FORMER Department of Education (DepEd) undersecretary Michael Wesley Poa on Wednesday testified that he reported directly to then-Education secretary Sara Duterte, received her instructions on department operations and sought her guidance before media interviews but had no firsthand knowledge of how the agency’s confidential funds were used.
Poa, now a member of the vice president’s defense team, took the witness stand as a hostile prosecution witness on Day 21 of Duterte’s impeachment trial.
The prosecution contrasted Poa’s access, authority and institutional role with his repeated position that he had no operational knowledge of the confidential funds.
“I don’t have personal knowledge in the operations of DepEd. So, I’m answering based on my understanding, based on what I’ve read when I was trying to study,” he said while discussing his interpretation of confidential-fund requirements.
He confirmed that his involvement in the confidential fund issue began only after DepEd received an Audit Observation Memorandum from the Commission on Audit (COA) questioning the transactions. Poa said he approached then-Education undersecretary Nolasco Mempin to ask for proof of success, particularly an accomplishment report.
Mempin, who Poa said also had no personal knowledge of the funds’ use, obtained certificates from four officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), including Col. Manaros Boransing II and Col. Magtangol Panopio.
He confirmed that no confidential funds under the DepEd were given to the Armed Forces of the Philippines for the Youth Leadership Summits.
Poa’s testimony is consistent with the statements of Boransing and Panopio that their units did not receive confidential funds from DepEd for the activities covered by the certifications they issued to the agency.
The prosecution then asked why the AFP certifications were used to support DepEd’s response to an Audit Observation Memorandum concerning rewards supposedly paid to confidential informers.
Poa testified that his interpretation at the time was that information obtained by DepEd through the payment of rewards to informants supposedly helped the military identify areas for its activities.
He, however, repeatedly said that despite being one of Duterte’s senior aides, he did not personally know how the confidential funds were spent.
When asked by private prosecutor Benjamin Tolosa Jr., Poa said that his explanation to Congress — that the youth summits were targeted based on information DepEd supplied via rewards — was purely his “impression,” “interpretation” and “theory” based on his reading of the documents. He admitted he had no personal knowledge of whether this connection was true.
Poa had not signed the original liquidation reports submitted for the funds, and identified former special disbursing officer Edward Fajarda and an accountant as among those who signed the records.
For the prosecution, Poa’s testimony highlighted how a senior official entrusted with speaking for Duterte and helping manage DepEd remained outside the operational handling of the money.
Duterte led DepEd when the agency received and used P112.5 million in confidential funds in 2023 and signed the corresponding liquidation reports as the agency’s head, Poa said.
The prosecution said Duterte must now explain who exercised control, what safeguards she imposed and how the public money was actually used.
Poa said not all paid information leads to a successful operation as he tried to explain the rewards given to informants using the DepEd’s confidential funds.
“What I’m saying is, not all information paid necessarily leads to immediate success,” he told the impeachment court. “I don’t really have personal knowledge of DepEd’s actual operations. So, I am answering based on my understanding,” he added.
Heated exchange
Tolosa’s questioning triggered repeated objections from defense lawyer Sheila Sison.
The heated exchanges prompted Senate impeachment court presiding officer Francis Escudero to intervene and appeal for restraint from both sides.
The prosecution’s presentation of Poa was aimed at establishing what he knew about the liquidation of DepEd’s confidential funds and his involvement in addressing COA’s audit observations.
Poa’s admission, however, distinguished his role in responding to audit documents and actual knowledge of the transactions covered by those documents.
The testimony came as the impeachment court continued examining the use and liquidation of confidential funds under Duterte, who served as DepEd secretary concurrently until she gave up the post, after falling out with the president.
Witnesses dropped, new schedule
The prosecution panel said it will no longer present its remaining witnesses from the AFP, saying the earlier testimonies of two officials have sufficiently covered the military certifications linked to the alleged misuse of confidential funds under Duterte’s watch.
Manila 3rd District Rep. Joel Chua said the prosecution would no longer call Lt. Col. Carlos Sandaan Jr. and retired Maj. Gen. Adonis Bajao after Boransing and Panopio testified on Tuesday.
“We have already presented two witnesses regarding the same point, and the other two would have made the same argument, so they will no longer be presented,” the lawmaker said in Filipino in a briefing following the adjournment of the proceedings.
The Senate, meanwhile, is considering a new schedule for the impeachment trial to allow senator-judges to attend to their duties in scrutinizing the proposed P7.2-trillion 2027 national budget.
Under the proposed timetable, the impeachment trial will be held for whole-day sessions on Oct. 1 and 2, starting at 10 a.m. and continuing until early evening, depending on the proceedings.
The trial will then go into full-day sessions from Oct. 5 to 9 and Oct. 12 to 15, again beginning at 10 a.m. and extending into the early evening or as long as the proceedings require.
The impeachment proceedings will be suspended after the Oct. 15 session to give way to the Senate Finance Committee’s hearings on the proposed budgets of various government agencies.
The impeachment trial will resume on Nov. 9 and 16, both Mondays, while the proposed national budget is being taken up in the Senate plenary. Regular impeachment proceedings are scheduled to resume on Nov. 23.
Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian said the revised timetable is intended to balance the Senate’s constitutional role as an impeachment court with its legislative responsibilities, particularly the annual review and approval of the national budget.
Meanwhile, Escudero said the new timetable will be formalized next week.
