ONE of the misconceptions repeatedly advanced by defenders of Vice President Sara Duterte is that the impeachment trial remains entirely the prosecution’s burden, that unless the prosecutors prove every allegation beyond all doubt, she has no obligation to explain anything. That is a misunderstanding not only of impeachment but of how judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings generally work.
There is an important distinction in law between the burden of proof and the burden of evidence, sometimes called the burden of going forward with evidence. The burden of proof refers to the ultimate obligation of convincing the tribunal that the charges are established. That burden always remains with the party making the accusation. In this impeachment trial, it remains with the House prosecutors.
The burden of evidence, however, is different. It is dynamic and shifts during the course of a trial. Once one party has presented sufficient evidence establishing a prima facie case or creating a reasonable inference in its favor, the opposing party can no longer simply deny the allegations. It must come forward with evidence to rebut, explain or contradict what has already been established.
After days of testimony from officials of the Commission on Audit (COA) and the admission of numerous documentary exhibits, the prosecution has done more than merely level accusations. It has introduced evidence that raises serious and legitimate questions regarding the liquidation of confidential funds under Sara Duterte’s leadership at both the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education (DepEd). Whether that evidence will ultimately justify conviction is a matter for the impeachment court to decide, but it is difficult to argue that the prosecution has presented nothing worthy of an answer.
The burden of producing that answer now falls squarely on Sara Duterte.
The COA witnesses did not merely speculate about possible irregularities. They identified specific documentary deficiencies. Liquidation reports contained acknowledgments with insufficient identifying information, some receipts bore aliases that could not be independently verified, and several supporting documents failed to satisfy auditing requirements designed precisely to establish whether public funds had been properly disbursed. These are not trivial clerical lapses.
Government auditing depends on documentation. Every peso spent by the government must leave a verifiable paper trail, a principle that becomes even more important when dealing with confidential funds, where secrecy limits the information available to the public. Documentation is accountability. Without reliable documentation, no auditor can determine whether public money reached legitimate recipients or whether the expenditures actually occurred as reported.
Yet throughout the proceedings, several senator-judges have repeatedly asked COA officials essentially the same question: “Can you prove that the money was stolen?” The question may sound compelling to the public, but legally and institutionally, it misses the point.
The COA is not a criminal investigative agency. It does not investigate plunder, determine criminal liability or identify who pocketed public funds. Its constitutional mandate is much narrower and much more fundamental. COA determines whether government expenditures comply with auditing rules and whether public funds are properly documented and accounted for. If auditors conclude that documentary support is inadequate, they are not required to prove theft. Their responsibility is simply to report that the expenditures cannot be properly validated. That finding, by itself, is already significant.
Indeed, that is precisely why the burden of evidence has shifted. Once COA has demonstrated that liquidation documents contain material deficiencies, the accountable official cannot merely insist that nothing illegal happened. She must explain why those deficiencies exist and provide evidence sufficient to overcome the doubts raised by the audit. That accountable official is Sara Duterte.
Her defenders often attempt to redirect attention to questions that are no longer central to the case: Why did Congress appropriate confidential funds? Why were confidential funds allowed in the Office of the Vice President? Why were they also granted to DepEd? These may be legitimate political questions, but they do not answer the issue now confronting the impeachment court. The appropriations have already been made, and the funds have already been released. The issue now is whether they were spent lawfully, properly, and in accordance with government accounting rules. That question remains unanswered.
If the liquidation documents accurately reflect legitimate expenditures, then Sara Duterte should have every opportunity, and every incentive, to present evidence correcting the deficiencies identified by COA. She should be able to identify recipients whose identities can be independently verified, explain inconsistencies in the records, and demonstrate that every questioned acknowledgment represents an authentic transaction involving actual confidential operations. Instead, much of the public has witnessed attempts to undermine the credibility of the auditors rather than address the substance of their findings. That strategy may create political noise, but it does not eliminate documentary deficiencies nor satisfy the burden of evidence that now rests on the respondent.
Some have dismissed the COA findings as mere technicalities, but that characterization is deeply misleading. Auditing rules are not bureaucratic formalities invented to inconvenience public officials. They exist because documentation is the principal safeguard against fraud, waste, abuse and corruption. If government officials can simply disregard documentary standards without consequence, then public accountability becomes little more than an aspiration. Confidential funds require even greater discipline, because their operational details are necessarily shielded from public disclosure, making society heavily reliant on institutional safeguards such as COA audits. Weakening those safeguards effectively transforms confidentiality into immunity, a dangerous precedent.
Public office is a public trust. That constitutional command requires more than avoiding criminal conviction. It demands faithful stewardship of public resources, especially when those resources are insulated from ordinary public scrutiny.
The prosecution still bears the ultimate burden of persuading the impeachment court that the constitutional grounds for conviction have been established. That has never changed. But the burden of evidence has. The prosecution has presented enough evidence to require an answer, and the unanswered questions are no longer speculative but grounded in sworn testimony, documentary exhibits and official audit findings.
Sara Duterte now owes that to every Filipino. The nation is waiting for her answer and explanation.
The author is a professor at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and vice chairman of the board of the People’s Television Network Inc.
