prosecutor Gerville Luistro said the prosecution still has plenty of witnesses to present in the trial including bank managers, insurance company executives, an official from the Philippine National Police Firearms and Explosives Office, 2 officials from the Bureau of Internal Revenue, former senator Antonio Trillanes IV and even Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte.
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An official of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was presented before the Senate Impeachment Court on Monday, September 21, 2026, as the prosecution panel’s third witness in connection with Article II of the complaint, which covers the wealth and business interests of Vice President Sara Duterte. Wendell D. Alinea, Senate Social Media Unit/File
Trillanes is expected to repeat his previous testimony before the House justice committee in which he accused the Duterte family of receiving millions of pesos in checks - amounting to P2.407 billion in bank transactions from 2003 to 2016 - from an alleged drug lord. He earlier said the figures were based on bank records provided to him by a source and examined with the help of accountants and financial specialists.
During the same House proceedings, the Anti-Money Laundering Council presented its own financial data showing P6.77 billion in total transactions involving Duterte and her husband Manases Carpio, including P4.43 billion in inflows.
AMLC officials also confirmed that certain transactions appearing in Trillanes’ documents matched transactions in their records.
BRIBERY
In the interview, Luistro said Article III of the impeachment complaint accusing Duterte of bribing Department of Education officials while she was DepEd Secretary remains on the table amid talk that the prosecution is considering dropping the allegation to speed up the trial.
She noted at least 3 DepEd officials have already testified in a congressional inquiry that they received cash amounts from a payola envelope that was circulated among education officials.
“Hindi pa namin pinag-uusapan ‘yan. One of these days tututukan na namin ‘yan,” she said, adding that the decision must be made by next month as the Senate impeachment court starts day-long trial hearings.
If the prosecution does decide not to push through with the bribery allegation, “we are confident with the first 3 Articles of Impeachment that we have presented and are still presenting,” Luistro said.
The lead prosecutor admitted there is some “impeachment fatigue” especially as the prosecution is set to present voluminous evidence on Duterte’s bank records, transactions, insurance records and BIR documents.
She urged the public to “stay with us”, saying that the impeachment process is meant to benefit the people.
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