A House prosecutor said on Saturday that the timeline and contents of military certifications submitted by the Department of Education (DepEd) had raised questions over the liquidation of P15.54 million in confidential funds.

Lawyer Benjamin Tolosa Jr. said certificates issued by Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) officials in December 2023 and January 2024 could not readily establish that information allegedly obtained from informants paid through confidential funds had led to the military activities cited in the documents.

“The timeline is important for us to understand. This means these certificates were issued in December 2023 and January 2024, but the AOM (Audit Observation Memorandum) was only issued in February 2024,” Tolosa said in a radio interview.

“So I will leave it to the senator-judges and to the public if that matter destroys the timeline of the explanation given by the witness,” he added.

AFP officials Col. Manaros Boransing II and Col. Magtanggol Panopio testified earlier this week that their certifications established that DepEd’s confidential funds had been used for military activities. They also said they were unaware that the documents would later be used to support the liquidation of confidential funds.

Poa, a DepEd undersecretary and chief of staff during Duterte’s tenure and now a member of her defense team, later confirmed that DepEd did not give any confidential funds to the AFP for Youth Leadership Summits and information-education programs.