Vice President Sara Duterte did not appear at a House of Representatives hearing on Tuesday, April 14, where the Committee on Justice discussed the impeachment complaints against her. Following the hearing, she released a statement accusing the committee of corruption and denying claims about her law education. She did not address her alleged misuse of confidential funds, from which the four impeachment complaints stem.
During the hearing, Duterte’s former aide Ramil Madriaga said that Duterte “was not particularly good in school [San Sebastian College – Recoletos College of Law], often struggling with her academics, and habitually rude and violent to other students,” and that her former professor, Atty. Ryan Rey Quilala, had to “use his influence to ensure that Sara received passing grades.”
“Of all the lies thrown during the Committee on Justice ‘mini trial’ on April 14, the one I personally take issue with is the claim, made by a bar flunker and kidnapping suspect, that I needed someone to help me get through law school,” Duterte said.
“This mini-trial in the Committee on Justice is true to form for some of its members: abuse and corruption appear to be the only things they are capable of,” she added.
After Duterte released her statement on Wednesday, April 15, House Justice Committee member Congressman Terry Ridon called on Duterte to attend future hearings to personally refute Madriaga’s claims. “The vice president has the right to join the hearings of the House Committee on Justice regarding the impeachment proceedings against her, for her to state her evidence [on] the allegations raised against her,” he said.
“It would be better if she would mention her rebuttal during the House impeachment hearings, instead of using press statements and press conferences held by her lawyers,” he added.
New Allegations Against the VP
Cong. Gerville Luistro, who chairs the House Justice Committee, said in March that Duterte’s absence from the proceedings could fast-track the case’s transmission to the Senate, which can then move forward with a trial. “If their position is not to participate, then that is tantamount to saying na mata-transmit talaga ito sa Senate because unrebutted ang evidence ng complainant,” Luistro told ANC.
But even this is not enough to get the vice president to attend the April 14 hearing, where Madriaga shared his sworn affidavit detailing several allegations against her. Among these was the claim that the Office of the Vice President (OVP) had spent P125 million in confidential funds in a single day, refuting previous media reports stating that the OVP utilized the money in 11 days.
Madriaga also said that he had delivered two bags of cash worth up to P35 million each to former Ombudsman Samuel Martires in December 2022, on behalf of Duterte, and that he had already brought money to Martires for former President Rodrigo Duterte before that. Rappler reports that Martires denies these claims, saying that he wasn’t personally acquainted with the vice president.
Additionally, the alleged bagman said that he was asked to help Duterte’s husband, Atty. Manases “Mans” Carpio, in facilitating the release of construction equipment confiscated by the Bureau of Customs in 2017 or 2018. According to Madriaga, the equipment turned out to be magnetic lifters allegedly containing 1,000 kilograms of crystal meth, or shabu. Reports from 2018 state that although authorities found the lifters in a Cavite warehouse, they failed to retrieve the drugs said to be worth P6.8 billion. Moreover, Rodrigo, then the president, dismissed allegations of the smuggled drugs as “pure speculation.”
Aside from Duterte evading the impeachment hearings, Ridon also said that Carpio has sought a temporary restraining order (TRO) on a subpoena that the House Justice Committee issued on Duterte’s tax records. In Carpio’s petition for a TRO, he said that “a private person’s tax returns are highly confidential in nature,” Inquirer reports.
But Ridon asserts that the tax records can be summoned by the Justice Committee, and that “these records are relevant to the determination of whether the vice president may have betrayed public trust, committed culpable violations of the Constitution, or committed other impeachable offenses.”
