MANILA, Philippines — A Commission on Audit (COA) official cited alleged irregularities in the use of confidential funds by Vice President Sara Duterte on the second day of his testimony before the Senate impeachment court hearing evidence on the alleged fund misuse, one of four Articles of Impeachment filed against her.
Prosecution witness Roderick Wamil, an auditor assigned to the Commission on Audit’s Intelligence and Confidential Fund Audit Office, said the Office of the Vice President’s supposed use of medicines as rewards under its confidential funds was "not normal."
During the 13th day of the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, Senator-judge Risa Hontiveros asked whether it was normal for medicines to be given in exchange for intelligence information and cited a liquidation entry showing "Mary Grace Piattos" receiving P70,000 worth of medicines.
Wamil said the OVP under Duterte was the first agency to use medicines as a form of payment and it was “not normal.”
"Not yet. This was my first time, in the case of the OVP," he added when asked whether he had seen a similar arrangement in other agencies.
Wamil said the transactions could be viewed either as payment of rewards or as the provision of medicines because COA’s examination was based on the descriptions appearing in the documents.
He also said COA did not investigate what illnesses the medicines were intended to treat or why recipients had to provide intelligence information before receiving them.
Wamil also said that in his more than a decade of auditing over 30 government agencies’ confidential and intelligence fund expenses, the OVP was the only agency that submitted only acknowledgement receipts (ARs)—not official receipts or sales invoices—to support its purchases charged to confidential funds.
"In your experience auditing 30 agencies, can you say that your findings on OVP are similar or standard for other offices, or it usually happens that no official receipts and no sales invoices were provided for liquidation? Can you say that it is a standard practice of other agencies that you audited?" Senator-judge Francis Pangilinan said.
"I cannot say it is a standard practice since this is the first time that they submitted purely ARs only to COA," said Wamil, who was with COA’s Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office from 2014 to 2024.
"So first time in your 10 years that only ARs and no sales invoice, no official receipts were submitted?" Pangilinan asked again.
"Yes, and they submitted a huge number of ARs," Wamil said.
In his testimony, Wamil said the OVP's P125 million confidential fund liquidation covering Dec. 21 to 31, 2022 was supported by 849 acknowledgment receipts but not a single official receipt or sales invoice.
Wamil also testified that the DepEd, based on documents he initially evaluated, did not submit evidence showing the success of its surveillance or information-gathering activities.
He clarified that confidential funds, despite their sensitive nature, remain public funds and were therefore subject to COA scrutiny and documentation requirements.
At the same time, Wamil said requiring receipts for confidential fund disbursements did not jeopardize national security.
Senator-judge Raffy Tulfo raised the issue while questioning Wamil on the COA's requirement for official receipts and sales invoices supporting confidential fund expenditures, particularly for medicines listed in the liquidation reports presented before the Senate impeachment court.
The exchange came after lawyer Michael Poa, Vice President Sara Duterte's legal counsel, argued on Tuesday that requiring recipients of confidential funds to issue receipts could compromise national security.
"Yesterday, Atty. Poa said that he mentioned the circular stating that the names of the recipients should not be disclosed for security and national security reasons. In your opinion, would it compromise the security of the informants if you asked them to provide receipts for the medicines they received through the confidential funds?" Tulfo said earlier on Wednesday.
Wamil clarified that COA was not asking for the identities of recipients but only proof that purchases had actually been made.
"Just as I stated during my testimony, what we are requesting is the proof of purchase, specifically the official receipt and the sales invoice," he said.
Tulfo then cited examples of common purchases, such as maintenance medicines and antibiotics, asking whether those were the types of receipts COA required.
Wamil answered, "Yes po, Your Honor."
Tulfo said that the defense had argued such documentation could pose a threat to national security.
Wamil responded, "Actually, the circular they mentioned, which is the 1999 circular, has already been repealed."
When Tulfo pressed further, asking whether receipts for ordinary purchases such as "tsitsiriya, shampoo, o suka sa sari-sari store" would jeopardize national security if submitted to auditors, Wamil replied, "No."
