HOUSE prosecutors will shift their focus to how Vice President Sara Duterte’s alleged confidential funds were spent and liquidated when it presents two Commission on Audit (COA) auditors and a House records custodian as the impeachment trial enters its 11th day.
The witnesses are expected to testify on the liquidation of the P612.5 million in confidential funds received by the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education between 2022 and 2023, after prosecutors spent the first phase of Article I tracing how the money moved from the National Treasury to cash withdrawals.
“Once we believe the evidence is already strong enough, and additional evidence would only further strengthen it, we do not want a long process or hearing,” House prosecutor and Manila Rep. Joel Chua said during the Saturday News Forum in Quezon City.
Chua said the prosecution has lined up about 13 witnesses for Article I but may not present all of them if the allegations can already be established through fewer testimonies and documentary evidence, stressing that trimming the witness list would not weaken the case.
The prosecution opened its presentation of evidence on Article I last Wednesday through two former Land Bank of the Philippines branch managers who testified that Treasury checks totaling P612.5 million originated from the National Treasury and were withdrawn in cash by authorized special disbursing officers of the OVP and DepEd.
Chua likened the impeachment charge over Duterte’s alleged misuse of P612.5 million in confidential funds to the Arroyo-era fertilizer fund scam, saying both cases center on whether public funds reached their intended purpose.
“If you remember the fertilizer scam, there was funding. The government’s fertilizer program was a good program. There really was a need for a program for our crops. But when funds are released and no one can determine where they were used, it’s like ghost fertilizer,” Chua said.
