No smoking gun (yet)
Ramil Madriaga came to the House of Representatives with a score to settle and a pile of receipts: an affidavit brimming with revelations, screenshots of messages and video calls, pictures of million-peso checks, and, as the icing on the cake, a signed bank secrecy waiver.
What the House star witness failed to produce, however, was the one thing that could end Vice President Sara Duterte’s political career–a smoking gun.
Although vivid and riveting, Madriaga’s April 14 testimony at the impeachment hearing of Duterte was long on detail and short on proof. For all his talk of bags of cash and midnight deliveries, his claims remain exactly that, at least until the promised money trail is unveiled.
The confessions of the “bagman” for Duterte and “bank dummy” for her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, had the makings of a political thriller: P125 million in confidential funds allegedly disposed in less than 24 hours; duffel bags carrying tens of millions each delivered through political contacts; alleged bribes to the country’s top graft-buster, and shadowy Chinese businessmen bankrolling an electoral campaign.
Credibility on the line
Madriaga claimed he had acted on instructions relayed through security aides, with the Vice President herself invoking the need to “return a favor.” But as serious as the accusations were, he has only shown the smoke, while the gun remains tucked away in secret vaults.
To be fair, Madriaga’s signing of the bank waiver was a brilliant stroke. In effect, he has placed his own neck in the noose by opening his accounts at Chinabank, Philippine National Bank, and Land Bank of the Philippines to scrutiny, potentially cracking open a chain of deposits or withdrawals that may or may not lead to Sara Duterte or her family.
This “shifts his allegations from mere accusation toward verifiable proof,” political analyst Ederson Tapia said, adding: “By opening his records, he has placed his credibility on the line in a way that few witnesses do, and that gives his testimony greater weight.”
But credibility is not proof, and a waiver is not evidence. It is, at best, an invitation to find it.
Until those bank accounts are examined and linked conclusively to the alleged flow of funds, the House justice committee must dig deeper to establish not only hypothetical but actual wrongdoing by the country’s No. 2 official.
From the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) response, however, it doesn’t seem to be a particularly high bar.
Confronted with allegations of billion-peso money laundering, plots to assassinate President Marcos, and the systematic looting of taxpayers’ money, Sara Duterte chose to focus on what she considers the crux of the issue: her law school grades.
Classic Duterte deflection
In a lengthy statement, the VP took offense at Madriaga’s claim that she was a struggling student who needed “special accommodation” to pass her classes. She went as far as to flaunt her bar exam score in a classic Duterte deflection.
But the House committee must not be distracted by the VP’s petty grievances nor her accuser’s colorful anecdotes, for its mandate is to follow the money and establish probable cause.
Unlike an impeachment court, the committee need not prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt but only a reasonable belief that an impeachable offense may have been committed. That is a lower threshold but not a meaningless one, requiring corroboration of the evidence at hand.
The April 14 hearing didn’t begin and end with Madriaga’s testimony, and the case against the VP does not begin and end with it.
Other critical information has come to light, such as the Commission on Audit’s (COA) decision to affirm the disallowance of over P73 million of the confidential funds spent by Sara Duterte’s office in 2022.
The million-peso question
COA found, among others, that the OVP failed to show that the outlay was used for security or surveillance, prompting House Deputy Speaker Paolo Ortega V to demand that Sara Duterte return the flagged amount to “demonstrate accountability expected of a public servant.”
“She must be held responsible for the people’s money entrusted to her and acknowledge where she fell short in the process,” the House leader said.
Of course, an unfavorable COA finding does not automatically mean guilt. But this is an equally important direction the House investigators must pursue, regardless whether Madriaga proves to be an unreliable narrator, as Sara Duterte’s lawyers are saying.
The 1987 Constitution does not require certainty at this stage of the impeachment process but only sufficient basis to proceed in order to resolve, once and for all, the million-peso question: Did Sara Duterte commit impeachable acts that warrant her removal from office?
The answer lies in a full-blown impeachment trial.
If the allegations turn out to be false, a trial will definitively clear Sara Duterte’s name. But if they are true, then the Filipino people are owed an explanation–and their money back.
