BIR, COA officials summoned to House impeachment hearings

ALL SET The House committee on justice, chaired by Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro (left), is all set to hear again the impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte next week. —GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

The House committee on justice has summoned officials of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Commission on Audit (COA) to testify on Vice President Sara Duterte’s tax compliance and liquidation of confidential funds in its hearings on two impeachment complaints filed against her.

The committee issued a subpoena for BIR Commissioner Charlito Martin Mendoza to submit the tax compliance and reported income of Duterte and her husband Manases Carpio, as well as copies of her and her husband’s annual income tax returns, from 2007 to 2025, among others.

The objective is “to identify and authenticate the submissions to your office,” read the subpoena.

State auditor Gloria Camora, for her part, was directed to present copies of documents submitted by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) to the COA on the liquidation of confidential funds, for the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first three quarters of 2023.

Camora belongs to COA’s Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office, which has custody of all OVP documents and the Department of Education’s disposition of its confidential funds for 2022 and 2023.

“Her testimony is needed to identify and authenticate the requested documents,” read the subpoena.

The committee’s next hearing is set for April 14.

Duterte is accused of misusing P612.5 million in confidential funds, corruption at the DepEd on her watch as secretary from 2022 to 2024, and plotting to kill President Marcos, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and former Speaker Martin Romualdez, among others.