A lot to explain

For weeks, the prosecution in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte has been laying the foundation: SALNs, tax returns, bank records, corporate filings, property documents, AMLC reports.

Last week, it finally started showing us the actual structure.

Two witnesses were particularly important. Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) official Anne Loraine Garcia-Marquez walked the impeachment court through the tax records of Duterte and her husband, Mans Carpio.

Then lawyer and financial forensic analyst Alexander Cabrera took those records, together with bank documents, investments, corporate financial statements and SALNs, and tried to answer the obvious question: what do all these numbers actually mean?

His answer was jaw-dropping.

Cabrera testified that, based on his analysis, Duterte and Carpio had a total of P817.87 million in allegedly undeclared assets and income from 2022 to 2025. His computation included undeclared cash, real and personal property, and income connected to several corporations.

He also told the court that his method was deliberately conservative and avoided double counting. P817.87 million in undeclared assets and income. Nearly a billion pesos that, according to Cabrera’s analysis, was not properly reflected in the records he reviewed.

That is no longer a stray discrepancy buried in a spreadsheet. That is no longer a simple accounting error.

Garcia-Marquez’s testimony raised another set of questions. BIR records showed that the couple reported only P85.34 million in combined income net of tax from 2007 to 2025. More awkwardly, a BIR Form 2316 attached to Duterte’s 2023 return listed the Davao City government as her employer and reported P82,000 in compensation, even though she was already Vice President.

Her records also reflected “other income” in 2024 and 2025. The source was not identified in the financial statements, but because Duterte remained registered with the BIR under “legal activities,” Garcia-Marquez said the bureau would treat such income as coming from her profession.

That matters because Article VII, Section 13 of the Constitution explicitly prohibits the Vice President from holding another office or employment or practicing another profession during her tenure.

Whether these records actually establish a constitutional violation is ultimately for the impeachment court to decide. But they certainly demand an explanation.

And this is where the trial has now reached an important turning point.

For months, we have heard the familiar refrain that this impeachment trial is merely political, that the charges are manufactured, that this is all just persecution dressed up as accountability.

That argument becomes harder to sustain when the prosecution is no longer simply waving allegations around, but presenting government records and an expert who says those records reveal P817.87 million in undeclared assets and income.

To be fair, we have still heard only the prosecution’s case. The defense will cross-examine Cabrera and, when the proceedings resume after the coming break, will have every opportunity to present its own witnesses, calculations, and explanations.

Perhaps there are perfectly innocent answers to some or all of these apparent discrepancies. Who knows?

Due process requires that we hear them. But due process does not require us to pretend the evidence presented so far does not exist.

The prosecution has now laid a substantial documentary foundation under Article II. The numbers are on the record. The tax forms are there. The financial analysis has been presented.

The defense may have an explanation. And at this point, one thing is abundantly clear: it desperately needs one.