Sara files another perjury rap vs Madriaga
Vice President Sara Duterte on Monday filed another perjury complaint against Ramil Madriaga, her alleged former aide.
Duterte filed the complaint herself before the Taguig City Prosecutor’s Office, accompanied by her legal counsel, Paolo Panelo.
According to Panelo in a statement, the complaint consisted of approximately 1,000 pages, which “thoroughly exposes Madriaga’s malicious and deliberate falsehoods.”
It also supposedly contains sworn testimonies of Duterte, as well as 12 corroborating witnesses, government and other official documents and certifications, and contemporaneous messages, photographs, and public records.
Duterte filed her first perjury complaint against Madriaga in the same office on March 4, after Madriaga submitted an affidavit to the Office of the Ombudsman claiming that he had delivered large sums of money to different people under Duterte’s instructions.
Duterte denied the accusation, maintaining that she had neither personal nor professional dealings with Madriaga, and that his claim of having served as her “bagman’’ or courier for diverted confidential funds was false.
Headline-making claims
Madriaga made headlines in December 2025 when, while detained due to an alleged kidnapping case, he told the Ombudsman that he had worked for the Dutertes—first with former President Rodrigo Duterte, and then with his daughter, the incumbent Vice President.
Madriaga claimed he began working for the younger Duterte in 2018 when she was still Davao mayor, and that, upon her instruction, he helped lay the groundwork for a group called Inday Sara Is My President (Isip) Pilipinas movement to campaign for her presidency.
He said he was introduced to the elder Duterte by the late Rep. Roilo Golez, for whom he had worked as a “political officer specializing in intelligence gathering and sabotage operations.”
His supposed work for the Duterte family included “campaign and organizing activities, intelligence gathering, and sabotage.”
Madriaga said he felt “betrayed” after Duterte did nothing to help him with the kidnapping charge filed against him by former Palace spokesman Harry Roque—an act of retaliation, he said, after he tried to stop Roque and his Philippine offshore gaming operator (Pogo) partners from allegedly grabbing land in Bataan province.
House hearing
Last April, Madriaga appeared in a hearing by the House justice committee related to the impeachment of Vice President Duterte, where he claimed that in one instance, he delivered P125 million in cash drawn from Duterte’s confidential funds to different places in one day, including the Office of the Ombudsman.
It was in reference—and a correction—to remarks made by a House member in a hearing two years ago about Duterte’s office having spent the money in just 11 days.
“I read from several media reports that the P125 million OVP (Office of the Vice President) confidential funds in 2022 were reportedly utilized in just 11 days. This is wrong because I personally disposed of the money in less than 24 hours,” Madriaga told the panel.
In his testimony, Madriaga gave details of his alleged role in delivering the funds in cash to three different recipients. Four large duffel bags containing around P30 million to P35 million each were unloaded from the vehicles they used, according to Madriaga.
He also claimed that he served as a “dummy” for bank accounts of former President Duterte through which “large amounts of money” were coursed through and released.
These bank accounts, he said, “were opened by people close to PRRD (former President Duterte), who informed me that money will be transferred to these accounts for intelligence operation and for laundering.”
Kidnapping for ransom
Madriaga is detained at Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City, and is on trial for the alleged kidnapping for ransom case.
The case stemmed from the arrest of Madriaga and four other suspects on July 12, 2023, in Cainta, Rizal, for the kidnapping of cousins Mark and William Lu on June 3, 2022.
The Philippine National Police then described Madriaga as the leader of “one of the most dangerous criminal syndicates in recent history.” The other arrested suspects were Jaime Patano, Ervyn Bernados, Ronald Alivio, and Richard Babagay.
At the time, Col. Moises Villaceran, then the head of the PNP Anti-Kidnapping Group, said Madriaga had been charged with another kidnapping case in 1997, but that he was eventually acquitted by the Supreme Court. —WITH A REPORT FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH
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