Morning Coffee Thoughts Commentary

MISS CASTRO, NGAYON ANG TAMANG PANAHON PARA MAGTANONG

Gino Borlado — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Hindi ako sang-ayon sa paggamit ni Claire Castro ng salitang “premature” sa pagpuna sa malaking budget increase para sa distritong kinakatawan ni Sandro Marcos. Tama siya na hindi automatic na pagnanakaw ang budget insertion. Hindi pa rin final ang proposed budget. Pero nang sabihin niyang kailangan muna ng ebidensiya na ginamit sa corruption ang pera bago tawaging “callousness” ang ganitong allocation, masyado niyang nilimitahan kung ano ang puwedeng kuwestiyunin ng publiko.

Kailangan ba muna nating manakawan bago tayo magtanong? Pera natin ang pinag-uusapan. May karapatan tayong malaman kung saan ito pupunta, bakit iyon ang napili, at sino ang humiling. Hindi kailangang may napatunayang pagnanakaw bago maging valid ang mga tanong na iyan.

Marami akong nabasang posts na nagsasabing number one si Sandro sa budget insertions. Pero gusto kong maintindihan kung saan galing ang ranking na iyon, paano kinuwenta ang dagdag, at ano talaga ang mga proyektong kasama.

Kaya nagbasa tayo. Binuksan ko ang records sa bettergov.ph at ikinumpara ang National Expenditure Program, o original budget proposal ng Executive, sa budget na ipinasa ng Kamara. May mga numerong kailangang sagutin.

Para sa mga proyektong nakalista sa Ilocos Norte 1st District Engineering Office, mula humigit-kumulang ₱369 million sa original proposal ay naging ₱4.74 billion sa House version ng 2027 budget. Dagdag iyon na humigit-kumulang ₱4.38 billion. Halos 13 times na ang kabuuang halaga kumpara sa original proposal.

Project allocations ang pinag-uusapan dito, hindi personal na perang ibinigay kay Sandro at hindi rin ang buong operating budget ng engineering office. Pero hindi naman maliit na adjustment ang dagdag na mahigit ₱4 billion.

Sa sariling paghahambing ko ng 159 districts na may engineering office na eksklusibong nagsisilbi sa kanilang distrito, pinakamalaki ang net increase ng Ilocos Norte 1st District. May limitasyon ang comparison na iyon: hindi kasama ang lahat ng shared offices at centrally managed projects, kaya hindi iyon ranking ng lahat ng government spending sa bawat distrito.

SAAN NAPUNTA ANG DAGDAG?

Sa multipurpose buildings, walang nakalistang allocation sa original proposal para sa office na ito sa category na iyon. Sa House version, mayroon nang humigit-kumulang ₱1.91 billion na nakakalat sa 232 entries.

Sa access roads and bridges sa ilalim ng Basic Infrastructure Program, mula ₱207 million ay naging humigit-kumulang ₱1.16 billion. Dagdag na halos ₱955 million.

Sa flood-control category, mula ₱32 million ay naging humigit-kumulang ₱1.42 billion. Increase na halos ₱1.38 billion.

Ang dagdag sa tatlong categories na iyan ay humigit-kumulang ₱4.25 billion, o mahigit 97 percent ng net increase para sa office na ito. Kaya may malinaw na direksiyon ang mga tanong. Bakit ganito karaming multipurpose buildings ang idinagdag? Ano ang studies para sa flood-control projects? Paano napili ang mga kalsada at tulay, at bakit wala ang malaking bahagi ng mga ito sa original proposal?

Hindi sapat na sabihing makikinabang naman ang distrito. Kailangan nating makita kung paano napatunayang kailangan ang bawat proyekto at kung paano kinuwenta ang gastos.

MAY MGA ENTRIES NA KAILANGANG IPALIWANAG

May ₱21-million entry para sa construction ng bridge na nagkokonekta sa Barangay Alsem at Barangay Dipilat sa Vintar. Nasa original proposal iyon at nanatili sa House version.

Pero may hiwalay pang ₱190-million entry sa House version para sa “Construction of Alsem-Dipilat Bridge” sa parehong mga barangay. Nasa PDF pages 459 at 464 ang dalawang entries, na may combined allocation na ₱211 million.

Hindi ko sinasabing duplicate funding na agad iyon. Posibleng magkaibang phase, scope o bahagi ng trabaho. Pero dahil parehong barangay at bridge connection ang tinutukoy, kailangan ang project IDs, plans at breakdown para makita kung hiwalay talaga ang pinopondohan.

Sa PDF page 674, mayroon ding ₱100 million para sa construction ng dalawang multipurpose buildings sa Sta. Rita, Bacarra. May isa pang ₱10-million entry para sa construction o rehabilitation ng multipurpose building sa parehong barangay.

Puwedeng magkakaibang buildings ang mga iyon. Pero hindi natin dapat hulaan. Ilabas ang exact locations, intended use, plans at cost estimates.

Iyan ang dahilan kung bakit hindi sapat ang sagot na wala pang napapatunayang pagnanakaw. Ang hinihingi natin sa puntong ito ay paliwanag sa mga numerong nasa dokumento mismo.

MAY KAPALIT ANG BAWAT DINADAGDAG

Hindi rin puwedeng tingnan ang increase na ito na para bang walang ibang binago sa budget. Sa nationwide DPWH schedules na kinumpara ko, ang multipurpose-building allocations ay mula humigit-kumulang ₱41 billion at naging ₱84 billion. Ang access roads and bridges sa Basic Infrastructure Program ay mula halos ₱106 billion at naging ₱135 billion.

Combined increase iyon na humigit-kumulang ₱72 billion. Kasabay nito, ang DPWH foreign-assisted projects ay binawasan mula halos ₱118 billion at naging ₱45 billion, o bawas na ₱73 billion.

Hindi sapat ang mga numerong iyan para sabihing direktang inilipat ang buong ₱73 billion sa mga local projects, o kay Sandro. Kailangan ang amendment records para masundan ang bawat transfer.

Pero malinaw na may malalaking dinagdagan at may malalaking binawasan. May karapatan tayong malaman kung bakit iyon ang naging priorities.

Sa health-facilities schedules, ang kabuuang printed allocation ay binawasan mula humigit-kumulang ₱14.47 billion at naging ₱10.02 billion. Sa component para sa DOH hospitals, ang equipment allocation ay binawasan mula halos ₱5 billion at naging ₱857 million.

Hindi ito ang buong health budget. Pero totoong mga pagbawas ito sa mga listahang binasa ko, habang may bilyon-bilyong dagdag sa ibang infrastructure categories.

Kaya kapag sinabing mapapaganda naman ang isang distrito, ang tanong ko: ano ang hindi mapopondohan, o mababawasan, para magawa iyon? Limited ang pera ng bayan. Kailangang maipaliwanag kung bakit mas dapat unahin ang isang proyekto kaysa sa iba.

SINO ANG HUMILING?

May mga kongresista nang sumagot tungkol sa questioned additions. Sinabi ni Gerville Luistro na hindi niya nasubaybayan ang budget process dahil sa impeachment trial at aalamin niya ang nangyari.

Ayon naman sa Bilyonaryo News Channel, itinanggi ni Ronnie Puno na may ipinasok siyang projects at sinabing kay appropriations chair Mika Suansing itanong. Hindi pa rin nasasagot ng mga pahayag na iyon kung sino ang humiling at nag-apruba ng bawat dagdag.

Kay Sandro, hanggang sa paghahanap ko noong October 30, 2026, wala pa akong nakitang direct response niya tungkol sa humigit-kumulang ₱4.38-billion increase para sa 2027. Ang mga sagot na nakita ko tungkol dito ay galing sa Palasyo.

May denial na siya noong December 2025 sa mga alegasyon ni Zaldy Co tungkol sa 2023 hanggang 2025 budgets. Ibang budget years at ibang allegations iyon. Hindi puwedeng iyon na rin ang ituring na sagot sa kasalukuyang increase.

Hindi ko ituturing na pag-amin ang kawalan ng sagot na mahanap. Pero reasonable namang asahan na ang congressman ng distritong may ganitong kalaking dagdag ay magpapaliwanag kung ano ang alam niya tungkol dito.

May projects bang hiniling o inendorso ang kaniyang opisina? Kung wala, sino ang nagpasok ng mga ito, at kailan niya nalaman? Puwede bang ilabas ang requests at approval records para hindi tayo puro hula?

MAY DAHILAN ANG PAGBABANTAY NATIN

Hindi naman nagsimula sa wala ang distrust ng publiko. Matapos ang mga nabunyag na anomalya sa flood-control projects at mga alegasyong kinasasangkutan ng mga mambabatas, hindi na sapat ang “magtiwala kayo sa proseso.”

Tayo ang nagbabayad ng buwis. Kapag nasayang o ninakaw ang pondo, tayo rin ang nawawalan ng serbisyong dapat pinondohan niyan.

Kaya ganito kahigpit ang pagbabantay. Ayaw na nating malaman na may problema kapag nailabas na ang pera at saka pa lang naghahanap kung sino ang responsable.

Hindi nito pinatutunayang may kasalanan si Sandro. Pero hindi rin niya kailangang mapatunayang may kasalanan bago maging makatuwiran ang paghingi natin ng documents at explanation.

Kaya hindi convincing sa akin ang sagot na hindi pa tapos ang proseso. Habang hindi pa final ang budget, may pagkakataon pang mag-correct, magtanggal ng hindi maipaliwanag, at humingi ng supporting documents bago aprubahan ang bilyon-bilyon.

Sinabi rin ni Castro na kailangan ng gobyerno ang tulong ng mga nagbabantay sa budget. Kasama sa tulong na iyon ang mahihirap na tanong at criticism na hindi magandang pakinggan para sa mga nasa puwesto.

Karapatan ng mga taga-Ilocos Norte ang maayos na infrastructure. Pero pera ng buong bayan ang pinag-uusapan, kaya may karapatan din tayong malaman kung paano napagdesisyunan ang ganitong kalaking allocation.

Ang pagiging anak ng Presidente ay hindi ebidensiya ng kasalanan. Pero hindi rin kapalit ng mga dokumento ang tiwala ng Palasyo.

Maaaring premature ang hatol na may nagnakaw. Pero ang paghingi ng paliwanag bago gastusin ang pera natin? Ngayon ang tamang panahon.

Sources

IS ASIA PREPARING FOR WAR?

Gino Borlado — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

I received an email from Ms. Lorna, 65 years old, retired, at taga-Angono, Rizal. Ang tanong niya, naghahanda na ba ang Asia para sa giyera? At kung magkaroon nga ng giyera, ano ang mga warning signs na dapat nating bantayan? Posible bang madamay ang Pilipinas?

I am not an expert in Asia-Pacific security or military affairs. Pero matagal ko nang sinusundan ang mga balita sa region. So ang ginawa ko, pinagtabi-tabi ko ang mga developments para makita kung may koneksyon ang mga ito, at kung ano ang posibleng mangyari sa atin.

And I have to admit, this is one of those things na habang sinusulat ko, I sincerely pray that I'm wrong. Dahil kung papunta nga sa giyera ang mga nangyayari ngayon, hindi lang mga bansang direktang involved ang maaapektuhan. Pati tayo.

MILITARY SPENDING

So, Ms. Lorna, ito ang nakita ko. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, umabot sa 681 billion US dollars ang military spending sa Asia at Oceania noong 2025. That's an 8.1 percent increase in real terms from the previous year.

Sa China, tumaas ang military spending ng 7.4 percent. Sa Japan, 9.7 percent. At sa Taiwan, 14 percent.

Malalaking increases ito. Pero hindi ibig sabihin na kapag gumagastos ang isang bansa sa military, naghahanda na itong umatake. Kaya tiningnan ko rin kung ano ang ginagawa ng kanilang armed forces.

CHINA, TAIWAN AT JAPAN

Unahin natin ang China at Taiwan. Matagal nang may military exercises ang China sa paligid ng Taiwan. May warships, fighter jets, at naval at air operations na puwedeng gamitin para kontrolin ang mga daanan papunta sa isla.

Isa sa mga posibleng gawin ng China, ayon sa military analysts, ay blockade. Ibig sabihin, puwedeng harangan ang mga barko at eroplano na papasok o lalabas ng Taiwan. Hindi nila kailangang agad magpadala ng libo-libong sundalo para lusubin ang isla.

At malaking problema iyon para sa Taiwan dahil dependent sila sa international trade, lalo na sa imported energy. Kapag tumagal ang blockade, puwedeng magkaroon ng shortages, masira ang economy, at madamay ang international trade. Kaya ang Taiwan, nagpapalakas din ng defenses at nagte-training kung paano haharapin ang blockade o invasion.

Sa Japan naman, nitong October 2026, nagkaroon sila ng malaking military exercise kasama ang United States. Keen Sword 27 ang pangalan. Around 45,000 Japanese personnel at 11,000 American troops ang lumahok. Kasama sa training ang air and missile defense, maritime operations, at operations sa mga isla ng Japan na malapit sa Taiwan.

Now, bakit ginagawa ito? Puwedeng paghahanda para sa possible conflict. Pero puwede rin itong deterrence.

Ang deterrence, simple lang ang idea. Pinapakita mo sa kalaban na kaya mong lumaban para magdalawang-isip siyang umatake. Ang problema, puwedeng iba ang interpretation ng kabilang bansa. Baka isipin nilang naghahanda ka nang umatake, kaya magpapalakas din sila ng military.

At doon puwedeng magsimula ang mas malaking problema. Ngayon, punta tayo sa Pilipinas.

PAANO MADADAMAY ANG PILIPINAS?

May military cooperation tayo sa United States, Japan, Australia, at iba pang defense partners. May joint exercises, improvements sa military facilities, at mga bagong defense capabilities. At kung titingnan ninyo ang mapa, malapit tayo sa Taiwan.

Nasa north lang ng Luzon ang Taiwan. Sa pagitan natin ay ang Bashi Channel, isang importanteng daanan ng commercial at military vessels. Kung magkaroon ng conflict sa Taiwan, posible tayong maapektuhan kahit hindi tayo sumali sa giyera.

Puwedeng ma-disrupt ang shipping routes, tumaas ang fuel prices, at magkaroon ng problema sa international trade. At dahil may access ang American forces sa ilang military facilities natin under EDCA, magiging mas sensitive ang sitwasyon kung masangkot ang United States.

Pero hindi ibig sabihin na dahil may EDCA, automatic na sasali tayo sa giyera. May mga legal at political decisions pa na kailangang gawin. So, ibig bang sabihin nito, malapit na ang giyera?

Hindi natin masasabi. Ang military buildup at military exercises, hindi sapat na ebidensiya na may planong umatake. Kaya ito ang mas gusto kong bantayan.

MGA WARNING SIGNS

Una, unusual troop movements. Kapag may biglaang paglipat ng maraming sundalo sa mga lugar na posibleng magkaroon ng conflict, lalo na kung hindi bahagi ng scheduled exercises.

Pangalawa, military mobilization. Kapag tinatawag na ang reserve soldiers para sa active duty.

Pangatlo, logistics buildup. Ito ang malaking movement ng fuel, ammunition, military vehicles, medical supplies, at iba pang kailangan para suportahan ang isang military operation.

Bakit ko binabantayan ang logistics? Dahil hindi puwedeng puro sundalo at armas lang ang dala mo sa giyera. Kailangan mo ng pagkain, fuel, ammunition, medical support, at transport para tuloy-tuloy ang operations.

Kung maglulunsad ang China ng full-scale invasion sa Taiwan, kailangan nilang maglipat ng napakaraming sundalo at equipment across the sea. Hindi basta-basta ang ganitong operation. Pero kung blockade ang plano, puwedeng mas kaunti ang preparations kaysa sa full-scale invasion, at posibleng mas maikli ang warning time.

Pang-apat, civilian transport. Kapag biglang ginagamit ang commercial ships, ferries, at civilian aircraft para magdala ng troops at military equipment.

At panglima, civilian emergency preparations. Kapag nagsisimula nang mag-evacuate ang mga embassies, inilalayo ang military families, o naghahanda ang hospitals at emergency shelters para sa posibleng maraming casualties.

Now, hindi ibig sabihin na kapag may nakita tayong isa sa mga ito, may giyera na agad. Pero kapag maraming warning signs ang nangyayari nang sabay-sabay, ibang usapan na iyon.

HANDA BA ANG MGA PILIPINO?

At dito ako nag-aalala para sa Pilipinas. Handa ba tayo kung magkaroon ng regional war? Hindi ko pinag-uusapan kung ilan ang fighter jets o missiles natin. Ang iniisip ko, paano ang ordinaryong Pilipino?

Paano kung biglang tumaas ang presyo ng gasolina dahil naapektuhan ang shipping? Paano kung magkaroon ng problema sa supply ng pagkain at ibang imported products? Paano ang mga OFWs natin sa Taiwan, Japan, at iba pang lugar na puwedeng maapektuhan?

May evacuation plans ba tayo? May emergency supplies? Alam ba ng mga tao kung saan pupunta at ano ang gagawin kung magkaroon ng emergency?

Ito ang gusto kong marinig mula sa gobyerno. Ano ang plano natin para sa civilians? Kasi kahit hindi tayo direktang makipaggiyera, puwede pa rin tayong tamaan ng consequences.

PAGHAHANDA, HINDI PREDICTION

So, matapos kong tingnan ang mga developments na ito, ano ang masasabi ko? Yes, may military buildup sa Asia. Tumataas ang military spending, lumalaki ang military exercises, at mas lumalawak ang defense cooperation ng iba't ibang bansa.

Pero sa publicly available information na nakita ko, wala pa akong sapat na ebidensiya para sabihing malapit nang magkaroon ng malaking giyera. At sana, ganoon nga. Sana ang mga preparations na ito ay para pigilan ang giyera, hindi para simulan ito.

Pero kailangan pa rin nating bantayan ang troop movements, military mobilization, logistics, at emergency preparations. At dapat ding tanungin ang gobyerno kung handa ba tayong protektahan ang mga Pilipino kung lumala ang sitwasyon.

Ms. Lorna, hindi ko kayang sabihin sa inyo na walang mangyayaring giyera. Walang makakapangako niyan. Pero ayoko ring magbigay ng impression na siguradong may giyerang darating, dahil wala tayong sapat na ebidensiya para sabihin iyon.

Ang gusto ko lang, aware tayo sa nangyayari at alam natin kung ano ang dapat bantayan. And as I finish writing this, I have one hope.

Sana, after a few years, balikan natin ang mga balitang ito at makita nating walang nangyaring giyera. Because this is one of those times when I would be very happy to be proven wrong.

Sources

THERE’S A BUDGET INSERTION IN YOUR DISTRICT, AND YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT IT?

Gino Borlado — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Someone told me in the comments, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

That reminded me of Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, the 1995 Steven Seagal movie. Marcus Penn, played by Everett McGill, delivers a line I’ve never forgotten: “Assumption is the mother of all fuck ups.”

I see that habit too often in our political discussions. We Filipinos love to assume, jump to conclusions and guess. Look at our situation. It’s so fucked up that even figuring out where to start fixing it is difficult. Yet we keep passing off guesses as facts.

At Morning Coffee Thoughts, I try to check what the records actually say. Sometimes that means finding out that my first reaction was wrong. Sometimes it means discovering that the explanation an official gave doesn’t answer the question.

Congresswoman Gerville Luistro’s statement about reported budget insertions sent me looking.

Asked about ₱1.31 billion in additions for the DPWH engineering office serving her district, she said she wanted to see the list and check it. She had been told that the executive’s proposed amount and the House amount were nearly the same.

Check it? How come you don’t know?

I had heard versions of that answer before. A congressman gets named in a budget controversy, then says he didn’t request the projects or doesn’t know who added them.

I also had to admit something: I didn’t fully understand how that could happen. I knew Congress could amend the budget. I didn’t know enough about who handled those changes, what district representatives were shown, or when they were supposed to check.

Since I don’t like to guess, I study. So, with a hot Americano beside my laptop, I started looking through the reports and budget documents.

OTHER CONGRESSMEN HAD SAID IT TOO

Oriental Mindoro Representative Arnan Panaligan said in August 2025 that flood-control projects had entered the enacted budget without being requested by or coordinated with his office. He said he belonged to neither the small committee handling amendments nor the bicameral conference committee.

The increases reported for the province were large. Its proposed flood-control budget for 2023 went from ₱605.5 million to about ₱1.42 billion in the enacted budget. For 2024, roughly ₱1.72 billion became ₱4.19 billion.

Then there was Laguna Representative Benjamin Agarao Jr. At a December 2025 hearing of the Independent Commission for Infrastructure, he said he had requested around ₱120 million to ₱150 million in projects. Asked about roughly ₱800 million in additions, he said he didn’t know who put them there.

He said he learned about projects when they appeared in the General Appropriations Act, the budget already signed into law.

That was what bothered me. By the time the money appears in an enacted budget, the decisions have already been made. Someone proposed those projects. Someone accepted the changes. The amounts passed through a process handled by public officials.

How does the person representing the affected district end up finding out afterward?

TIANGCO DESCRIBED HOW IT COULD HAPPEN

I have to admit that writing this part made me uncomfortable. I’m quoting people I do not trust at all. But they said what they said, and it is relevant to what I’m trying to understand. My distrust doesn’t give me a reason to leave their statements out. I wish more people with direct knowledge would speak about how these changes happen.

Navotas Representative Toby Tiangco offered an explanation during the 2025 budget controversy.

He described “parking,” where money is placed in another district through an arrangement, and “sagasa,” where projects are placed in a district without the local representative’s agreement or knowledge. He linked his allegations to former appropriations chairman Zaldy Co.

That gave me something more concrete than a theory about forgetful congressmen. Tiangco was alleging that people handling amendments could put projects into another lawmaker’s district.

The budget process allows changes at several stages. The executive submits its proposal. The House and Senate amend it. A bicameral conference committee reconciles their versions before both chambers ratify the result and send it to the President. The district representative is not personally handling every change along the way.

But representatives need access to those changes before they vote. And access itself had become a fight.

In August 2025, Tiangco demanded the previous budget’s small-committee amendment report. Appropriations chair Mikaela Suansing disputed the need for the separate report he wanted.

By October 2026, the House was using a Budget Amendments Review Subcommittee, or BARSc. Minority lawmakers were still complaining. Antonio Tinio raised the absence of its report. Another complaint concerned roughly 4,000 pages received at around 2 a.m. House leaders pointed to livestreamed proceedings and the substitute bill.

Try checking thousands of pages delivered in the early morning. Then imagine explaining to your constituents why a project appeared in your district and you missed it.

That is a failure Congress can fix: show the changes, identify who requested them and give members time to read them.

LUISTRO SAID SHE WOULD CHECK. HERE’S WHAT I FOUND.

Luistro’s case offered a specific figure to test.

Using BetterGov.ph’s data, I reconstructed 77 project entries worth ₱1,307,771,000 that its comparison flagged as insertion candidates. That matches the count and rounded amount reported in the People’s Budget Coalition’s findings, although I did not obtain PBC’s original 77-row list to compare the entries individually. I checked the titles and amounts in our reconstructed set against the House’s second-reading and third-reading budget documents.

The first thing I found changed how I understood the accusation.

The Batangas 2nd District Engineering Office covers both the second and fifth legislative districts. Luistro represents the second. The entire engineering office’s figure cannot simply be put under her name.

Of the 77 entries, 47 explicitly named towns in her district. They amounted to ₱598 million. Another 14, worth ₱345 million, named Batangas City, which belongs to the fifth district. I left 16 road-section entries worth ₱364.771 million unassigned rather than guess their legislative coverage. The ₱598 million is therefore a subtotal of clearly named locations, not a complete district total.

Luistro herself acknowledged the shared engineering office, according to a later report. She also said her duties in the impeachment trial had affected her participation in the budget process and that she would coordinate with the appropriations committee about the reported insertions.

Her earlier statement was that she had already asked the engineering office about the ₱1.3 billion and wanted the list to understand its basis. That does not tell us which individual projects or changes she already knew about.

Among the entries I checked were a ₱50 million municipal hall project in San Luis, a ₱50 million road project in Sitio Malabnig in Lobo, a ₱23 million covered court at Lobo Senior High School and a ₱20 million Super Health Center in Mabini.

The 77 entries remain comparison candidates, not a final finding that every project was entirely new. Verifying their presence in the House documents does not rule out a renamed or reorganized counterpart in the executive proposal. The downloadable research lists them so readers can inspect the work.

I also found changes to existing projects:

Project	Executive proposal	House version
Alalum–Sta. Elena–Ilat North road, San Pascual	₱10 million	₱15 million
Barangay hall in Malimatoc II, Mabini	₱30 million	₱15 million
Covered court in Banoyo, San Luis	₱5 million	₱10 million

Nearly unchanged totals would still leave these individual changes unexplained.

The Malimatoc II barangay hall’s proposed amount was halved. The Banoyo covered court’s amount doubled. The San Pascual road gained ₱5 million.

You could keep an overall budget almost unchanged while making very different decisions about what gets built and where. These three comparisons show changes to those projects; they do not settle whether the complete district total was nearly unchanged.

I could identify the changes in the documents. I could not identify who requested them. The project entries I checked did not supply that information.

Luistro and the House can pursue that missing record. They should explain the projects and amendments themselves.

WHAT BECAME OF THE EARLIER CASES?

I also wanted to know whether the earlier denials led anywhere.

Panaligan had written to then Public Works Secretary Manuel Bonoan on July 31, 2024, about a damaged flood-control project in Naujan. So there was a documented complaint about the work. The letter did not explain who had added its funding.

In Agarao’s case, the infrastructure commission identified ten flood-control projects worth about ₱700 million and gave him seven working days to report on their status. I did not find a published follow-up showing what he submitted or what the commission concluded.

His timeline also needed checking. He was out of the House from 2022 to 2025, when his daughter Jam held the seat. He returned in July 2025. He could not have personally voted for budgets passed while he was out of office.

Tiangco took his allegations to the Senate and the infrastructure commission. On September 23, 2025, he also filed a House ethics complaint against Co.

Co resigned on September 29. The House ethics complaint was dropped because he was no longer a member. That proceeding ended without deciding the substance of Tiangco’s accusations.

Zaldy Co is out of the House, yet another budget is drawing questions about additions that lawmakers say they cannot explain. Why does this keep happening after the person blamed for the earlier insertions has left? Removing one man does not answer who can propose these changes, who approves them and why district representatives are still asking for the details afterward.

Criminal cases did emerge from the wider flood-control investigations, including cases over the roughly ₱289 million Oriental Mindoro project and a ₱77.2 million project in Balagtas, Bulacan. Those cases do not account for every addition within the ₱13.8 billion Tiangco questioned.

So the answer to “Was it investigated?” is yes. The answer to “Did those proceedings explain all the disputed insertions?” is still incomplete.

A hearing happened. A deadline was given. A complaint was filed. Those are steps worth reporting, but the public also needs the result. Otherwise, officials can disappear from the story after saying they will check.

THANK YOU, BETTERGOV.PH AND THE ANGRY NERDS

I was able to do the project comparison because BetterGov.ph and the Angry Nerds made the records easier to search and check.

Their work helped me correct the district attribution and find changes hidden by the discussion of overall totals. The source documents were there for me to return to.

That deserves credit, especially after Ronaldo Puno’s reported remark that criticism of the insertions “betrays ignorance.”

BetterGov.ph and the Angry Nerds, thank you. I owe you for helping me work through something I did not understand. Being called ignorant does not make a budget question disappear. Making the documents usable helps people answer it.

SHOW US WHO REQUESTED THE MONEY

The House’s published BARSc mandate already includes an amendment report identifying the proponent and reports on changes affecting legislative districts.

Make those records public.

Put the original amount beside the revised amount. Name the person who requested the change, give the reason and show when it was approved. Let constituents trace a project without having to reconstruct the budget themselves.

That would answer the question that started this piece. A congressman says a project was added without his knowledge? The amendment record should identify who put it there. He says he objected? Show the objection. She says she will check? Publish what she found.

I started with Luistro’s statement and ended up with specific projects, changed amounts and a missing account of who requested them. That is where the follow-up belongs.

Congress should not be allowed to leave these stories at “I didn’t know.” Once you know, what are you going to do about it?

Sources

DOES THE BUDGET FOLLOW NEED OR POLITICAL POWER?

Gino Borlado — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

A district should not have to elect the president’s son or cousin to get the roads, bridges and flood protection it needs. People pay taxes regardless of whom their congressman knows.

Yet some of the largest infrastructure allocations have gone to districts represented by presidential relatives. Congress owes the public an explanation of how those amounts were decided and why other districts received less.

Do those differences reflect public needs, the influence of powerful politicians, or both?

WHO GOT THE MOST?

DPWH documents published by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism allow a comparison of 253 district entries covering 2023–2025. They cover infrastructure allocations excluding foreign-assisted projects, rather than all government spending in each district.

For districts served by more than one DPWH engineering office, the amounts were added together to produce the rankings in the accompanying MCT research report.

District	Representative	Relationship to the president	2023–2025 allocation	Rank
Leyte 1st	Martin Romualdez	Cousin	₱57.517 billion	1st
Ilocos Norte 1st	Sandro Marcos	Son	₱39.204 billion	5th
Ilocos Norte 2nd	Angelo Marcos Barba	Cousin	₱16.125 billion	44th

Amounts and rankings were calculated from the published DPWH records. The full tables are in the accompanying report.

Romualdez’s district received the largest combined amount. Sandro’s district ranked fifth, while Barba, another presidential cousin, ranked 44th. Their family relationships are documented.

In 2025 alone, Occidental Mindoro’s lone district and Oriental Mindoro’s 1st district received more than Leyte 1st.

Reports naming Sandro as the biggest recipient refer to a narrower category called “allocables,” which is associated with district project choices. PCIJ reported ₱15.8 billion for Sandro and ₱14.4 billion for Romualdez over 2023–2025, placing them first and second in that category.

Sandro led in reported allocables. Romualdez’s district led in the broader infrastructure category used for the three-year comparison. Those amounts should not be added together because doing so could count the same funding twice.

DAVAO’S FUNDING FELL SHARPLY

Davao City’s 1st district received very large infrastructure allocations during 2020–2022, when Paolo Duterte represented the district. His father, Rodrigo Duterte, was president until June 30, 2022.

The Philippine Information Agency reported that a DPWH official confirmed approximately ₱51 billion for that three-year period during a congressional hearing. The same PIA account described a DPWH project book listing 710 projects worth ₱49.8 billion.

The difference between those amounts remains unresolved. The projects included major roads, flyovers and other infrastructure, not just flood control.

The older figures and the later district table have not been matched for coverage. Within the comparable 2023–2025 figures, Davao City 1st received ₱5.228 billion in 2023, ₱1.024 billion in 2024 and ₱640.173 million in 2025. Its ranking fell from 40th to 252nd.

Which projects had been completed? Which requests were rejected? Did funding move to other parts of the budget? What needs remained unmet?

DPWH should answer those questions with project records. Residents still need roads and flood protection after their political allies lose power. Their needs do not disappear with a change of president.

THE ARROYO YEARS

PCIJ reported ₱342.65 million in public-works contracts for Dato Arroyo’s district over fifteen months from July 2007. Mikey Arroyo’s district had ₱808.79 million over four years beginning in 2004. These were contract values covering different periods.

The same investigation reported ₱2.68 billion in contracts for opposition congressman Lorenzo Tañada III’s district between July 2004 and September 2008. Tañada told PCIJ that he had not known the total value of those contracts and did not get involved in the projects.

For 2012, economist Gerardo Sicat’s analysis of DBM records listed Ruben Ecleo Jr., Thelma Almario and Dakila Carlo Cua as the highest district recipients of PDAF releases. His account recorded zero PDAF releases under the names of Dato Arroyo and Mikey Arroyo, who was then an Ang Galing Pinoy party-list representative.

These were releases of funding, including unused allocations from earlier years. They were not a measure of all government spending in the areas or among the people those lawmakers represented.

THE POWER OF HOUSE LEADERSHIP

Romualdez was the president’s cousin and served as Speaker through September 17, 2025. His family relationship and House position overlapped during much of the period covered by these budgets.

PCIJ reported that House leaders can secure additional funding, citing accounts from former and current lawmakers. It also reported that project requests could enter the budget during its preparation by the executive branch, before congressional deliberations.

Who requested the projects in the highest-funded districts? Which requests came from the Speaker, committee chairs or presidential relatives? Who approved them, and what reasons were recorded?

Those questions belong in budget hearings. Officials should answer them with the project lists, requests and changes that produced the final amounts.

DIFFERENT BUDGETS NEED A FAIR EXPLANATION

Every district does not need the same amount.

A bridge across a wide river can cost far more than repairs to an existing road. Population, poverty, flood risks, terrain and unfinished projects can all affect the funding needed. A national highway may also serve people far beyond the district where construction takes place.

For a district near the top, the government should identify the projects behind the large allocation and explain why they took priority. For a district near the bottom, it should show what remains unfunded and why.

A rejected project should come with a reason that can be checked. Missing documents, excessive costs and poor design are different from being pushed aside for a project backed by someone more powerful.

The public needs access to project proposals, cost estimates, reasons for approval or rejection, and changes made while the budget passes through Congress.

The executive branch prepares the proposed budget, Congress debates and changes it, and the president signs it or exercises veto powers. Congress should publish the changes it made, while DPWH and DBM should explain how the original project list and amounts were chosen.

The accompanying MCT research report contains the district rankings, calculations and links to the records. It also identifies older documents that have not yet been obtained and questions that need further work.

CONGRESS NEEDS TO ANSWER

Congress, DPWH and DBM owe the public an explanation for these budget differences. They should identify who proposed the projects, who changed the amounts and why those projects took priority over needs elsewhere.

A family connection is never an acceptable reason to give one district more public money.

People should keep asking their representatives what projects their districts requested, what was approved, what was rejected and who made those decisions. Demand the same explanation from the districts at the top of the list. The answers should come with records that anyone can check.

Giving a district more money because its representative is related to the president is a practice that must end wherever it occurs. Public money belongs to the people, including those whose congressman has no relative in Malacañang.

This should not become another budget controversy that fades as soon as the next scandal arrives. Questions left unanswered should follow lawmakers into district meetings, public hearings and the next budget debate. An incomplete answer deserves a follow-up, not a pass.

No district should have to borrow the president’s surname to get what its people need.

Sources

PHILIP LUSTRE AND THE COST OF DEFENDING A POST

Gino Borlado — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Philip Lustre Jr. went to a media forum in Quezon City on Saturday, October 24. Shortly afterward, police arrested him on a cyberlibel warrant from a Davao City court. He said he did not even know someone had filed a criminal complaint against him.

Lustre is 72 and has worked in journalism for decades. Friends and colleagues helped raise his ₱48,000 bail, and he was released that Saturday. He went home with a case still hanging over him.

His lawyer, Dino de Leon, identified the complainant as Manases “Mans” Carpio, husband of Vice President Sara Duterte, based on court documents. De Leon said Lustre never received the subpoena that would have told him to answer the complaint. Prosecutor General Richard Anthony Fadullon has since agreed that Lustre was not given that chance.

I think about the writers who do not have people ready to raise bail money or help find a lawyer. How many could afford to go through this? How many would decide that writing the next post was no longer worth the risk?

WHAT WAS THE POST ABOUT?

The case came from a Facebook post allegedly published on March 6, 2026, under the account “Philip Jr Lustre.” News reports quoted the charge filed in court as saying the post read: “SUMUKA si Mans Carpio ng P300-M sa operasyon ng Marines: P150-M kay Mike; P50-M kay Levi; at P5-M sa bawat isa sa 18 Marines?”

The post referred to an alleged operation by 18 people presented as former Marines who had made accusations about kickbacks from flood-control projects. According to Philstar, the Philippine Navy said four had never been Marines and most of the others had been dishonorably discharged. The amounts in the quoted post also add up to ₱290 million, not ₱300 million.

Who were Mike and Levi, and where was the evidence that Carpio gave the money? I have not found independent proof of those payments, and I have not verified the complete original post or any documents behind it. Lustre should be able to explain what he based the accusation on.

Carpio has the right to challenge an accusation he believes is false. A journalist’s experience does not make everything he writes correct, and putting a question mark after an accusation does not erase what it says about someone. On October 26, GMA reported that Carpio’s lawyers were reviewing the latest developments and would issue an official response when available.

A complainant cannot simply order someone’s arrest over a post. Prosecutors decide whether to file a charge in court, and a judge decides whether to issue a warrant. In Lustre’s case, those steps had already happened before police arrested him. He had not been convicted.

WHY WAS HE NOT GIVEN A CHANCE TO ANSWER?

The Davao City Regional Trial Court Branch 10 issued the warrant on October 2, and police arrested Lustre 22 days later. According to de Leon, Lustre had never received the subpoena for the earlier investigation by prosecutors.

Fadullon said authorities had used information linking Lustre to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, where he no longer worked. He said prosecutors should have checked the address and employment details. He did not believe the error was intentional, but agreed that Lustre had lost his chance to answer.

Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla also called for an investigation, warning about complainants giving wrong addresses that keep people from receiving notices. We do not yet have evidence that Carpio deliberately gave a wrong address or that officials intentionally kept Lustre in the dark. The records should show who gave the address, how the notice was sent and why the case went ahead without his answer.

Lustre was still writing publicly and attending media events. Police found him at a forum to serve the warrant. Why could the earlier notice not reach him?

De Leon also questioned the Saturday arrest, when getting court papers and arranging bail could be harder. Police can serve a warrant on a weekend, so the day alone does not make an arrest illegal. Problems with the earlier investigation also do not automatically cancel a warrant; Lustre’s lawyers would have to ask the court to deal with them.

Fadullon said Lustre could ask prosecutors to reopen the investigation and hear his side. The reports I read do not say that this has happened or that the case has been dismissed. He still has to defend himself.

THE EXPENSE STARTS BEFORE A VERDICT

Lustre had legal help and posted bail before he could go home. After that come the possible costs of hearings, legal fees and travel, along with time away from work. A writer based in Metro Manila may have to make trips to Davao to defend a case there.

What happens to a reporter without a news company paying the legal bills? Or a small publisher who has to choose between paying a lawyer and paying the next month’s expenses? Even if the case is eventually dismissed, the money spent on legal help and travel, and the work missed along the way, can hurt.

The Commission on Human Rights has warned that criminal libel and cyberlibel can be used to scare journalists, critics and human rights defenders into silence. Other writers may see those costs and decide to stop writing about certain people. The fear of facing a case can influence what gets published before any court decides whether a particular post broke the law.

That risk does not tell us why Carpio filed this complaint. We still need to hear both sides and see the evidence before calling this case an attempt to silence Lustre. But we can already ask what happens to people who cannot afford to defend themselves.

I write about politicians, corruption and abuses of power, sometimes harshly. I have to support my accusations with evidence and correct what I get wrong. I also expect to be told about a complaint against me and given the chance to answer it.

Carpio’s complaint deserves a fair hearing, and so does Lustre’s answer. The prosecutor general has already said that the chance to answer was missed before the case reached court.

The authorities should explain how that happened and whether anyone failed to do their job. A writer should not have to find out about a complaint only when police arrive with a warrant. And being able to defend yourself should not depend on having friends who can quickly find a lawyer and raise money for bail.

Sources

WHY DID MARCOS MOVE VINCE DIZON OUT OF DPWH?

Gino Borlado — Mon, 26 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has reassigned Vince Dizon to the Department of Transportation (DOTr), ending his nearly 14-month stint at the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). Giovanni “Banoy” Lopez, who served as acting Transportation Secretary, will replace him. Malacañang announced the exchange on October 26.

According to Presidential Communications Office Secretary Lino Cayetano, Marcos wants Dizon to address commuter problems while Lopez continues the reforms at DPWH. I find the timing interesting. Dizon was appointed to DPWH in September 2025 to help clean up an agency embroiled in the flood-control corruption scandal.

His assignment was to address corruption, fix the department's internal procedures, and restore public confidence in government infrastructure spending. During his tenure, he introduced transparency programs, tightened procurement procedures, and took action against officials and contractors accused of wrongdoing.

But his record also includes serious delays in infrastructure procurement, unfinished investigations, and thousands of questionable entries in DPWH's proposed 2027 budget. So why did Marcos decide to move him now?

THE REASSIGNMENT WAS REPORTED WEEKS EARLIER

On October 7, Politiko reported that Dizon and Lopez could exchange Cabinet positions. Malacañang said it had no information about the reported exchange. Dizon denied it the following day. On October 11, while in Singapore, Marcos was asked whether Dizon would return to DOTr. His answer was: “Well, we’ve talked about it. I don’t know. No, right now it’s a no.” Marcos added that Cabinet assignments could still change.

At the time of the interview, Dizon was not being transferred. Fifteen days later, the exchange became official. Marcos had already acknowledged that the possibility had been talked about, so his October 11 answer was not a categorical denial of any future reassignment. Still, I am curious about what convinced him to proceed. Was there a new assessment of DPWH's progress? Did the situation at DOTr demand Dizon's return?

Or had the exchange been planned for some time? The Palace has explained what Marcos expects from both officials in their new assignments. It has said considerably less about the reasons behind the timing.

WHAT DID DIZON ACCOMPLISH AT DPWH?

Dizon inherited an agency facing allegations of nonexistent flood-control projects, questionable payments, substandard construction, and poor supervision. He took over after Manuel Bonoan resigned in August 2025.

In September, shortly after assuming office, Dizon led the filing of a graft complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman against 20 DPWH officials and four contractors accused of irregularities in flood-control projects. The following month, he asked the Professional Regulation Commission to revoke the professional licenses of 20 DPWH personnel linked to the scandal.

Those complaints were concrete actions, although the filing of a complaint does not establish guilt. In November 2025, the government launched the DPWH Transparency Portal. The website opened public access to records covering more than 247,000 infrastructure projects from 2016 to 2025. People could check project locations, contractors, costs, procurement documents, and construction status.

For an agency accused of paying for questionable projects, making these records accessible was a useful change. However, Dizon later acknowledged that some project coordinates were incorrect and that supporting records still needed checking. In February 2026, DPWH introduced its Integrity Chain portal, a monitoring system that allows accredited validators to check infrastructure project information.

Dizon also tightened the screening of proposed infrastructure projects. Engineering offices had to submit more technical documents and show that projects were ready for construction. The department cut its proposed project list for 2027 to 11,395, compared with 25,301 in 2025.

Dizon said the goal was to remove duplicate projects, avoid overlapping work, and stop approving more projects than engineering offices could properly handle. He also reported actions against personnel and contractors. During the September 25 Senate budget hearing, Dizon said at least 61 DPWH employees linked to alleged anomalies had been removed from office.

He reported that 19 contractors had been referred to the Ombudsman and 11 had been blacklisted. By October 19, he said the number of blacklisted contractors had increased to 23. That month, three DPWH officials in Davao City were removed from their posts amid investigations into alleged flood-control anomalies. Another official in Cebu was removed from his position over an extortion allegation.

The figures on personnel removals and blacklisting came from Dizon. I have not independently checked the complete administrative orders or the final outcomes of those cases. The wider flood-control investigation also progressed. By July 28, GMA News Research had documented 26 court cases against 45 individuals and two contracting firms. Dizon cannot take personal credit for every case filed.

The Department of Justice, National Bureau of Investigation, Ombudsman, and other government offices have their own responsibilities in investigating and prosecuting corruption. But DPWH was taking administrative action and cooperating with investigations during his tenure.

What I could not find was a reliable department-wide count of how many previously delayed infrastructure projects were completed, how much the tighter procurement controls saved, or how many disciplinary cases reached final decisions. Those are important figures when assessing the performance of a public works secretary.

THE PROBLEM WITH INFRASTRUCTURE DELAYS

During the August 26 congressional budget hearing, Dizon acknowledged that DPWH was seriously behind schedule. The department had 17,764 national infrastructure projects with an allocation of approximately ₱459.89 billion. As of August 23, contracts worth only ₱146.41 billion had been awarded. That was approximately 32 percent of the allocation.

Dizon cited three reasons: the department could not conduct its usual early procurement because of major changes between the proposed and approved budgets, funding authorizations were released late, and the new screening procedures slowed bidding. These are legitimate administrative obstacles. Project proposals that fail the new checks should not be rushed into construction merely to meet spending targets.

But the delays also affected communities waiting for roads, bridges, drainage facilities, and other public infrastructure. Dizon expected DPWH to award contracts covering more than 80 percent of its projects by the end of September. I could not confirm whether that target was achieved. The latest procurement and project-completion figures would tell us how much progress DPWH made before his reassignment.

The August figures alone cannot establish the department's condition on October 26.

THE 7,107 PROJECTS FLAGGED BY THE SENATE

The proposed 2027 DPWH budget exposed another problem. During the September 25 Senate budget hearing, Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian presented the results of his office's review of DPWH's infrastructure proposals. Of the 11,395 projects reviewed, 7,107 had at least one potential problem. That was 62.37 percent of the projects, with proposed funding totaling approximately ₱251.81 billion.

The Senate review found 189 duplicate project entries, 258 projects that reappeared after being included in the 2026 budget, 3,543 projects without geographic coordinates, and 533 projects that appeared to overlap or had been divided into smaller contracts. Other entries had missing station numbers or bridge identification, unclear descriptions, lump-sum allocations, or conflicting information about the work to be done.

The Senate's red flags were not findings that all 7,107 projects were fraudulent. Dizon challenged the impression that every flagged project had serious deficiencies. He said 6,113 projects had location or identification details in their supporting documents, but the information had been omitted from the project titles submitted for the proposed budget. That left 994 entries needing clarification.

Of those, 347 were lump-sum items that DPWH would have to explain in greater detail. The remaining 647 were referred for joint checking by the Office of the Senate President and the Senate Committee on Finance. Dizon also warned that officials who certified duplicate, overlapping, or double-funded projects could face removal and charges if the violations were confirmed.

His explanation addressed a large portion of the Senate's concerns, particularly those about missing location details. But I have a question. DPWH had already introduced stricter screening procedures. Its engineering offices were supposed to check project documents before submitting them for budget approval. Why did the Senate still find thousands of entries with missing information and possible duplication?

If supporting documents existed, why were important details omitted from the submitted project titles? And for the remaining 647 entries, what did the joint review find? I could not confirm how many of the questioned entries had been corrected before Dizon left.

The department had reduced the number of proposed projects and introduced additional checks, but the Senate findings showed that problems continued in how those projects were prepared and reviewed. That belongs in any fair assessment of Dizon's DPWH record.

THE TAGUIG CONTROVERSY

Dizon also faced questions about alleged ghost flood-control projects in Taguig City. During the September 25 Senate hearing, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano asked whether DPWH had found ghost projects in Taguig. Dizon answered: “Wala po. Sa aming imbestigasyon, wala po.” DPWH Undersecretary Ricardo Bernabe III also told the Senate that the agency had found 107 projects in Taguig, all with documented accomplishments.

Senator Panfilo Lacson challenged Dizon's answer. Lacson cited reports prepared by DPWH inspectors who could not verify the physical existence of some projects that had already been declared completed. One project's billing photographs reportedly had geographic coordinates pointing to Leyte, approximately 600 kilometers away from Taguig.

Lacson also questioned photographs that appeared to have been reused across different project contracts. Dizon later explained that his answer referred to the ten projects nationwide that DPWH had already conclusively classified as ghost projects. None of those ten was in Taguig. He acknowledged that other questionable projects in the city were still being investigated. Dizon denied any cover-up.

Lacson welcomed the clarification but maintained that the inspection findings did not justify ruling out ghost projects in Taguig. I think Dizon could have answered Cayetano's question more carefully during the hearing. His initial answer sounded categorical, especially when DPWH's own inspectors had already raised questions about projects in Taguig.

His later explanation helped distinguish projects suspected of irregularities from those already confirmed as nonexistent. Politiko also published an allegation from an unnamed source that Dizon's relationship with Cayetano had complicated the Taguig investigation. That allegation has not been independently verified, and no evidence has been established connecting it to Marcos's decision to reassign Dizon.

The Taguig investigation was still unfinished when the exchange was announced. Lopez now inherits DPWH's responsibility for addressing those findings.

WHO IS GIOVANNI “BANOY” LOPEZ?

Lopez is a lawyer and certified public accountant who has worked in government finance, procurement, legal affairs, and transportation administration. According to his official biography at the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, he earned his law degree from San Beda College of Law and graduated cum laude in accountancy from St. Paul University Philippines.

His previous government positions include DOTr Director for Legal Service, Assistant Secretary for Procurement and Project Implementation, and Undersecretary for Finance and Chief of Staff. He also served as officer-in-charge Executive Director of the Toll Regulatory Board and Executive Director of the Land Transportation Office.

In February 2025, he became Senior Undersecretary for Administration, Finance, and Procurement at DOTr. When Dizon moved to DPWH in September 2025, Lopez took over as acting Transportation Secretary. His experience with government contracts, spending, and financial controls is relevant to DPWH. But his new assignment extends far beyond procurement.

DPWH has engineering offices across the country, contractors building public infrastructure, projects suffering from delays, and ongoing investigations into questionable spending. Lopez's professional background tells us where he has worked and what responsibilities he previously held. What I would also like to see is an accounting of his performance during his time as acting Transportation Secretary.

Which transportation projects advanced under his leadership? What administrative problems did he fix? Which projects remained delayed? His government experience is documented, but I could not find a detailed performance assessment of his tenure at DOTr. We should not assume that his qualifications alone will translate into success at DPWH.

WHAT DOES MARCOS EXPECT FROM THE EXCHANGE?

According to the October 26 announcement, Marcos wants Dizon to improve daily commuting, shorten queues at the Land Transportation Office, eliminate fixers, and speed up major transportation projects. Lopez has been instructed to continue the DPWH reforms and improve the delivery of roads, bridges, and other public infrastructure. Dizon previously headed DOTr.

Lopez has experience handling finance, procurement, and government administration. I can see the administrative reasoning behind the exchange. What I still want to know is whether Marcos evaluated the results of Dizon's DPWH assignment before deciding to move him.

Dizon leaves behind new transparency systems, stricter project-screening rules, reported disciplinary actions, unfinished investigations, delayed projects, and budget entries questioned by Senate reviewers. Lopez will have to deal with those problems while managing DPWH's regular work.

For starters, DPWH should release updated figures on the projects flagged by the Senate, the contractors blacklisted, the disciplinary cases filed against its personnel, and the status of the September procurement target. We should also know how many stalled projects were completed and which remain unfinished. That would give the public a basis for measuring what Dizon accomplished and what Lopez is expected to finish.

SO, DID DIZON SUCCEED AT DPWH?

Dizon introduced transparency systems, tightened project screening, filed complaints against officials and contractors, and removed personnel linked to alleged wrongdoing. I give him credit for those actions. But the procurement delays were serious. The Senate also found thousands of questionable or incomplete entries in the proposed 2027 budget, even after DPWH introduced stricter screening procedures.

Investigations remain unfinished, and the available records do not give us a complete accounting of infrastructure delivery, final disciplinary decisions, or how well the new controls have worked. Dizon inherited many of DPWH's problems. It would be unfair to blame him for corruption that occurred before he arrived or for the pace of criminal proceedings handled by other agencies.

But he was responsible for managing DPWH during his tenure, and his reforms deserve to be assessed through actual results. I see documented progress in administration and enforcement, alongside delays and unfinished work. I have found no verified evidence that Marcos reassigned Dizon to protect anyone connected to the flood-control scandal.

What I still cannot understand is why the President decided that October 26 was the appropriate time to transfer the cleanup to another official. Marcos appointed Dizon to address corruption at DPWH in September 2025. He has now given that responsibility to Lopez. If Dizon has made enough progress for Marcos to move him back to DOTr, show us the figures.

Tell us what was completed, what remains unfinished, and what Lopez is expected to accomplish. Because after everything exposed by the flood-control scandal, I think the public deserves more than another Cabinet announcement and another round of promises.

Sources

THE PAGES BEHIND THE LAUGHING EMOJIS

Gino Borlado — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

One Facebook post about Jonvic Remulla had roughly 154,000 laughing reactions when I checked it. That was out of about 159,300 reactions, with another 31,100 comments.

That’s a lot of people laughing at one politician over something he said in an interview.

Now, I’m hardly a Jonvic fan. I had high expectations when he took over the DILG, and I’ve criticized him several times for falling short. My opinion of his performance hasn’t changed.

But I’ve been watching some of these Facebook pages for a while, and the attention they were giving Remulla caught my interest.

You see, when we talk about trolls, we often think of newly created Facebook accounts, fake names, stolen profile pictures, and people who seem to spend their entire day attacking politicians in comment sections.

The pages I’ve been watching are different.

Some have tens of thousands of followers. At least one of the pages I’ve checked has more than 300,000. They have names, logos, and enough followers to make their posts appear credible to people who don’t bother checking who’s behind them.

But who actually runs these pages? Who writes the posts? Who checks the information before publishing it?

And why does so much of their political content seem designed to make people angry, laugh, or argue?

I’m not saying that every anonymous political page is a troll operation. Anonymity alone proves very little. But I’ve noticed how some pages can take one statement, give it a provocative caption, and collect thousands of reactions without bothering to explain what the statement was about.

Remulla’s interview was a good example.

On October 19, he appeared on ANC’s Headstart with Karen Davila and talked about cleaning up the Philippine National Police, public trust, and people feeling safer.

News Ngayon posted a graphic carrying this line:

“Now, for the first time, Philippines trust police.”

It also attributed Filipinos’ feeling safer to policemen doing their jobs.

The caption actually mentioned OCTA Research and Pulse Asia. It even included Remulla’s clarification that he was talking about cities becoming safer, rather than claiming they were the safest.

But where were the figures?

If you’re going to make fun of a government official for claiming that people trust the police for the first time, wouldn’t it be useful to show readers whether Filipinos already trusted the police before?

The survey companies were named, but the numbers weren’t explained.

And that’s where things became interesting.

The same interview appeared on other pages in different forms. Some made their own graphics or short video clips. Yam channel uploaded a graphic that still carried the Masang Pilipino logo and website.

That last example gives us a visible connection between two posts. Somebody was passing around material another page had already prepared.

Does that prove all these pages were working together? No.

A page can copy another page because the content is popular. Two pages can also independently notice the same interview. But when I see political content repeatedly circulating among pages that already have large audiences, I want to know whether there’s more behind the distribution.

Especially when the posts generate this much attention.

I also wanted to know whether Remulla was talking nonsense or whether the people mocking him were leaving something out.

Fortunately, OCTA Research had sent Morning Coffee Thoughts the relevant reports.

Its July 2026 survey found that 65 percent of adult Filipinos trusted the PNP.

That’s a majority.

The same survey found 13 percent expressing distrust, while the remaining respondents were undecided.

But here’s the interesting part. In March, trust was already at 63 percent.

So what exactly happened between March and July? An increase of two percentage points, which OCTA itself said was within the survey’s three-point margin of error.

In other words, the national trust rating was pretty much stable.

That raises a question for Remulla. If he meant that Filipinos were trusting the PNP for the first time, how does he explain the majority who already trusted it in March?

And we can go further back.

Pulse Asia recorded 70 percent trust in the PNP in December 2016.

So Filipinos trusting the police is hardly a new development.

Perhaps Remulla meant a particular period or a different survey result. Fine. Then identify it. Tell us which survey, when it was conducted, and what the actual question was.

I also found something in the OCTA report that deserves more attention than a laughing emoji.

Only 40 percent of respondents in Metro Manila said they trusted the PNP in July.

In March, that figure had been 54 percent.

That’s a 14-point difference in just four months.

Now, NCR has a wider survey margin of error than the national result, so I wouldn’t treat those percentages as an exact headcount of public opinion. But 40 percent is considerably lower than the national rating of 65 percent.

Why?

What is happening in Metro Manila that might explain the difference? Is the DILG looking into it?

Then I read OCTA’s separate report on public safety.

In July, 72 percent of respondents said they felt safe in their neighborhoods. Another 68 percent said they weren’t afraid to walk alone at night.

Those sound like encouraging figures until you look at the earlier survey.

In March 2023, 87 percent said they felt safe in their neighborhoods, while 81 percent said they weren’t afraid to walk alone at night.

Both figures had fallen.

So yes, most respondents in July 2026 still expressed confidence about their safety. But fewer did so than three years earlier.

Which brings me back to Remulla.

If the DILG wants to credit the police for making people feel safer, I’d like to see the evidence. A survey asking people how safe they feel doesn’t establish what caused those feelings. You would also need to look at crime statistics, police operations, and other conditions in those communities.

There’s plenty here worth asking him about.

And yet, the Facebook posts I was following gave people very little of this information.

Think about it. The pages already had the interview. The survey companies had been named. The figures were publicly available.

They could have checked them.

They could have shown readers that Remulla had a legitimate majority trust figure but that his apparent claim about Filipinos trusting the police for the first time needed explaining.

They could have raised the NCR numbers and the decline in public safety perceptions.

Instead, the posts concentrated on the portion most likely to make people laugh.

And judging from the reactions, that approach attracted plenty of attention.

I’ve seen something similar before.

Remember the criticism of GMA News involving Grace Locsin?

On September 26, Locsin posted a lengthy criticism of the network after GMA reported allegations made by Rodulfo Gracioso Jr., a former police officer who claimed to have served as the security chief of former House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco.

Gracioso alleged that he had delivered suitcases containing cash to members of the Duterte family on Velasco’s instructions, including more than ₱2 billion to Sara Duterte.

These were allegations. Sara Duterte denied knowing Gracioso or receiving money from him. Velasco’s camp also rejected the accusations.

But Locsin criticized GMA’s credibility. She brought up Gracioso, Ramil Madriaga, Edgar Matobato, Arturo Lascañas, and Antonio Trillanes, suggesting that the reporting followed a familiar script.

Her post included this line:

“GMA News, THIS IS TOO LOW.”

Now, you’re free to criticize GMA News. You’re also free to question Gracioso’s credibility, the evidence behind his claims, or the editorial decisions involved in airing his interview.

I’d actually welcome that kind of criticism because these are serious accusations involving public officials.

But declaring that a news organization has lost its credibility doesn’t tell us whether the allegations are true or false.

What interested me was what happened to Locsin’s post afterward.

DuterteSara Supporters reproduced much of her statement on September 26 and added its own criticism.

On September 28, two other pages, Presidenting Davaweñio and Trending News Online, carried matching introductory paragraphs before reproducing Locsin’s statement.

The posting times recorded were 7:25 a.m. and 7:53 a.m.

Twenty-eight minutes apart, with the same additional introduction.

Now, that’s interesting.

Those paragraphs were separate from Locsin’s original statement. Somebody had prepared additional wording, and it appeared on more than one page.

Was one copying the other? Did both receive the same prepared material? Were they managed by people who knew one another?

I don’t know.

And I’m not going to invent an answer.

But this is why I’ve been watching these pages. I want to understand how content moves between them, especially when the same political message keeps appearing in front of different audiences.

For the record, the Gracioso controversy didn’t end with Locsin’s criticism.

On October 8, Sara Duterte’s lawyers submitted her affidavit to the NBI denying the allegations. The NBI said the materials would have to be checked and authenticated.

On October 12, the bureau reported that it was tracing alleged money flows and looking into properties potentially connected to the accusations.

The following day, the NBI referred a separate fact-finding report concerning Sara Duterte’s statements of assets, liabilities, and net worth to the Ombudsman.

That SALN referral wasn’t a finding that Gracioso’s alleged cash deliveries had happened. The investigation was still dealing with claims that needed evidence.

Those developments are worth knowing if you’re going to criticize GMA for reporting the original allegations.

But how many people who shared Locsin’s attack followed the case afterward?

How many of the pages repeated the updates, including Sara’s denial and the NBI’s continuing investigation?

Those are things I would like to check.

I haven’t established that the pages circulating the GMA criticism were part of the same operation as those mocking Remulla.

What I have are examples of political statements moving between pages, including instances where additional wording or completed graphics were reused.

And these aren’t all tiny accounts nobody reads.

Trending News Online displayed roughly 329,000 followers when checked. Presidenting Davaweñio had around 23,000, and DuterteSara Supporters around 19,000.

That’s already a considerable audience for the next controversial post.

But the follower numbers don’t tell us how many people actually saw each post. Nor do they tell us who manages the pages.

A familiar logo and thousands of followers are no substitute for knowing who’s responsible for the information being published.

Then there’s something else I’ve been thinking about.

Money.

Under its post criticizing GMA, DuterteSara Supporters pinned an invitation for readers to subscribe for political updates, particularly about the vice president. Its profile also invited inquiries about promotions.

Presidenting Davaweñio displayed subscription offers as well.

So these pages aren’t necessarily posting political content just to express an opinion. Some are also trying to turn their audiences into paying subscribers or customers.

And Facebook has its own monetization program.

According to Meta, eligible creators can earn from videos, photos, and text posts based on qualified views and content performance.

I don’t know whether these particular pages are enrolled in that program, and I don’t have access to their earnings. I’m not claiming Meta paid them for the posts I’ve been following.

But the financial incentive is obvious enough to question.

If controversial political content attracts attention, and attention can help build a paying audience, what prevents page operators from repeatedly publishing the most provocative material they can find?

Especially when checking the information takes considerably more work than copying a quote and putting it on a graphic?

And what happens when the posts are misleading?

That’s a question for Meta.

You’ve created a system where eligible pages can earn money from content performance. You also have rules against spam, deceptive behavior, and certain kinds of reused content.

How well are those rules being enforced in the Philippines?

When a page repeatedly circulates misleading political content, does it lose monetization privileges? How would the public know? What happens after somebody reports a post?

And are you checking networks of pages that repeatedly circulate the same political material?

I would like answers backed by actual enforcement figures.

The Presidential Communications Office should also be paying attention.

The government already raised concerns with Meta about misinformation and coordinated online activity earlier this year. The PCO, DICT, and DOJ also announced plans to work together against false information and AI-generated deception.

So what has happened since?

I would like the PCO to tell us what those efforts have produced. How many cases have been investigated? What evidence of coordinated activity has been found? What action has Meta taken in response?

And please, don’t make this another exercise in identifying whoever happens to be criticizing the administration.

The same standards should apply to pages attacking the government, defending it, or promoting any political camp.

If an official says something inaccurate, correct it and release the supporting information. If a survey is cited, make the figures and earlier comparisons available. Give people something they can check themselves.

In Remulla’s case, that means acknowledging the 65 percent trust rating while also answering questions about Metro Manila and the decline in feelings of safety.

And if the government believes certain pages are operating together to mislead people, show the evidence. Let people distinguish legitimate criticism from an organized attempt to deceive.

I keep returning to those 154,000 laughing reactions.

Not because I think Jonvic deserves sympathy. I’ve criticized him before, and I’ll criticize him again when I have reason to.

But look at how much attention one graphic attracted.

Then compare that with the amount of information the graphic gave readers.

That’s what interested me from the beginning.

These pages already have audiences. They don’t need to create a new account every time they want to attack somebody. They can take a statement from a television interview, put it in front of thousands of followers, and collect reactions before most people have even looked for the original source.

Sometimes the criticism may be justified. Sometimes the politician may have exaggerated. Sometimes the pages may be leaving out information that changes how the statement should be understood.

And sometimes, as with the posts I’ve been tracing, there are questions about how the same material keeps moving between accounts.

I want to know who’s running these pages, how they’re connected, and whether they’re making money from political content that gives readers only part of the information.

I don’t have all those answers yet.

But I have enough questions to keep watching.

Sources

News Ngayon, Facebook Graphic on Jonvic Remulla, October 19, 2026
Yam Channel, Reuploaded Masang Pilipino Graphic
ANC Headstart, Karen Davila Interview with Jonvic Remulla, October 19, 2026
OCTA Research, Majority of Filipinos Continue to Trust and Approve of the Performance of the PNP, Q2 2026
OCTA Research, Majority of Filipinos Report Feeling Safe in Their Neighborhoods and Communities, Q2 2026
Pulse Asia, December 2016 General Report
Grace Locsin, Facebook Post Criticizing GMA News, September 26, 2026
GMA News, Ex-Security Aide Claims He Delivered Over ₱2 Billion in Cash to Sara Duterte, September 25, 2026
GMA News, Sara Duterte Denies Gracioso’s Claims, October 6, 2026
GMA News, Sara Duterte Camp Files Affidavit with NBI, October 8, 2026
Philippine News Agency, NBI Tracking Flow of Money Allegedly Delivered by Ex-Cop to Dutertes, October 12, 2026
GMA News, NBI Refers Sara Duterte SALN Investigation to Ombudsman, October 13, 2026
Presidenting Davaweñio, Facebook Post Reproducing Grace Locsin Commentary, September 28, 2026
Trending News Online, Facebook Post Reproducing Grace Locsin Commentary, September 28, 2026
DuterteSara Supporters, Facebook Post with Subscription Promotion
Meta, Creator Fast Track and Facebook Content Monetization, March 18, 2026
Presidential Communications Office, Government Letter to Meta Concerning Misinformation, April 11, 2026
Presidential Communications Office, PCO, DICT and DOJ Agreement Against Disinformation and Deepfakes, April 13, 2026

HOW DOES BBM CHOOSE THE PEOPLE HE APPOINTS TO GOVERNMENT?

Gino Borlado — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The appointment of Zofia Canlas to the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor, or PCUP, raised my eyebrows. I looked at the appointment, looked at the person, and wondered how the two fit together.

What makes her tick? What does she know about the urban poor? What has she done for them? And what convinced President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. that she was the right person for the job?

THE QUESTION BEHIND THE APPOINTMENT

I do not have anything against her age, financial background, or trips abroad. Being young or wealthy does not make someone unqualified for public service. But when you appoint someone to a commission dealing with poverty, demolition, relocation, and families struggling to survive, surely it is reasonable to ask what qualifies that person for the position.

Canlas graduated from De La Salle University in 2024 with a Biology degree, major in Medical Biology. She was also the first nominee of the Batang Quiapo party-list in the 2025 elections. Her photographs from trips abroad drew attention, particularly because she has been appointed to a commission concerned with the urban poor.

Personally, I could not care less where she spends her vacations. I am more interested in what she knows and what she can do.

Malacañang defended the appointment on October 20, saying she had served as chief of staff to the PCUP chairperson and was familiar with the commission’s work.

All right. What exactly did she do there? How long did she serve? What did she accomplish?

There are Filipinos who have spent years working with urban poor communities, helping families threatened by demolition, dealing with housing problems, and fighting government bureaucracy on behalf of people who can barely afford their next meal.

Were any of them considered? And if so, what made Canlas the better choice?

I would welcome information about her actual work at PCUP. If she has a record of accomplishments that qualifies her for the position, the Palace should have no difficulty presenting it.

But her appointment got me thinking about BBM’s other choices.

REMEMBER LARRY GADON?

On June 26, 2023, Marcos appointed him Presidential Adviser for Poverty Alleviation.

Two days later, the Supreme Court announced that it had unanimously disbarred Gadon over his abusive and offensive remarks against journalist Raissa Robles.

The disbarment ruling came after the appointment, but Gadon’s earlier disciplinary problems were already public. The Supreme Court had suspended him before.

Then, in May 2024, the Court found him guilty of gross misconduct again in a separate matter. He was fined ₱150,000.

Of all the people BBM could have appointed to advise him on poverty alleviation, he chose Larry Gadon.

I still find that decision difficult to comprehend.

The Palace cited Gadon’s legal background and management experience. Fine. But what did those qualifications have to do with poverty alleviation? What had Gadon accomplished in that field?

And what about his disciplinary record?

We are talking about someone whose conduct had already attracted serious sanctions from the Supreme Court. His behavior was hardly a secret.

Yet BBM apparently believed he was an appropriate choice to advise him on poverty.

Now we have Canlas, another appointment involving poverty, although to a different office and under very different circumstances. I am not comparing her character with Gadon’s. I am questioning what the president considers relevant when choosing people for these positions.

The Philippines has no shortage of people who have devoted years to helping poor communities. I find it strange that appointments involving poverty can leave us with so little public information about the appointees’ actual work in that field.

NICOLAS TORRE III

I also remember Nicolas Torre III.

In May 2025, Marcos chose Torre to lead the Philippine National Police. The Palace praised his qualifications and said the appointment was based on merit.

Torre was an experienced police officer with an extensive law-enforcement career.

By August, he was out.

The dispute involved the reassignment of senior police officials. The National Police Commission, or NAPOLCOM, reversed those assignments. Marcos later said he had spoken to Torre repeatedly about complying with the commission’s directive. Torre still resisted, and the president removed him.

I understand the president’s position. Civilian authority over the police must be respected, and a PNP chief cannot simply disregard lawful directives.

But here is what caught my attention.

After removing Torre, Malacañang confirmed that Marcos had offered him another government position.

So BBM chose him to lead the PNP, removed him after roughly three months because of a serious disagreement over official authority, and still considered him suitable for another government job.

I am not questioning Torre’s entire career. He had years of police experience, and the disagreement does not erase that.

But what was BBM’s reasoning?

If Torre’s refusal to comply with NAPOLCOM was serious enough to cost him the PNP leadership, what convinced Marcos that another government position was appropriate?

Perhaps Torre was simply considered unsuitable for that particular assignment. If so, I would have liked to hear a fuller explanation.

It makes me wonder how the president decides who deserves to remain in government after losing a position under controversial circumstances.

THE CABINET RESET

I had similar questions in May 2025 when Marcos ordered Cabinet secretaries and other senior officials to submit courtesy resignations following the midterm elections.

The Palace described it as a government reset.

I supported the idea of reviewing Cabinet performance. We should be doing that regularly, and officials who are not delivering should be replaced.

But why did it take the midterm elections for BBM to announce such a sweeping review? What had he been doing before then?

Among those retained was Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman.

Six months later, her resignation was accepted amid the flood-control controversy. In videos, then-resigned Ako Bicol representative Zaldy Co alleged that Marcos, through Pangandaman, ordered ₱100 billion in 2025-budget project insertions. Malacañang denied the allegation and called his account inconsistent. The allegation and denial do not establish wrongdoing by Pangandaman.

The Palace said her departure was intended to prevent any appearance that she could influence the investigation.

What interested me was the earlier Cabinet review.

What exactly had BBM evaluated?

Were department heads assessed for actual performance, financial management, internal controls, and their ability to detect irregularities? Or was the review primarily about whether officials were delivering the president’s programs?

I am not assuming that the later allegations were known during the May review. But considering how publicly the administration promoted that exercise, I think it is fair to ask what standards were applied and what conclusions were reached.

Marcos even spoke about conducting quarterly performance evaluations.

I would be interested in seeing what those reviews produced.

We keep hearing that the president is evaluating his people. It would be useful to know how those evaluations affect his decisions.

THE FOUR-WEEK HEALTH SECRETARY

And then there was Dr. Jose “Brix” Pujalte Jr.

Marcos appointed him Health Secretary on July 13, 2026. Twenty-eight days later, he resigned.

Pujalte had decades of experience in public healthcare and previously headed the Philippine Orthopedic Center. His professional qualifications were substantial.

Malacañang cited health reasons for his departure.

During his brief tenure, a casino complaint and a complaint involving the alleged freezing of tuberculosis-commodity procurement had surfaced. Pujalte denied deliberately delaying the procurement, saying the process was under review. Neither complaint establishes misconduct, and the records cited here do not prove either one caused his resignation.

Still, four weeks?

We are talking about the Department of Health, which oversees public hospitals, disease prevention, national health programs, and services millions of Filipinos depend on.

Was there anything that could reasonably have been identified before Pujalte was appointed? Were his health circumstances or any existing complaints reviewed?

Perhaps his resignation resulted from circumstances nobody could have anticipated. That possibility should be acknowledged.

But I would like to know what happened because a Cabinet appointment lasting just 28 days is hardly ordinary.

WHO CHECKS THE RECOMMENDATIONS?

Looking at these decisions, I keep wondering about the people around BBM.

The president has Cabinet officials, advisers, agency heads, and other people who presumably help him evaluate candidates. Recommendations must pass through several hands before appointments reach his desk.

Does anyone question those recommendations?

Does anyone tell BBM that someone he trusts might be a poor choice for a particular job?

I ask because we have seen how political appointments work in this country. Political loyalty, personal relationships, and recommendations from influential people have long played roles in government appointments.

I am not claiming that those considerations explain Canlas’s appointment. We do not know who recommended her or what convinced Marcos to approve it.

But I am curious how much weight the president gives to those relationships compared with a person’s actual ability to do the job.

Being loyal to a president does not make someone qualified to run an agency. Having impressive credentials does not automatically mean someone can manage a government department. And having the confidence of the appointing authority tells us very little about whether an official can deliver results.

We have an unfortunate habit of accepting appointments because the president supposedly knows what he is doing.

Then, when something goes wrong, the administration announces a resignation, removal, or replacement, and we are expected to move on.

I do not think we should.

If an official turns out to be unsuitable, we have every reason to ask how that person got the job.

If someone is removed from one position and offered another, we can question the reasoning.

And if the president announces performance reviews, the public should be able to see some evidence of how those reviews influence his decisions.

CONFIDENCE IS EASY TO DECLARE

I am aware that even carefully chosen officials can disappoint. A person can have an excellent record and still make bad decisions. Health problems can arise unexpectedly. Disagreements can develop between capable people. Allegations can surface years after an appointment.

None of that automatically proves the president made a bad choice.

But I am having difficulty understanding the consistency of BBM’s judgment.

With Gadon, there was already a documented history of professional misconduct before the appointment. With Torre, a dispute over authority ended his PNP leadership after roughly three months, yet the president still offered him another government position. Pangandaman was retained during a Cabinet review but left months later amid serious allegations she denied. Pujalte’s tenure as Health Secretary lasted four weeks.

These incidents deserve to be judged on their individual facts. Yet they also give us reason to examine how BBM makes appointments and assesses the people he has chosen.

And that brings me to something I think we have tolerated for far too long.

Government positions are treated almost casually whenever a new appointee is announced.

We hear that someone is experienced, capable, dedicated, and trusted by the president. Malacañang releases a statement, the appointment becomes official, and everyone is expected to accept it.

But these people are being placed in charge of public money, government programs, and decisions affecting millions of Filipinos.

Some of them will influence how entire departments operate. Others will deal directly with communities that depend on government assistance.

Surely, we should demand something more than the president’s assurance that he made the right choice.

I started questioning Canlas’s appointment because I could not immediately see how her background fit the responsibilities of the PCUP.

I am open to being proven wrong about her. If she has the experience and ability to perform well, I hope she demonstrates it.

The urban poor deserve competent people working on their behalf, regardless of those people’s age or financial circumstances.

But the responsibility for choosing the right people begins with the president.

BBM has every right to appoint officials within the limits of the law. He also has the power to replace them when circumstances call for it.

What he cannot reasonably expect is for Filipinos to accept those decisions without asking questions.

I do not expect a president to get every appointment right. I expect him to make decisions carefully, listen to competent advisers, and recognize when his judgment has been wrong.

And when the public questions an appointment, I expect more than the usual Palace assurance that the president has confidence in the person.

Confidence is easy to declare.

What interests me is what that confidence is based on.

Because the next time an official disappoints, resigns under controversy, or gets removed from office, we will undoubtedly criticize that person.

I think we should also be asking about the judgment of the man who put that official there.

And right now, that man is Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Sources

WHAT IF TREASON DID NOT HAVE TO WAIT FOR WAR?

Gino Borlado — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

We keep talking about treason whenever a politician seems more interested in defending another country than protecting the Philippines. People get angry, demand action, and ask why nobody is filing a case.

Then we run into the law. Treason is tied to wartime. However strongly people feel about someone’s behavior, anger cannot supply the proof and conditions needed for a treason conviction.

So here is a proposal: keep the existing wartime treason law, then ask whether Congress should add a crime for Filipinos who deliberately help a foreign government seriously harm this country during peacetime.

The difficulty is deciding what that addition should cover. “Mas kinakampihan niya ang ibang bansa” may be enough to explain why we distrust a politician. It cannot be enough to send someone to prison.

WHO ARE THEY WORKING FOR?

A Philippine official should be able to explain how a decision benefits Filipinos. If we are being asked to accept a concession, support an agreement, or give something up, what do we get in return?

It becomes irritating when an official seems to have an explanation ready for everything a foreign government does, while our own people are expected to keep adjusting. Apparently, we should always understand the other country. Who is supposed to understand us?

That deserves criticism. But even a position I find offensive could come from an honest belief that cooperation or restraint would serve the Philippines better. Countries can share interests. Agreeing with another government does not automatically mean someone is secretly working for it.

A private arrangement would be a different question.

Take an invented example. An official supports an agreement with a foreign government. Later, records show that the official privately agreed to give that government unauthorized access to a sensitive Philippine facility and used public authority to make it happen.

Or suppose someone knowingly arranges foreign campaign funding in exchange for a promise to interfere with Philippine defense decisions. There could be several people involved, including people outside government.

What would our laws already punish in those situations? Would they reach everyone who knowingly helped? That is where the proposal needs an answer.

WE ALREADY HAVE LAWS AGAINST SOME OF THIS

The research turned up something that should temper any claim that nothing can be done before war.

Article 117 of the Revised Penal Code covers certain forms of espionage. Commonwealth Act No. 616 also punishes acts involving defense information, including certain disclosures during peacetime. It contains provisions against deliberately damaging defense facilities or equipment and deliberately making defense material defective.

So leaking defense information or sabotaging equipment cannot simply be offered as examples of acts that go unpunished until war begins.

There are other laws concerning official secrets, corruption, foreign election contributions, and people acting for foreign principals. Computer offenses have their own law. Suspicious government purchases also have to be checked against procurement and anti-graft laws.

The sources are below for anyone who would like to read them. Each law has conditions that prosecutors must prove, so none should be treated as an automatic answer to every accusation involving another country.

Their existence does put a responsibility on anyone proposing peacetime treason, including me. We have to ask what serious assistance still escapes those laws and why.

If an act is already punishable, why was nobody charged? Perhaps the evidence was insufficient. Perhaps investigators failed to do their jobs, or someone refused to act. Passing another law will not automatically solve those problems.

Congress is already working on espionage reform too. Its records list House Bill 9642, the proposed New Espionage Act, as approved by the House on September 17, 2026 and received by the Senate on September 21. House approval does not make it law.

Any peacetime treason proposal should be compared with that bill. Otherwise, we might be demanding something without checking whether the changes already being considered would address it.

LOOK BEYOND THE SPEECHES

This is the part that concerns me more than whether a politician sounded sufficiently patriotic in an interview.

Someone can give a stirring speech about defending the Philippines and quietly help a foreign government afterward. Another person can express a view we dislike without having any secret arrangement at all.

The records should tell us more than the performance. Who asked for assistance? What did the person know, and what did they do? Investigators would have to connect those acts to the alleged operation against the Philippines.

Money needs context too. A payment from abroad could come from a lawful transaction. It could also be evidence of a harmful arrangement. Its purpose has to be proved, rather than assumed from where it came from.

And someone could volunteer assistance without being paid. The absence of a bank transfer would not make the assistance harmless.

The same care applies to meetings with diplomats, overseas travel, and friendships. Filipinos have lawful reasons to deal with foreigners. A photograph with someone is a poor substitute for evidence of what actually happened.

WHAT ABOUT DELIBERATELY DOING NOTHING?

Suppose an official has a clear legal duty to send an urgent defense warning. The official has the means and authority to send it but deliberately withholds it to help a foreign operation.

That is another invented example Congress should work through. What law would apply? If existing laws leave something uncovered, how would an addition deal with it?

There would have to be proof of the duty, the ability to act, and the deliberate decision to withhold action for that purpose. An official without equipment, authority, or reliable information could be unable to respond for entirely different reasons.

Refusing to condemn another government in an interview is also far removed from deliberately withholding a warning the law obliges someone to send. Public silence alone should not become a shortcut to a criminal charge.

WOULD WE TRUST OUR OPPONENTS WITH THIS LAW?

I would have to ask myself that before supporting a bill.

Would the wording still seem fair if politicians I distrusted controlled the government? Could they use it against me for criticizing an alliance or opposing an agreement?

“Putting another country first” is too vague to be the wording of a crime. A law would have to state what acts it punishes, what the accused must have known and intended, and how those acts were connected to serious harm or danger to the Philippines.

Filipinos should remain free to support negotiations with China, oppose American military access, question defense spending, and criticize foreign policy. Those views can face forceful arguments without becoming grounds for arrest.

The same standard should apply whichever foreign government benefits. There should be no special allowance for helping a country favored by the administration in power.

The Constitution’s protections would still apply. A new crime could cover only acts committed after the law takes effect, and a conviction would need proof beyond reasonable doubt.

The existing wartime treason law also has a special rule: conviction calls for two witnesses to the same overt act or a confession in open court. This proposal would leave that provision intact. Congress would have to work through the evidence rules for a separate peacetime crime while respecting the Supreme Court’s power to set court rules.

That work belongs in the drafting and public hearings. The public should be able to follow the argument without having to take anyone’s word that the bill is safe from abuse.

SO, SHOULD CONGRESS ADD IT?

The proposal is worth putting to Congress, with the questions attached.

Keep wartime treason. Explain what the other laws already cover and what the pending espionage reforms would change. If serious acts of deliberate assistance would still escape punishment, show us those gaps and explain whether a peacetime treason provision is the best way to close them.

This article has not proved that a particular act escapes every applicable Philippine law. That has to be settled before the proposed addition becomes law.

What prompted the question, though, is easy enough to understand. Filipinos see politicians defending foreign interests and ask whose side they are on. Sometimes the answer may be a policy judgment we dislike. If evidence shows a deliberate arrangement to harm the Philippines, there should be a lawful way to act.

We should not have to wait for war to ask whether our laws are ready for that.

Sources

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS LATER, CAN THE AETAS OF BACAO FINALLY CALL IT HOME?

Gino Borlado — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

I was recently invited to attend the National Indigenous Peoples Sunday celebration held on October 11 in Sitio Bacao, Palayan City, Nueva Ecija. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling well and couldn't attend. I would have loved to be there because helping our Katutubo communities and bringing attention to their concerns has always been part of what Morning Coffee Thoughts stands for.

The celebration was organized by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, through its Episcopal Commission on Indigenous Peoples (CBCP-ECIP), in partnership with the Diocese of Cabanatuan. It brought together Indigenous communities, Church leaders, and representatives of organizations and government institutions involved in Indigenous Peoples' concerns.

I appreciate the invitation, and I regret missing the opportunity to meet the community and hear directly from them. Fortunately, I was given a copy of the history of Sitio Bacao, along with information about the gathering. I decided to read the documents and research the community's history.

What I discovered was something I knew very little about, despite living in nearby Cabanatuan City.

Some of the Aeta families displaced by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 were resettled in Palayan City, where they established homes, cultivated farms, raised families, and participated in environmental rehabilitation projects.

Thirty-five years later, however, some residents are still asking the government to recognize their rights over the places where they live and the agricultural areas that provide their livelihoods.

And I think their situation deserves our attention.

THE FAMILIES WHO CAME AFTER PINATUBO

In June 1991, Mount Pinatubo erupted, devastating communities across Central Luzon and displacing thousands of people, including Aeta families whose lives were closely connected to the surrounding mountains and forests.

Many lost their homes and access to their traditional sources of food and income. Some eventually relocated to Barangay Doña Josefa in Palayan City, Nueva Ecija, where resettlement communities had been established.

One of those communities was Sitio Bacao, located within the Fort Magsaysay Military Reservation.

A July 2018 special report by journalist Anselmo Roque documented how approximately 1,900 Aeta individuals agreed to relocate to Barangay Doña Josefa during the latter part of 1991. The report identified Sitio Bacao as an area selected for the development of an Aeta resettlement community.

What makes this history particularly interesting is the involvement of the Philippine Army and the Diocese of Cabanatuan.

According to Roque's reporting, then Brigadier General Orlando Soriano, commander of the Army's 7th Infantry Division, and then Bishop Sofio Balce entered into a memorandum of agreement involving approximately 1,000 hectares intended for community development.

Fr. Apollo de Guzman, who headed the diocese's Tribal Filipino Apostolate, helped organize the resettlement and guide the families as they adjusted to their new surroundings.

The agreement is an important part of the community's history. It indicates that the resettlement involved cooperation between military and Church authorities, rather than families independently occupying an area without any organized arrangement.

The precise terms of that agreement are important in assessing the residents' present concerns, particularly because the property remains within a military reservation.

For the families who arrived in 1991, however, the immediate concern was finding a way to survive in an unfamiliar place.

A DIFFICULT BEGINNING

The community history shared with me describes Bacao as an area that was largely covered with cogon grass and talahib before the arrival of the displaced families. There were few established farms, and the surroundings differed considerably from the areas around Pinatubo where many residents had previously lived.

The Aetas were accustomed to an environment where forest resources and traditional agricultural practices supported their daily needs. In Bacao, they had to learn how to cultivate unfamiliar surroundings while dealing with the difficulties of displacement.

Some families eventually returned to Zambales because they could not adjust to the conditions in their new community.

In Roque's 2018 report, Aeta resident Lolita Soria recalled how difficult the early years had been. She described how families struggled with the absence of familiar crops and forest resources, leading many to return to their former communities.

Those who remained gradually developed agricultural activities and established new livelihoods.

They planted rice, corn, sweet potatoes, taro, vegetables, and other crops. Some raised livestock, while others worked as agricultural laborers. Over time, families built homes and raised children who would grow up knowing Bacao as their community.

The Diocese of Cabanatuan continued assisting the residents, initially through Fr. Apollo de Guzman and later through Fr. Jacinto "Chito" Beltran.

Their involvement included livelihood assistance, agricultural development, and environmental rehabilitation projects intended to improve the surrounding area.

One of the community's achievements was its participation in reforestation activities.

In 2015, Bacao Ecological System and Technologies Inc., or BESTI, was established to support environmental and livelihood programs. Historical reporting describes cooperation with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, with Aeta residents participating in tree planting and forest protection.

By December 2018, Fr. de Guzman was reporting that approximately 800 hectares were being cared for through the reforestation initiative. Some residents worked as Bantay-Gubat, helping protect growing trees while earning income from environmental activities.

The community history also describes the planting of narra, molave, and other tree species, along with continued efforts to develop agricultural livelihoods.

These accomplishments were reported in 2018, and the present condition of the entire project area would need a separate assessment. Nevertheless, the historical accounts show how residents participated in developing and caring for the surroundings where they had been resettled.

These families had already experienced displacement caused by a natural disaster. Rebuilding their lives meant developing new skills, adapting to a different environment, and finding sources of income that could support their children.

They spent years doing exactly that, with assistance from the Church and participating government agencies. Yet the community history also describes problems that have apparently remained unresolved.

THE CONCERNS OF THE BACAO RESIDENTS

Toward the latter part of the document shared with me, the discussion turns to the residents' concerns about their homes and agricultural areas.

The document alleges that military activities have affected areas previously used by residents for farming. It also claims that banana plants were destroyed, resulting in the loss of crops that families depended upon for daily expenses and their children's education.

Another complaint concerns housing. According to the community account, some homes provided through government assistance have deteriorated, but residents say restrictions associated with the military reservation have prevented repairs.

These are serious allegations that deserve a response from the military authorities responsible for the area.

The document does not identify the dates of the alleged incidents, the military units involved, or the particular agreements governing the affected property. I have also not found independent records establishing that the alleged actions violated the residents' legal rights.

It would therefore be premature to accuse the military of unlawfully destroying crops or preventing repairs without establishing the circumstances.

However, the residents' concerns deserve to be investigated, particularly because they involve families whose history in the area goes back more than three decades.

Near the end of the community history, the residents make this appeal:

"Kayat po sana mai Award na samin ng pamahalaan ang lupang kinatitirikan ng bahay at lupang sinasaka."

They are asking the government to award them the residential and agricultural areas on which their lives depend.

That request raises a question about the original resettlement arrangement and the present legal status of the community.

The Army and the Diocese of Cabanatuan participated in establishing Bacao as a resettlement community after the Pinatubo eruption. Residents later participated in agricultural and environmental programs supported by government institutions.

What rights were granted to those families, and what arrangements govern their continued occupancy today?

The answers should be found in the original memorandum of agreement, any subsequent agreements, and the records of the government agencies responsible for the reservation and resettlement.

THE QUESTION OF LEGAL RIGHTS

Republic Act No. 8371, or the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act of 1997, provides legal protections for Indigenous Cultural Communities and Indigenous Peoples.

Section 7(d) addresses communities displaced by natural catastrophes. It recognizes their right to return to their ancestral territories under appropriate conditions and provides for security of tenure in resettlement areas when the statutory conditions are satisfied.

The provision is relevant to the circumstances surrounding the Bacao Aetas, who relocated after the Pinatubo eruption. However, applying it to their present situation requires an assessment of the original resettlement agreement, the circumstances affecting their former ancestral territories, and the legal status of the military reservation.

The law does not automatically transfer ownership of government resettlement property to the Indigenous families occupying it.

Section 56 also recognizes and respects property rights already existing or vested when the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act took effect.

The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples has an important role in assessing the rights and remedies that may be available to the Bacao residents. The Department of National Defense and Philippine Army also have responsibilities concerning the military reservation and the agreements governing its use.

A proper assessment would need to identify the areas occupied by the community, the authority under which those areas were allocated, and any restrictions imposed on agricultural or residential activities.

It should also establish whether the residents have applied for formal recognition of their rights and what action the responsible agencies have taken.

These questions concern actual legal arrangements, and their resolution should be based on the relevant documents and applicable law.

AN OLD PROPOSAL FOR PERMANENT SECURITY

Another detail from the July 2018 reporting deserves attention.

Fr. Apollo de Guzman discussed the possibility of the Aeta residents eventually owning their resettlement area through a presidential proclamation.

The report indicates that such an arrangement was being contemplated, although it does not establish that a formal proclamation was eventually issued.

There is a historical precedent for the release of portions of Fort Magsaysay from military reservation status.

In March 1991, President Corazon Aquino issued Proclamation No. 709, excluding designated portions of Barangay Militar in Palayan City from the Fort Magsaysay Military Reservation and opening those areas for disposition under applicable laws.

That proclamation concerned Barangay Militar, while Sitio Bacao is in Barangay Doña Josefa. It also preceded the Pinatubo eruption.

It therefore cannot be treated as a proclamation granting rights to the Bacao Aetas. What it demonstrates is that portions of the military reservation have previously been released through presidential action.

Whether a comparable arrangement would be legally appropriate for Bacao depends on the property's current classification, its military use, existing agreements, and the circumstances of the community.

There is also Executive Order No. 5, issued in March 2001, which addressed the transfer of administrative responsibilities for designated upland Pinatubo resettlement communities to the appropriate local government units.

The available records do not establish that Bacao was covered by that order.

These government actions provide useful historical context, but they do not resolve the residents' present legal position.

The central issue remains the agreement under which Bacao was established and whether any later government action granted the community permanent rights to its residential and agricultural areas.

THE CHURCH'S ROLE CONTINUES

The National Indigenous Peoples Sunday celebration on October 11 brought renewed attention to Indigenous communities, including the Aetas of Bacao.

The gathering carried the theme "Journeying with Indigenous Peoples: Honoring God's Creation and Rights of Nature."

The celebration emphasized the protection of Indigenous Peoples' rights, cultures, ancestral territories, and the environment.

Ahead of the event, CBCP-ECIP executive secretary Tony Abuso called on the government to recognize and protect Indigenous communities' rights to their ancestral domains.

In an October 8 report published by the Archdiocese of Manila's communications office, Abuso discussed the situation of approximately 120 Aeta families living in Bacao.

He acknowledged that returning to Pampanga would be difficult for families who had spent decades developing their lives in Palayan City.

His observation reflects the reality of long-term displacement.

A family that moved to Bacao in 1991 may now include children and grandchildren who have lived their entire lives there. For them, their connection to the community comes from decades of residence, livelihood, and family history.

The Church's continuing involvement is especially relevant because the Diocese of Cabanatuan participated in the original resettlement arrangement.

During the October 11 celebration, Cabanatuan Bishop Prudencio Andaya encouraged Indigenous residents to remain courageous in asserting their dignity and rights.

According to Radio Veritas, the bishop assured the participants that the Church would continue listening to their concerns and accompanying them in their efforts.

I appreciate that commitment, particularly given the diocese's long history of assisting the Bacao community.

The celebration also provided an opportunity for Indigenous representatives and participating institutions to discuss concerns affecting their communities.

The available public reports, however, do not provide a complete account of the discussions or identify any final agreement concerning the Bacao residents' property rights.

What happens after the celebration will be important, particularly if the community's complaints are formally raised with the government agencies responsible for addressing them.

WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN NOW?

The Bacao community's history involves several institutions with different responsibilities.

The Philippine Army and Department of National Defense are responsible for the military reservation and the activities conducted within it. The Diocese of Cabanatuan participated in establishing the resettlement community and may possess historical records relating to the original agreement.

The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples is responsible for administering and implementing programs concerning Indigenous Peoples' rights under existing law. Local government institutions and agencies involved in the original Pinatubo resettlement programs may also possess relevant documents.

There is enough institutional history to begin establishing the present legal position of the Bacao residents.

The original memorandum of agreement would be an appropriate starting point, together with any amendments, property records, and documents identifying the areas allocated for residence, agriculture, and environmental activities.

The community's complaints about damaged crops and housing restrictions also deserve a proper assessment.

The military should be given the opportunity to explain the activities involved, the applicable restrictions, and whether affected residents received appropriate assistance.

The residents, meanwhile, should have access to information explaining their occupancy rights and any procedures available for resolving disputes.

If certain agricultural areas are reserved for military activities, the boundaries and restrictions should be clear to the people whose livelihoods may be affected.

If housing repairs are restricted, the responsible authorities should explain the legal basis and identify what arrangements are available for families living in deteriorating homes.

And if permanent recognition of residential or agricultural use is legally possible, the government should explain what procedures would be necessary to pursue it.

The original resettlement effort involved cooperation between the Army and the Church. Any attempt to resolve the present concerns would benefit from the participation of those institutions, the appropriate government agencies, and the community itself.

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS LATER

There is something about the history of Sitio Bacao that deserves attention beyond the annual celebration of Indigenous Peoples' Sunday.

The Aetas who arrived there in 1991 had already experienced the destruction and displacement caused by Mount Pinatubo. They had to adapt to unfamiliar surroundings and develop new sources of livelihood.

Some families eventually returned to their former communities. Others remained, cultivated farms, raised children, and participated in efforts to improve their environment.

Over the years, the community received assistance from religious organizations and government institutions. Its residents also contributed their own labor to agricultural and environmental programs.

That history deserves recognition, but the residents' appeal concerning their homes and agricultural areas also deserves serious attention.

Their document describes concerns about the security of their residence, restrictions affecting housing repairs, and the reported loss of crops associated with military activities.

Those complaints have not been independently established as violations of law, and the military's explanation is necessary before conclusions can be reached.

Still, government officials should be able to determine what rights the community holds and what arrangements are available to address its concerns.

I believe there is a responsibility to provide those answers, particularly because the community's resettlement was organized with the participation of public institutions.

The Aetas of Bacao should not have to rely indefinitely on uncertainty about the terms governing their homes and livelihoods.

If legal limitations prevent the transfer of property, those limitations should be explained. If existing laws or agreements provide a path toward greater tenure security, the residents should be informed of their options and assisted through the appropriate process.

The government must also consider the practical consequences of its decisions for families who have spent decades developing their livelihoods in the area.

A PERSONAL NOTE

I genuinely regret being unable to attend the October 11 celebration. It would have been an opportunity to meet the residents, listen to their experiences, and better understand the community's concerns.

I am grateful to the people who extended the invitation and shared the history of Sitio Bacao with me. The documents encouraged me to learn about a community whose experiences I had previously known very little about, despite living nearby.

I also appreciate the work of the Catholic Church, particularly the Diocese of Cabanatuan and CBCP-ECIP, in bringing attention to Indigenous communities and supporting their rights.

The history of Bacao shows how religious organizations, public institutions, and residents themselves participated in helping families rebuild after the Pinatubo eruption.

Today, the community is asking for answers concerning the place where those efforts began.

I hope the October 11 gathering helps bring those questions before the government offices capable of resolving them.

Morning Coffee Thoughts has consistently called for accountability, transparency, and responsible governance. Those principles apply just as much to the concerns of Indigenous communities as they do to the political controversies that dominate public discussion.

The people of Bacao deserve to understand the legal status of their homes and farms, and the government institutions involved in their resettlement should be able to explain the arrangements governing their continued residence.

Thirty-five years have passed since these families began rebuilding their lives after Mount Pinatubo. I hope the next chapter of their history includes something they have been asking for in their own words: lasting security over the place they call home.

Sources

SENIOR CITIZEN AND PWD DISCOUNTS: KNOW YOUR RIGHTS, UNDERSTAND THE RULES

Gino Borlado — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

A hotel manager in Bacolod City was convicted after two senior citizens complained that they were denied their mandatory 20% discount. The hotel maintained that the guests had already received a negotiated 20% reduction through their membership in the Cebu Bikers Club.

On October 14, 2026, the Supreme Court announced that it had reversed the convictions and acquitted hotel manager Orville U. Ong. According to the Court's Public Information Office, the guests had already benefited from the club's negotiated rate, so the hotel was not obligated to give them another 20%.

The ruling raises a familiar question: Can a business refuse a senior citizen discount because the customer is already receiving a promotional or group rate?

Under the existing rules, a qualified senior citizen can generally choose between the promotional discount and the mandatory 20% discount, whichever is higher and more favorable. The customer cannot ordinarily combine the two. Persons with disabilities, or PWDs, have a similar protection under a separate law.

But there's another question I think deserves attention. What happens when a business claims that everything it sells is already discounted? How do we know whether the promotion is genuine, and does calling something a promotional price automatically excuse the business from giving a discount provided by law?

I went through the relevant laws and government regulations because I want to explain these issues in a way that ordinary customers and business employees can understand. We'll cover who qualifies, which purchases receive discounts, how the calculations work, and what customers can do when an establishment refuses.

The Supreme Court's October 14 announcement confirms the reported acquittal and explains the prohibition against combining discounts. However, the complete written decision has not yet been independently reviewed, so questions about the evidence presented, the negotiated room rate, and the Court's treatment of VAT remain open.

THE BASIC RULES: WHAT YOU CAN CLAIM

I'M ALREADY 60. DO I QUALIFY FOR SENIOR CITIZEN DISCOUNTS?

Yes, if you meet the law's citizenship and residency qualifications. You need to present an accepted identification document, and the purchase must be covered by the law.

I'M A PWD, BUT MY DISABILITY ISN'T VISIBLE. CAN I STILL RECEIVE DISCOUNTS?

Yes, provided you meet the government's disability eligibility requirements and have the prescribed documentation. Disabilities do not have to be physically obvious.

DO I GET 20% OFF EVERYTHING I BUY?

No. The mandatory 20% discount applies to particular goods and services, including eligible restaurant meals, medicines, medical services, transportation, and accommodations.

WHAT IF THE PRODUCT IS ALREADY ON SALE?

For covered purchases, you can generally choose the applicable promotional offer or statutory discount, whichever provides greater savings. You cannot ordinarily combine them.

CAN I CLAIM BOTH SENIOR CITIZEN AND PWD DISCOUNTS?

No. If you qualify under both laws, you use one statutory discount for the same purchase.

WHAT ABOUT GROCERIES?

Covered basic necessities and prime commodities receive a separate 5% discount, with a maximum of ₱125 in savings per calendar week. Product restrictions and documentation requirements apply.

CAN A RESTAURANT REFUSE THE DISCOUNT BECAUSE WE'RE EATING AS A GROUP?

Being part of a group does not automatically remove your entitlement. The discount generally applies to the qualified person's eligible food, while pre-contracted party packages and bulk orders have special rules.

WHO QUALIFIES AS A SENIOR CITIZEN?

Republic Act No. 9994, or the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010, covers qualified Filipino citizens aged 60 and above. Its implementing rules also address residency requirements, including those applicable to dual citizens.

Senior citizens can obtain an identification card through the Office of Senior Citizens Affairs, commonly called OSCA, in their city or municipality. However, the law also recognizes a Philippine passport and other acceptable documents establishing citizenship and age.

Someone who has already turned 60 does not necessarily have to wait for an OSCA card before claiming a benefit. The person must still present identification accepted under the applicable rules, and some benefits have additional documentation requirements.

Reaching age 60 does not automatically qualify every purchase for a discount. The law identifies which goods and services are covered.

WHO QUALIFIES AS A PERSON WITH DISABILITY?

I want to give this section particular attention because I think many people still misunderstand what qualifies someone as a PWD.

When we hear the term PWD, some of us immediately think of someone using a wheelchair, walking with a cane, or having an obvious physical impairment. But disability is not always visible.

Under the Magna Carta for Persons with Disability and its amendments, a person may qualify because of a long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairment that, together with various barriers, affects the person's ability to participate fully in society.

Government disability classifications include physical and orthopedic disabilities, visual disabilities, hearing disabilities, speech and language impairments, intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities, and psychosocial disabilities. Applicable laws and identification guidelines also recognize qualified persons with cancer and rare diseases.

Someone with serious hearing loss may appear physically healthy. A person with a qualifying psychosocial disability may also show no obvious physical signs, just as some people with significant learning or intellectual disabilities may not have visible impairments.

However, having a particular medical or psychological diagnosis does not automatically qualify someone for a PWD ID. The condition must meet the applicable disability criteria, and the person must provide the prescribed medical or supporting documents.

Take diabetes as an example. A diabetes diagnosis alone does not automatically establish PWD eligibility. But if the illness causes serious visual impairment or another qualifying disability, the person may become eligible based on that impairment, subject to medical assessment and the applicable documentation requirements.

The same principle applies to other chronic illnesses. The medical condition, its effects on the person's functioning, and the government's eligibility criteria must be examined.

This is why I would caution business employees against judging customers based on appearance. Someone who looks physically healthy may have a legitimate disability, and a cashier cannot determine eligibility simply by looking at the person.

HOW DO YOU GET A PWD ID?

PWD IDs are generally issued through the Persons with Disability Affairs Office, or PDAO, or the appropriate city or municipal social welfare office.

Applicants must submit the prescribed identification and supporting documents. Under the NCDA's 2021 guidelines, apparent disabilities may be assessed through the authorized local process, while non-apparent disabilities generally need medical certification from an appropriate physician or specialist.

The 2021 guidelines provided for free initial issuance and a five-year validity period.

There is also a recent development that existing cardholders should know about.

In September 2026, the National Council on Disability Affairs published an administrative order introducing a unified PWD identification system. The order provides for lifetime validity for permanent disabilities, periodic revalidation for certain non-apparent disabilities, and a three-year transition period.

However, the order contains conditions governing when it takes effect, including NCDA Board approval and publication. Its publication does not establish that every LGU has completed the transition or that every new procedure is already operational nationwide.

Existing cardholders should check with their issuing LGUs before assuming that their identification cards must immediately be replaced. Businesses should likewise avoid treating an otherwise valid PWD ID as invalid merely because a unified system has been announced.

Businesses have legitimate reasons to verify identification, particularly because fraudulent cards can be used to obtain benefits unlawfully. But verification must follow the applicable rules and respect the customer's privacy.

A cashier may check an ID or refer a questionable transaction to a manager. That does not give the employee unrestricted authority to demand private medical information or publicly question someone's disability.

WHAT PURCHASES RECEIVE THE 20% DISCOUNT?

Both qualified senior citizens and PWDs generally receive a mandatory 20% discount and applicable exemption from the 12% value-added tax, or VAT, on certain purchases for their personal use.

These include eligible restaurant meals and beverages, medicines, medical consultations, dental services, diagnostic and laboratory examinations, domestic transportation, hotel accommodations, and admission to covered cinemas and recreational establishments.

The laws also provide benefits involving specified medical supplies, equipment, and funeral or burial services. Some purchases have additional requirements, particularly medicines and medical services.

For example, a senior citizen ordering an eligible restaurant meal may claim the discount. A PWD buying covered medicines may also claim the benefit after providing the documents applicable to that purchase.

The documentation rules for medicines are not identical in every situation. Requirements may depend on whether the medicine is prescription or non-prescription, the buyer's eligibility, and the relevant DOH and BIR regulations.

But ordinary retail products such as clothing, appliances, televisions, and cellphones do not automatically receive the mandatory 20% discount.

A store may offer its own promotion on those products, but customers should not assume that their senior citizen or PWD ID entitles them to another 20% reduction.

Businesses need to identify which products and services are covered. Customers also need to understand that the law provides discounts on specified purchases rather than everything sold.

HOW MUCH SHOULD YOU ACTUALLY PAY?

Let's use a restaurant bill because this is where a simple calculation can help.

Suppose a senior citizen orders an eligible meal priced at ₱1,120, including 12% VAT. The customer qualifies for both the mandatory 20% discount and VAT exemption.

Some people assume the restaurant simply deducts 20% from ₱1,120. But for this type of eligible transaction, the VAT component must first be removed, after which the statutory discount is calculated using the price without VAT.

Here is the computation:

Original price, including VAT: ₱1,120

Less VAT component: ₱120

Price without VAT: ₱1,000

Less 20% statutory discount: ₱200

AMOUNT TO PAY: ₱800

The customer pays ₱800 instead of ₱1,120, saving ₱320. That's approximately 28.57% of the original VAT-inclusive price.

This example assumes that the entire purchase qualifies for the statutory discount and VAT exemption, and that the establishment is VAT-registered.

If the business is not VAT-registered, there may be no 12% VAT component to remove, although the applicable 20% discount must still be granted.

Customers should check the actual computation, while cashiers should understand that VAT exemption and the statutory discount are calculated differently from an ordinary promotional reduction.

WHAT IF THE RESTAURANT OR STORE IS ALREADY OFFERING A DISCOUNT?

Now we come to the issue raised by the recent Supreme Court ruling.

Under Republic Act No. 9994 and its implementing rules, a qualified senior citizen buying eligible goods or services at promotional prices may choose between the promotion and the mandatory 20% discount, whichever is higher and more favorable.

The implementing rules of Republic Act No. 10754 provide a similar option for PWDs.

Suppose a restaurant offers a 10% promotional discount on an eligible meal. A qualified customer can choose the statutory benefit because it provides greater savings.

Now suppose the restaurant offers a 30% promotional discount. The customer may choose that promotion if the final amount payable is lower than what the customer would pay using the statutory benefit.

What the customer cannot ordinarily demand is to receive the restaurant's 30% promotional discount and then another 20% statutory discount on the reduced price.

But there's another side to this rule. The restaurant cannot automatically refuse the statutory discount merely because it has an ongoing promotion. The customer should still be able to choose the applicable option that provides greater savings.

And remember our earlier VAT example. A 20% promotional discount and a statutory 20% discount with VAT exemption may produce different final prices.

For a qualifying ₱1,120 purchase, an ordinary 20% reduction gives a price of ₱896. The statutory calculation in our example gives ₱800.

The correct comparison depends on the transaction, its pricing terms, and applicable VAT treatment. Customers should compare the amounts they would actually pay instead of relying entirely on the percentages advertised.

BUT IS THE PROMOTION ITSELF LEGAL?

This is something I think deserves attention, particularly when businesses claim that their regular prices already include promotional discounts.

Republic Act No. 7394, or the Consumer Act of the Philippines, prohibits deceptive and unfair sales practices. Businesses must be truthful about prices, advertised savings, and the terms of their promotional offers.

There are three questions worth asking when a business advertises a discount.

First, is the offer covered by DTI sales promotion regulations? Second, does it need a permit? Third, are the advertised prices and savings truthful?

Not every discount needs a DTI permit. Certain promotional activities are exempt, including qualifying in-store promotions that are not advertised to the public outside the establishment.

A privately negotiated corporate or group rate may also be different from a publicly advertised sales promotion. The applicable requirements depend on how the offer is structured, communicated, and made available to customers.

However, an exemption from a permit requirement does not authorize deceptive pricing. Businesses must still comply with the consumer protection rules that apply to their transactions.

Consider this example.

A restaurant normally sells a meal for ₱500. It begins advertising that the meal's regular price is ₱625, but everyone receives a 20% promotional discount, bringing the price back to ₱500.

When a senior citizen asks for the mandatory discount, the restaurant responds that the meal is already discounted.

I would have questions. Was ₱625 genuinely the regular selling price? Was the reduction real, or did the establishment simply change its advertised prices to make an ordinary ₱500 meal appear discounted?

Those questions do not automatically prove that the restaurant violated the Consumer Act. The actual price history, advertising, and supporting evidence would have to be examined.

But if a business claims that its regular price already includes a promotional discount, customers may reasonably ask how that discount was calculated. A misleading claim about the original price may raise concerns under consumer protection law.

Businesses should be able to support their advertised pricing claims. Customers can request an explanation and report suspected deceptive advertising to the DTI.

There is also a difference between asking a business to explain its prices and having the legal authority to demand confidential commercial records. Regulatory agencies may examine records during an investigation under their applicable powers, but customers do not automatically have an unrestricted right to inspect private contracts or internal financial documents.

The fact that a hotel charges a company less than its public room rate does not automatically mean the hotel is conducting an illegal promotion.

WHAT ABOUT CORPORATE AND GROUP DISCOUNTS?

Hotels, resorts, restaurants, and transportation providers sometimes negotiate special prices with companies, associations, clubs, and organized groups.

A hotel may offer a corporate rate to employees attending a conference. A resort may agree to reduced prices for members of an organization, while a restaurant may negotiate rates for a recurring company activity.

These arrangements are generally permissible, but questions arise when a member of the group is a senior citizen or PWD.

Suppose a hotel has a regular room rate of ₱2,000 and offers company employees a negotiated rate of ₱1,500.

That's a 25% reduction from the stated regular rate.

If a senior citizen uses that corporate rate, the customer cannot automatically demand another 20% discount on top of the negotiated price.

However, we should not automatically assume that every negotiated commercial rate satisfies the statutory discount requirement. The actual agreement, the nature of the reduction, the applicable discount rules, and any relevant VAT treatment must be considered.

The hotel should be able to explain which rate was charged and the basis for any claim that the customer already received a discount.

This brings us back to the Supreme Court case.

According to the October 14 announcement, the guests had already received a negotiated 20% reduction under the Cebu Bikers Club arrangement. The Court reversed the convictions of hotel manager Orville U. Ong and acquitted him.

The announcement establishes the reported outcome and the Court's explanation concerning the prohibition against combining discounts. But the complete written opinion is needed before we can determine precisely how the Court evaluated the evidence supporting the negotiated rate, including the treatment of VAT and invoicing.

We should also distinguish the manager's acquittal from a general finding that every aspect of the hotel's pricing complied with all applicable regulations.

A criminal acquittal resolves the prosecution under the legal and evidentiary standards applicable to that case. It does not automatically answer every other regulatory question that might arise from the transaction.

For customers, the practical advice is to ask what rate was applied and how it compares with the applicable statutory benefit. Businesses should maintain records supporting negotiated discounts, particularly when those discounts are used to explain why another reduction was not granted.

WHAT IF SEVERAL SENIOR CITIZENS OR PWDS EAT TOGETHER?

This is different from receiving a corporate or group discount.

Suppose five senior citizens eat at a restaurant. All five present valid identification documents, and their meals qualify for the statutory benefit.

The restaurant cannot simply say that only one senior citizen discount is allowed per table. Each qualified customer may receive the applicable discount on the portion of the meal attributable to that person.

Now suppose three senior citizens dine with two younger relatives. The restaurant should apply the statutory benefit to the eligible portions attributable to the three senior citizens, rather than automatically discounting the entire bill for five people.

For individually ordered meals, this is relatively easy to calculate. Shared dishes require the allocation methods prescribed by the relevant restaurant guidelines.

The same general personal-consumption rule applies to PWD transactions, subject to the applicable PWD regulations.

WHAT ABOUT PARTY PACKAGES AND BULK ORDERS?

Here's an important distinction that customers and restaurants should know.

The implementing rules of the Senior Citizens Act expressly exclude pre-contracted party packages and bulk orders from the ordinary restaurant discount privilege.

This means booking a party package for 20 people is legally different from having several senior citizens order ordinary meals at the same table.

Suppose a restaurant offers a pre-arranged ₱10,000 party package covering food, drinks, and other services for 20 guests. Five guests are senior citizens.

Those five guests cannot automatically demand that the restaurant deduct 20% from the entire package or divide the contracted package price into individual shares and apply the ordinary restaurant discount.

The express exclusion for pre-contracted party packages and bulk orders must be considered.

However, businesses should not confuse ordinary group dining with a pre-contracted party package. Five senior citizens ordering meals together are not automatically making a bulk purchase simply because they share one table.

This exclusion is expressly provided in the senior citizen implementing rules and BIR Revenue Regulations No. 7-2010. I have not confirmed that every aspect of this exclusion applies identically to PWD transactions, so businesses should check the corresponding PWD rules rather than automatically denying a PWD claim on that basis.

WHAT IF YOU HAVE BOTH A SENIOR CITIZEN ID AND A PWD ID?

Some people qualify under both laws. For example, someone who is 65 years old and has a recognized disability may hold both IDs.

That does not mean receiving two separate 20% discounts on the same purchase. The customer must use one applicable statutory entitlement.

The same principle applies to the special grocery discount, where having both IDs does not double the weekly allowance. There is also a documentation rule for customers who qualify under both categories, which I'll explain in the grocery section.

WHAT ABOUT TAKEOUT, DRIVE-THRU, DELIVERY, AND ONLINE ORDERS?

Qualified senior citizens and PWDs can claim their applicable discounts on covered food purchases even when they are not dining inside the restaurant. However, there are special rules about who makes the purchase, how eligibility is verified, and how much food qualifies for the discount.

For senior citizens, the implementing rules of RA 9994 expressly cover takeout, take-home, drive-thru, and delivery orders. For takeout and drive-thru orders under those rules, the senior citizen must personally place the order and present valid identification.

For telephone delivery orders, the rules provide for giving the senior citizen's ID number when ordering and presenting the ID upon delivery. Joint Memorandum Circular No. 01, Series of 2022, also provides procedures for eligible purchases made online, by telephone, or through text messages.

There is another rule customers should know, particularly when ordering from quick-service restaurants.

It's called the Most Expensive Meal Combination, or MEMC.

The name sounds complicated, but the idea is fairly simple. It provides a reference amount for determining how much food qualifies for the senior citizen discount in certain takeout, take-home, drive-thru, and delivery transactions.

The MEMC is based on the restaurant's most expensive and largest single-serving meal with a beverage. It is intended to represent a meal for one senior citizen.

Under DSWD Resolution No. 3-2009, when the applicable MEMC rule is used, the discount is calculated using the actual food purchase amount if it is below the MEMC. If the food purchase equals or exceeds the MEMC, that reference amount is used.

Let's use an example.

Suppose a quick-service restaurant has an applicable MEMC of ₱450, and a senior citizen places a qualifying ₱700 takeout order.

Under the MEMC rule, the amount eligible for the statutory discount would be ₱450 rather than the entire ₱700.

If the eligible food purchase were only ₱300, the discount would instead be based on ₱300.

These figures are examples. Each restaurant's applicable MEMC depends on its actual menu and the governing rules.

The MEMC should not automatically be applied to ordinary dine-in purchases. The senior citizen rules provide for the full applicable discount on qualifying dine-in meals purchased for the senior citizen's exclusive consumption.

For PWDs, businesses should consult the applicable PWD regulations and online-purchase guidelines rather than assume every senior citizen-specific calculation applies identically.

One other point concerns delivery fees. BIR Revenue Regulations No. 7-2010 provides that separately charged delivery fees do not receive the senior citizen discount and remain subject to applicable tax.

Other platform charges must be assessed under the rules governing the particular transaction.

For customers, the practical advice is to check the eligible food amount, the discount, the VAT treatment, and any separately charged fees. Restaurants and delivery platforms should also explain their calculations when customers ask.

HOW DOES THE 5% GROCERY DISCOUNT WORK?

Apart from the regular 20% discount, senior citizens and PWDs may receive a special 5% discount on covered basic necessities and prime commodities.

This benefit is governed by Joint Administrative Order No. 24-02, Series of 2024.

The maximum eligible purchase amount is ₱2,500 per calendar week, and the maximum discount is ₱125. The discount is based on the regular retail price of covered products, and the special 5% benefit does not include VAT exemption.

Let's use three examples.

If your eligible grocery purchases total ₱1,000, the discount is ₱50. If your eligible purchases reach ₱2,500, the maximum discount is ₱125.

But suppose your grocery bill is ₱3,000, and only ₱900 consists of products covered by the order. Assuming you have not used any of your weekly allowance, the 5% discount applies to the eligible ₱900, giving you ₱45 in savings.

You cannot automatically demand 5% off the entire ₱3,000 because some products may not qualify.

The unused weekly allowance cannot be carried forward. If you receive only ₱45 in discounts this week, you cannot add the unused ₱80 to next week's ₱125 maximum.

There's another condition. Under the 2024 order, if you use the full ₱2,500 weekly purchase allowance, the purchases must include at least four different kinds of covered products.

That four-product condition applies when the full ₱2,500 allowance is used. It should not be interpreted as requiring four different products for every smaller purchase.

WHICH GROCERY PRODUCTS QUALIFY?

The government's list includes many everyday necessities, including qualifying rice, corn, locally produced bread, fish, meat, eggs, vegetables, fruits, milk, drinking water, coffee, sugar, cooking oil, and other specified food products.

Some household necessities also qualify, including certain laundry products, toilet soap, household fuels, and other items included in the government's classifications.

However, not everything sold in a supermarket receives the special discount.

For example, imported specialty rice is excluded from the covered rice category. Cakes and pastries are excluded from the provision covering locally produced bread.

Coffee is included, but the order identifies particular qualifying forms and product classifications.

The full product list is contained in Joint Administrative Order No. 24-02. Businesses should use that list when identifying eligible products rather than assuming that an entire supermarket category qualifies.

The order also exempts establishments registered under the Barangay Micro Business Enterprises Act and cooperatives registered with the Cooperative Development Authority from this particular 5% discount program.

Those exemptions should not automatically be extended to every discount obligation under other laws.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO CLAIM THE GROCERY DISCOUNT?

You need the identification documents prescribed under the 2024 order.

A senior citizen may present an OSCA-issued card or another qualifying government-issued ID showing the person's name, photograph, and date of birth. A PWD must present identification issued by an authorized office.

You also need the prescribed purchase booklet.

Section 5 of the 2024 order requires the purchase booklet to be presented whenever the special discount is claimed. The order also allows for an electronic version if one is developed or prescribed under subsequent rules.

This is important because some customers assume their ID alone is sufficient for every benefit. For the special grocery discount, the purchase booklet is part of the documentation requirements.

WHAT IF YOU HAVE BOTH A SENIOR CITIZEN ID AND A PWD ID?

Here's an additional rule that customers holding both IDs should know.

Section 4(c) of the 2024 order states that a PWD who also qualifies as a senior citizen may use either the PWD ID or the OSCA-issued senior citizen ID to claim the special 5% discount.

However, the person must present both purchase booklets issued by the concerned agencies.

This does not mean the person receives two discounts. The requirement helps account for purchases under both classifications while preserving the single weekly benefit.

WHAT IF SOMEONE ELSE BUYS THE GROCERIES FOR YOU?

The order allows an authorized representative to make qualifying purchases on behalf of a senior citizen or PWD.

The representative must bring the prescribed documents, including their own identification, the beneficiary's identification, the purchase booklet, and a signed authorization letter. A medical prescription must also be presented when applicable.

Under the order, the authorization letter is valid for seven days from issuance.

Missing any document prescribed for a representative purchase may prevent the discount from being granted on that transaction.

Customers should therefore check their documents before sending someone else to buy groceries. The requirements for medicines and other purchases may be different.

WHAT IF THE GROCERY PRODUCT IS ALREADY ON SALE?

The 2024 order has its own rule against combining discounts.

A qualified customer may choose between the establishment's promotional discount and the special 5% discount, whichever is higher and more favorable.

Suppose a covered product normally costs ₱100 but is being sold for ₱90.

The promotional price already gives the customer a 10% reduction, which is greater than the special 5% discount. The customer may choose the ₱90 promotional price but cannot automatically demand another 5% reduction.

There's another protection worth knowing. Section 8 of the 2024 order requires the establishment to present the regular price of covered products for the customer's information and reference.

That helps customers compare the promotional price with the special discount and question pricing that appears incorrect.

The special 5% discount must also be calculated within the customer's remaining weekly allowance. A customer who has already used the full ₱125 discount for the week cannot claim another statutory 5% discount during the same calendar week.

WHAT ABOUT MEDICINES?

Qualified senior citizens and PWDs generally receive the statutory 20% discount and applicable VAT exemption on covered medicines.

Pharmacies may request identification, prescriptions, and other documents when those are prescribed for the particular purchase.

However, the requirements differ depending on the medicine, the beneficiary category, and the applicable DOH and BIR regulations. We should not assume that every non-prescription medicine purchase automatically needs the same documentation as a prescription medicine.

A pharmacy also cannot automatically use a smaller promotional discount to replace the mandatory benefit on an eligible purchase.

Suppose a covered medicine is offered at a 10% promotional discount. A qualified customer may claim the statutory benefit instead, subject to the applicable requirements.

If the medicine is already offered at a greater promotional discount, the customer may choose the favorable option under the governing rules. The discounts cannot ordinarily be combined.

For PWDs, Department of Health Administrative Order No. 2017-0008 provides additional guidance concerning medicine discounts and promotional prices.

The order also addresses how pharmacies offering special discounted prices below 20% may account for the promotional reduction while still meeting the statutory minimum.

Customers buying medicines regularly should check their receipts, particularly when pharmacies offer membership discounts or loyalty programs alongside statutory benefits.

WHAT OTHER BENEFITS ARE AVAILABLE?

Senior citizens and PWDs have other benefits beyond discounts on meals, medicines, and groceries.

For example, Republic Act No. 9994 provides qualified senior citizens with a minimum 5% discount on monthly electricity and water consumption, subject to conditions.

The utility meters must be registered in the senior citizen's name, and the senior citizen must reside in the household. Monthly consumption must not exceed 100 kilowatt-hours for electricity and 30 cubic meters for water.

The benefit applies per household, regardless of how many senior citizens live there.

Senior citizens are also entitled to express lanes or priority service in covered government and commercial establishments.

PWDs have similar priority privileges, together with other benefits involving education, employment, accessibility, and rehabilitation under the applicable laws.

Some programs have additional eligibility conditions, so customers should check the rules governing the particular benefit.

A REMINDER TO BUSINESS OWNERS AND CASHIERS

I also want to address business owners, restaurant managers, hotel employees, pharmacists, and cashiers.

You have a responsibility to apply these laws correctly. I recognize that the rules can be confusing, particularly when different discounts overlap or when a transaction involves promotional prices, shared meals, and group bookings.

But customers should not have to argue repeatedly over benefits that are already provided by law.

Your employees should know which goods and services qualify for the 20% statutory discount, when VAT exemption applies, and how to calculate the special 5% grocery discount.

They should also know the difference between ordinary group dining, a negotiated corporate rate, and a pre-contracted party package.

Your billing system should be capable of processing the correct computation and producing the appropriate receipt.

When you advertise promotional prices, make sure the claims are accurate. If the campaign needs a DTI permit, comply with the applicable permit requirements.

For negotiated group rates, maintain records explaining the agreed price and the arrangement under which it was offered. These records become useful when a customer questions the price or when a government agency investigates a complaint.

Employees should also be trained to verify identification respectfully, particularly for customers with non-apparent disabilities.

If a customer questions a discount, explain the calculation. A cashier who understands the law can often resolve a disagreement without requiring a customer to file a formal complaint.

There is also an important tax issue for businesses.

Under the relevant laws and BIR regulations, businesses may claim allowable deductions for discounts granted to qualified senior citizens and PWDs, subject to the applicable conditions and documentation requirements.

However, a tax deduction is different from receiving an automatic peso-for-peso reimbursement from the government.

On October 13, 2026, the BIR issued Revenue Regulations No. 7-2026, amending provisions of Revenue Regulations No. 7-2010 concerning burden-sharing agreements among establishments claiming senior citizen discounts as tax deductions.

This is relevant to businesses involved in arrangements where the cost of a senior citizen discount is shared between establishments.

The BIR has listed the regulation on its official website. However, its complete provisions and effectivity clause have not yet been independently reviewed for this article, so businesses should check the regulation before relying on it for tax reporting.

The new issuance should not be interpreted as automatically changing the consumer's statutory discount or VAT exemption.

Business owners should maintain the necessary records and consult their accountants regarding the correct tax treatment.

CAN A BUSINESS REFUSE A DISCOUNT?

Yes, when the customer or purchase does not satisfy the applicable legal requirements.

For example, a customer may be buying a product that is not covered by the statutory discount. The required identification may be missing or invalid, or the purchase may not be for the qualified person's personal use.

A pre-contracted party package may also fall under a specific exclusion that does not apply to ordinary restaurant meals.

These are legitimate reasons to examine the transaction before granting a discount.

But a business cannot simply declare that its company policy overrides the law.

If a purchase qualifies and the customer has complied with the prescribed requirements, the establishment must grant the applicable statutory benefit.

Businesses should explain any refusal using the relevant rules rather than making customers guess why their request was denied.

Customers, meanwhile, should recognize legitimate exclusions and documentation requirements. Not every denied request automatically means the business has violated the law.

WHAT HAPPENS IF A BUSINESS VIOLATES THE LAW?

The Senior Citizens Act and the laws governing PWD benefits provide penalties for violations.

Under Republic Act No. 9994, a person who commits a violation covered by its penal provisions may face a fine of ₱50,000 to ₱100,000 and imprisonment of two to six years for a first violation.

For subsequent violations, the law provides a fine of ₱100,000 to ₱200,000 and imprisonment of two to six years.

PWD violations have separate penalties.

Under Republic Act No. 9442, a first violation may result in a fine of ₱50,000 to ₱100,000, imprisonment of six months to two years, or both, at the court's discretion.

For subsequent violations, the law provides a fine of ₱100,000 to ₱200,000, imprisonment of two to six years, or both, at the court's discretion.

The laws also contain provisions addressing fraudulent or abusive claims of statutory benefits.

However, a disagreement at the cashier's counter does not automatically mean someone has committed a criminal offense. The facts, applicable provisions, evidence, and proper legal proceedings must be considered before liability can be established.

The reason for explaining these penalties is that mandatory discounts are legal obligations. They are not optional acts of generosity by businesses.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO IF YOUR DISCOUNT IS REFUSED?

If you're a senior citizen or PWD and believe an establishment has incorrectly denied your discount, begin by asking for an explanation.

You can ask, "Can you explain why my purchase doesn't qualify?"

There may be a legitimate reason. The product could be excluded, the necessary documents may be incomplete, or the transaction may involve a special rule that the customer has overlooked.

If the refusal involves a promotional or group discount, ask how the establishment calculated the price.

What was the regular price? What was the promotional or negotiated price? Which discount did the business apply?

For qualifying transactions with VAT exemption, ask whether the VAT component was correctly handled.

If the explanation remains unclear, request assistance from a manager. Keep the receipt, the promotional advertisement if one exists, and any booking confirmation or other document showing the price you were offered.

If you decide to file a complaint, include the establishment's name and location, the date of the transaction, the product or service purchased, the discount requested, the amount charged, and the explanation given by the business.

For complaints involving the special 5% grocery discount, Joint Administrative Order No. 24-02 identifies the appropriate OSCA, PDAO, or city or municipal social welfare office as complaint channels.

If the issue involves deceptive advertising or questionable promotional pricing, the Department of Trade and Industry may be the appropriate office.

Other disputes may involve the government agency responsible for enforcing the particular statutory benefit or regulating the service.

Online transactions may follow the complaint procedures provided under the 2022 joint circular.

The correct complaint channel depends on the type of transaction and the suspected violation. A documented complaint gives the relevant authority a basis to determine whether the establishment violated the law.

WHAT THE SUPREME COURT RULING TELLS US

The Supreme Court announced on October 14, 2026, that senior citizens cannot automatically demand another statutory 20% discount on top of an existing promotional or negotiated discount.

In the case involving Orville U. Ong, the Court announced that it had reversed the convictions and acquitted the hotel manager after finding that the senior citizen guests had already benefited from a negotiated discount through the Cebu Bikers Club.

The Court's Public Information Office also reported that the negotiated reduction was not separately reflected on the hotel's receipt because it had already been deducted from the room rate.

That detail is relevant to the dispute, but we should be careful about what it establishes. The announcement does not provide the Court's complete discussion of the evidence, invoicing requirements, or VAT treatment.

The prohibition against combining discounts was already contained in the implementing regulations of Republic Act No. 9994.

The recent announcement should not be interpreted as abolishing senior citizen discounts on promotional purchases. Nor should businesses interpret it as permission to describe every ordinary selling price as a discounted price and then refuse statutory benefits.

The laws governing senior citizen and PWD discounts remain applicable, and businesses must still comply with consumer protection regulations.

The complete written Supreme Court decision will be useful for understanding how the Court evaluated the negotiated hotel rate, the evidence presented, and any questions concerning VAT or invoicing.

Until that opinion is available and reviewed, I would avoid claiming that the Court settled every legal question concerning negotiated prices.

KNOW WHAT YOU CAN CLAIM, AND KNOW WHAT YOU CANNOT

If you're a senior citizen or PWD, familiarize yourself with the discounts available to you. Know which purchases qualify, check your receipts, and ask questions when the calculation doesn't appear correct.

If you're buying groceries, bring the documents needed for the special 5% discount. If you're dining with family, understand that the statutory discount generally applies only to your eligible share. If you're using a corporate or group rate, compare it with the statutory benefit rather than automatically expecting both.

And if a business refuses a discount, ask for the reason before assuming the establishment has violated the law.

For business owners, the responsibility is equally clear. Train your employees, configure your billing systems correctly, maintain proper records, and make sure promotional claims are truthful.

A customer should not have to argue with a cashier over a benefit that the law already provides. At the same time, an establishment should not be pressured to grant discounts on purchases that are legally excluded.

I also hope both sides will treat each other respectfully. Cashiers may be following instructions from management, while customers may be unfamiliar with the restrictions attached to their benefits.

An explanation and a correct computation can resolve many of these disagreements.

I prepared this guide because senior citizens, PWDs, their families, and businesses should have access to understandable information about the law.

If you qualify for a discount, claim it. If the law excludes your purchase, recognize that limitation. And if a business makes a questionable claim about its promotional prices, ask for the basis of the calculation.

Both customers and businesses are entitled to a fair application of the rules.

Sources

THREE ARTICLES WITHDRAWN. DID THE PROSECUTION JUST PUT EVERYTHING AT RISK?

Gino Borlado — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

I was having coffee when I learned that the House prosecution had withdrawn three of the four impeachment articles against Vice President Sara Duterte. My immediate reaction was surprise, followed by a question: Are they putting all their eggs in one basket?

After weeks of hearings, the prosecution has withdrawn Article I on the alleged misuse of confidential funds, Article III on alleged bribery, and Article IV on alleged grave threats. Only Article II remains, involving unexplained wealth, incomplete asset declarations, and business interests.

Lead prosecutor Rep. Gerville Luistro believes the evidence under Article II is enough to remove Duterte from office. She even described the decision as going all in. That is a lot of confidence when the defense has not yet presented its full case.

I can see the practical reason for the decision. But what happens if the prosecution is wrong? Has it thought that through? And does the Senate impeachment court share its confidence, or did the senator-judges accept the withdrawal for entirely different reasons?

THE PROSECUTION'S GAMBLE

Under the Constitution, a conviction on one impeachment article is enough, as long as it gets the Senate votes needed. The prosecution does not have to win on all four articles to remove Duterte from office.

Luistro explained that Article II could stand on its own. She cited the financial evidence, the length of the proceedings, public impatience, and the Senate's approaching budget deliberations. Continuing with the other articles could mean calling dozens more witnesses and spending weeks presenting testimony that prosecutors believe they no longer need.

But Luistro also said that all four articles were equally strong. If that is what the prosecution believes, why abandon three?

Maybe the prosecutors believe they already have enough evidence under Article II to win, and that continuing with the other charges would add little. That is possible. But I would like to hear how they reached that decision. The national budget matters, but impeachment is also a duty under the Constitution. A crowded schedule alone would be a poor reason to drop serious accusations.

Look at the financial evidence Alexander Cabrera presented. His analysis put the alleged unexplained wealth involving Duterte and her husband, Manases Carpio, at about ₱817.87 million. A higher estimate of about ₱1.5 billion has also come up during the trial.

Those are serious amounts. But we need to understand what went into them: personal assets, company transactions, shares in businesses, and what the law says must be declared. The prosecution has to show which amounts can rightly be linked to Duterte. It also has to prove that what she allegedly did is a ground for impeachment.

Money received by a company is not automatically money received by Duterte herself. And a mismatch between financial records and declared assets does not, by itself, prove a violation of the Constitution. The prosecution has to show how the records prove that she failed to meet her legal duties.

During cross-examination, the defense questioned whether Cabrera had complete records and why certain assets and transactions were linked to Duterte or her husband. If the defense shows that large amounts should not have been included, the Senate will have to decide whether what is left is enough. Even if most of Cabrera's figures hold up, the senator-judges still have to decide whether they prove a ground for conviction under the Constitution.

And if Article II fails, there is no other article left for conviction in this trial.

The prosecution may have thought all of this through. I just want to know why it is willing to take that risk before hearing the defense's full answer.

DOES THE SENATE AGREE?

The Senate impeachment court accepted the prosecution's withdrawal after an informal caucus among the senator-judges. I found myself wondering what was said during that meeting.

Did some senators say they were confident in Article II? Were they worried about the coming budget debates? Or did they simply accept that prosecutors can ask to withdraw charges, as long as the court agrees?

The public record does not tell us what each senator-judge decided during that meeting. Accepting the withdrawal does not mean they think Article II has been proven. They were deciding whether to allow the withdrawal, not whether the remaining allegations were true.

Alan Peter Cayetano questioned the decision to withdraw articles after evidence had already been presented, particularly when the prosecution continued describing all four as strong. Pia Cayetano was surprised and wanted the defense to have time to think about its options after the change.

Those objections were about how the trial would proceed. They do not tell us what either senator thinks of the financial evidence.

I have followed the questioning about the Anti-Money Laundering Council, bank records, tax information, and Cabrera's analysis. Some senator-judges asked for clearer explanations of the transactions. Others questioned whether the records were reliable or had been read correctly. But questions are not votes. The same question can mean different things depending on what a senator is trying to find out.

Did the prosecution take those exchanges as a sign that it should focus on Article II? If so, I would like to know why. Otherwise, this seems to be a decision based mainly on how the prosecution itself sees the evidence.

The senator-judges have not heard the full defense yet. Agreeing to the withdrawal is not the same as agreeing with the prosecution's case.

BAM AQUINO HAD A POINT

Today's controversy reminded me of a proposal Senator Bam Aquino made in July. He suggested that the impeachment court hear evidence article by article, allowing the prosecution to present its case on a particular charge and the defense to respond before moving to the next.

I actually agreed with that proposal. It made sense to hear the accusation, the supporting evidence, and the defense's answer while the testimony and documents about that article were still fresh.

The prosecution supported the proposal. In its July 27 manifestation, it said it preferred taking turns, but the defense objected. On July 29, Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian confirmed that Duterte's lawyers had submitted a letter rejecting the arrangement.

The defense raised concerns about fairness, due process, and changing rules already agreed on during pretrial. Those were fair concerns. Under the original setup, the prosecution would finish its whole case first. Duterte's lawyers could then look at all the accusations before giving their answer.

Escudero kept that setup.

Now look at what happened on October 13. After weeks of hearings, the prosecution withdrew three articles, and the defense complained that it would no longer have a chance to answer accusations already introduced before the Senate.

There is an irony here. The defense had opposed an arrangement that might have allowed it to answer each article before the prosecution moved to another. Luistro pointed that out during today's proceedings, arguing that alternating presentations could have prevented some of the complications Sison was raising.

Of course, Aquino's proposal might not have stopped the withdrawal. The prosecution could still have asked to drop charges, and the Senate would still have had to decide what that meant under the law. The defense would also have lost the chance to hear the prosecution's entire case before presenting its own.

But the way a trial is run matters. Today's dispute shows one of the risks of the setup they chose.

Aquino deserves credit for suggesting another way when he did. Given the problem the defense now faces, I wonder whether it still thinks rejecting his proposal was the right call.

SHEILA SISON, SARA'S PRESS CONFERENCES, AND THE FAIRNESS ARGUMENT

I had to laugh during the exchange between defense lead counsel Sheila Sison and Luistro.

Sison objected to the suggestion that Duterte could answer the withdrawn allegations through other platforms, including Facebook. Her argument was that the prosecution had spent weeks presenting accusations before the Senate, only to withdraw the articles before the defense could formally answer them.

I understood the concern, but I also wondered what exactly Sison was protesting when it came to Duterte's ability to speak publicly. Sara Duterte has hardly been silent throughout this controversy. She has repeatedly given press conferences, commented on the allegations, questioned the prosecution's evidence, and offered her own explanations outside the courtroom.

I sometimes wonder whether those public statements make her lawyers' work harder. They have to prepare her defense while she keeps talking about the case, sometimes raising more questions they may later have to answer. And really, paano mo pa sisiraan ang taong siya mismo ang sumisira sa sarili niya?

Then Luistro responded by referring to Duterte's own practice of addressing impeachment-related allegations during press conferences rather than personally appearing before the impeachment court. I laughed because that was exactly what I had been thinking while listening to Sison.

Still, Sison had a real point about the trial. A press conference cannot replace presenting evidence before the Senate. Documents become part of the official record, witnesses can be questioned, and the senator-judges decide which evidence they can use.

The prosecution had those chances while presenting the articles it later withdrew. The defense says Duterte should also get a chance to answer accusations already on the record, especially after so many people have heard them.

Escudero relaxed Rule 18 for the withdrawn articles. That rule limits public comments on an ongoing impeachment trial. His ruling would let both sides discuss those allegations outside the Senate. But the defense pointed to another problem: a separate court order limiting public statements about the grave-threats case.

That is a real complication. Relaxing the Senate's rule does not automatically cancel another court's order.

What I found unnecessary was the suggestion that asking Duterte to respond publicly was somehow asking her to do something unusual. She has been doing that throughout this controversy. Sison's stronger point was about letting her answer the allegations inside the impeachment court.

And that brings me to the repeated appeals to fairness from the defense and some senator-judges.

Alan Peter Cayetano warned against rushing the proceedings, while Pia Cayetano wanted the defense to have enough time to think about its options. Alan Peter also spoke about the example the Senate would set for future generations on justice and democracy.

I agree that the trial should be fair. But I found the repeated speeches about fairness irritating.

I have serious criticisms of the Duterte camp's record on accountability and due process. When I hear those principles used to defend Duterte, I wonder whether her camp has shown the same concern for political opponents and ordinary Filipinos.

But Duterte's constitutional protections do not depend on whether she or her political allies have always respected those principles. The Senate must treat her fairly, and I would expect the same treatment for any other public official facing impeachment.

That does not let politicians off the hook when we ask whether they apply the same standards to everyone.

On July 15, Alan Peter Cayetano suggested that both sides explain witness withdrawals at press conferences or other public forums, instead of giving long explanations inside the impeachment court. He worried that those explanations could bring claims into the courtroom without witness testimony or a chance to question them.

The impeachment court adopted his proposal.

Today, Cayetano is questioning the withdrawal of impeachment articles after evidence has already been presented. Withdrawing witnesses and withdrawing articles carry different legal consequences, so his positions are not necessarily inconsistent.

But what does he think the Senate should do now? Keep hearing evidence on articles it will no longer decide? Let the defense give a limited answer to testimony already on the record? And how would either choice affect the rest of the trial?

I would rather hear senator-judges answer those questions than give another general speech about fairness. The question now is how to make the trial fair after the withdrawal.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE WITHDRAWN ARTICLES?

What happens to the allegations in the withdrawn articles? Impeachment is not the only way they can be taken up under the law.

The grave-threats case is already before Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 98. The Department of Justice filed three counts of grave threats against Duterte concerning her remarks about President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former Speaker Martin Romualdez. Her scheduled arraignment on October 9 was postponed because of pending legal issues.

That criminal case remains separate from impeachment. Withdrawing Article IV does not automatically end the case before the regular court.

Other offices may also be able to look into the confidential-funds allegations. The Commission on Audit has issued findings on confidential spending. The Ombudsman and other authorities can examine allegations of misuse of public money under the laws they enforce.

But an audit disallowance, an investigation, a complaint, and a criminal case already in court are not the same thing. I have not confirmed that the confidential-funds allegations under Article I have already led to a criminal case filed in court.

The same caution applies to the procurement-related bribery allegations under Article III. If there is evidence to support a criminal case, the proper authorities can examine it separately from impeachment.

These cases do different jobs. Impeachment is about removal from public office and possible disqualification. A criminal trial decides whether someone is guilty of a crime and can lead to punishment under the law.

Did the prosecution think about these other legal routes when it dropped the three articles? If it did, the public should hear that explanation. But taking allegations to a criminal court does not, by itself, answer whether the official should be removed from office.

There are also consequences within impeachment itself. Under Escudero's October 13 ruling, Articles I and IV were withdrawn with prejudice for impeachment purposes during Duterte's current term. Article III was treated differently because the prosecution withdrew it before presenting evidence on that charge.

So the House has accepted limits on whether it can bring those accusations back through impeachment. It should explain why.

WHAT THE HOUSE AND SENATE STILL OWE THE COUNTRY

The House used its power under the Constitution to start impeachment proceedings and sent four articles to the Senate. They carried serious accusations about public funds, financial disclosures, bribery, and threats against senior public officials.

After weeks of presenting witnesses and documents, House prosecutors have decided to continue with just one article. Who made that decision? And did the House formally look at what dropping the others would mean under the law?

Did they review the evidence together? Did the House give the prosecutors permission to withdraw the articles through the proper process? Did they think through what withdrawing Articles I and IV with prejudice would mean?

Luistro has pointed to the strength of Article II, how long the trial has taken, and the Senate's other work. Those reasons are worth hearing. But the House still needs to explain why dropping three articles makes sense if, as the prosecution said, all four were strong.

The Senate, meanwhile, must now decide Article II. The prosecution's formal offer of evidence is due October 23, after which the defense can submit objections. The presentation of defense evidence is scheduled to begin November 9.

I want to see how Duterte's lawyers answer the financial allegations. If Cabrera's figures are wrong, show us where and bring the records to back that up. If transactions were wrongly linked to Duterte or her husband, explain why. If assets were properly declared, or the law did not make her give up certain business interests, show the documents and the law.

It is the prosecution's job to prove the impeachment charges. Duterte does not have to prove her innocence. Her lawyers can challenge the prosecution's findings with witnesses, documents, and legal arguments.

The senator-judges then have to decide whether the evidence proves a ground for conviction under the Constitution. A huge amount of money is not a substitute for that proof. And finding an error in part of the computation does not automatically answer every allegation under Article II.

The Senate also has to be careful with evidence from the withdrawn articles. Keeping it in the official record is one thing. Using it to decide Article II needs a sound legal basis. The defense must have a chance to challenge any evidence used against Duterte.

And when the Senate votes, I expect the senator-judges to explain what they made of the evidence and why they voted that way.

The prosecution chose to go all in on Article II. The public deserves to know why.

I understand the practical reason for focusing on one charge. But what mattered most in that decision: confidence in the financial evidence, how the prosecutors read the senator-judges' reactions, or pressure to finish sooner?

The defense has not finished presenting its case. And the senator-judges have not clearly told the public that they share the prosecution's confidence.

So here is my question for the House prosecutors: Why are you so sure Article II can carry the whole case when you have not heard the defense's full evidence and the senator-judges have not said they agree with you?

I think Filipinos deserve an answer.

Sources

AN OPEN LETTER TO PCO SECRETARY LINO CAYETANO

Gino Borlado — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

October 12, 2026

Dear Direk Lino,

First, congratulations on being named the next Secretary of the Presidential Communications Office.

Since you already follow Morning Coffee Thoughts, I thought I would write to you directly about something I have been concerned about for quite some time. I am referring to misinformation, disinformation, and the organized networks that deliberately deceive Filipinos.

I know you are familiar with the problem. We have Facebook Pages pretending to be legitimate news organizations, fabricated statements attributed to public officials, manipulated videos, AI-generated recordings, and accounts that appear to work together to influence political discussions.

Then there are the troll networks. Some are suspected of operating as organized businesses, with people allegedly paid to manage accounts, attack critics, promote political personalities, and manufacture the appearance of public support.

I have always wondered how many of these accounts represent genuine individuals expressing their opinions and how many belong to operations designed to make a particular political position appear popular.

And perhaps the most frustrating development is how easily legitimate information can now be dismissed as fake news simply because someone does not like what it says.

Direk Lino, I understand that the PCO cannot solve this problem on its own.

Under Executive Order No. 16, your office is primarily responsible for coordinating Executive Branch communications and engaging the public and media on governance. The PCO is neither a law enforcement agency nor an institution with unlimited authority to regulate what Filipinos say online.

But the PCO also has a responsibility to provide accurate government information. And through its existing programs, it has already accepted a role in addressing misinformation and disinformation.

Which brings me to something I want to share with you.

I have been disappointed with the PCO's Anti-Fake News Desk.

When it was established in March 2026, I welcomed the initiative. I thought we were finally developing an accessible government mechanism through which Filipinos could report fabricated information and seek assistance in addressing coordinated online deception.

But as I followed its activities, I began wondering whether its priorities were too closely associated with defending the incumbent administration.

There was considerable public attention given to fabricated claims concerning President Marcos, particularly those involving his health. I understand why the PCO responded. Correcting false information about the President falls within its communications responsibilities.

And I recognize that the desk has also handled other cases, including false information concerning the energy situation, fabricated government announcements, and misleading reports involving Senator Ronald dela Rosa.

So I would not be fair if I accused the desk of working exclusively for the President.

Still, I would like to know what it has accomplished for the Filipino public beyond those announced cases.

How many complaints has the desk received since its establishment? How many were investigated? How many resulted in public corrections? How many were referred to the DOJ or other investigative agencies? What happened to those referrals?

And how many of those complaints involved claims unrelated to the President or his administration?

I looked for a sufficiently detailed public accounting of these activities but could not establish the answers from the available announcements.

I hope you will consider publishing those figures.

I would also be interested in knowing how the desk decides which complaints deserve immediate attention and which ones do not.

For example, if someone publishes a fabricated statement attacking a political opponent of President Marcos, will the desk respond with the same urgency?

What if the false information originates from someone supporting the administration?

And what happens when an inaccurate statement comes from a government official?

I ask these questions because the Anti-Fake News Desk was presented as a public service. Its published objectives extend beyond defending Malacañang.

I hope your leadership can make that wider purpose visible through its actual work.

I would also encourage you to review the existing programs before introducing anything new.

The PCO already has Oplan Kontra Fake News, its partnership with nine major newspapers, the Maging Mapanuri media literacy initiative, and coordination arrangements with the DICT and DOJ.

What have these programs accomplished? Which activities produced measurable results? What needs improvement?

I would rather see an existing program become genuinely useful than another launching ceremony introducing essentially the same initiative under a different name.

One practical improvement I hope you will consider is developing the Anti-Fake News Desk into an accessible, searchable public verification service.

A Filipino who receives a suspicious government announcement through Messenger should be able to check whether it is genuine. Someone encountering a manipulated video should have somewhere to submit it for verification.

The system could issue tracking numbers for complaints, provide the status of verification requests, and maintain a searchable archive of findings and corrections.

Each published finding should explain what was checked, what evidence was used, and what conclusion the evidence supports.

Where possible, the public should be able to access the original documents.

And when new information becomes available, the findings should be updated.

I would also like to see the PCO maintain a public record of corrections involving inaccurate government announcements.

Government agencies make mistakes, too. An official statistic may be incorrect, an announcement may contain outdated information, or a public statement may misrepresent what an official document actually says.

If the PCO wants Filipinos to trust government information, acknowledging and correcting those errors should become routine.

But Direk Lino, I believe we also need to pay closer attention to the technology behind organized disinformation.

We spend so much time correcting individual fake news posts that we sometimes overlook how those posts are distributed.

What interests me are the networks of Facebook Pages, accounts, administrators, advertising arrangements, and automated systems that may be working together to deceive the public.

Meta has already demonstrated that it can investigate coordinated inauthentic behavior.

In March 2019, Facebook removed 200 Pages, groups, and accounts associated with a coordinated network in the Philippines. The company identified connections among accounts that appeared unrelated to ordinary users.

Similar investigations have been conducted involving networks operating in or targeting the Philippines.

These operations may leave technical evidence.

IP addresses, account-access histories, shared Page administrators, device information, advertising records, payment arrangements, and coordinated posting patterns can help establish relationships among accounts.

Of course, an IP address alone does not identify the individual operating an account. Several people may share the same internet connection, and technologies such as VPNs can obscure the apparent origin of online activity.

But investigators can assess different indicators together.

This is where I hope the PCO can pursue stronger technical cooperation with the DICT, Meta, Google, TikTok, independent researchers, and authorized investigative agencies.

When a deceptive network is identified, the investigation should not necessarily end with the removal of one Facebook post.

If the platform establishes that several Pages and accounts are part of the same coordinated operation violating its policies, it should assess the entire network and apply its enforcement procedures accordingly.

There should also be measures addressing attempts to recreate accounts and Pages previously removed for serious violations.

And I hope the PCO can request regular transparency reports from these platforms.

How many suspected coordinated networks targeting Filipino audiences were reported? How many were investigated? How many resulted in account or Page removals? What happened to complaints that the platforms rejected?

I understand that digital platforms cannot simply surrender private user information to the government.

Access to protected account records, including IP logs and payment information, must follow applicable laws and proper legal procedures. The PCO should coordinate with agencies authorized to conduct criminal investigations rather than attempt to acquire those powers itself.

I also want to emphasize that political anonymity is not automatically deceptive.

A Filipino using a pseudonym to criticize the government should not be treated like an operator managing hundreds of fabricated identities to misrepresent public opinion.

And no Facebook Page should be removed simply because its administrator criticizes President Marcos, Vice President Duterte, or any other public official.

The basis for platform enforcement should be documented violations of applicable policies. Criminal investigations must have a proper legal basis.

There is also the question of financing.

If an organized disinformation operation employs people to manage hundreds of deceptive accounts, purchases advertisements, and systematically distributes fabricated information, somebody may be paying for those activities.

Who finances these operations?

Are the payments coming from private political organizations, government contractors, public funds, or foreign sources?

I am not suggesting that financing political commentary is automatically illegal. But where there is evidence of fraud, unlawful use of public resources, foreign interference, or other criminal conduct, the appropriate investigative agencies should be able to follow the financial and technical evidence.

I hope your office can help establish procedures for referring such evidence to the proper authorities.

Your predecessor and the DICT already wrote to Meta in April 2026, requesting stronger measures against harmful disinformation, including coordinated inauthentic behavior.

The government requested faster reporting procedures, dedicated coordination personnel, improved detection systems, and regular transparency reporting.

I would appreciate knowing what happened after that communication.

Did Meta respond? Was an implementation plan submitted? Were any operational arrangements adopted? Have they produced measurable results?

If those arrangements already exist, perhaps the PCO could publish an account of their implementation, subject to legitimate confidentiality and security limitations.

And if cooperation has been inadequate, the public should know that, too.

I also hope you will take an interest in what Congress has already done.

The House and Senate have considered proposals addressing fake news, coordinated disinformation, troll farms, and the responsibilities of digital platforms. Senate committee hearings have also questioned representatives of Meta about manipulated content and the platform's response procedures.

There are existing legal provisions, including Article 154 of the Revised Penal Code and the Cybercrime Prevention Act, that may apply to particular offenses involving false information or online misconduct.

But these laws do not automatically make every inaccurate statement or coordinated political campaign a criminal offense.

Before supporting additional criminal penalties, I hope the PCO can work with the DOJ, DICT, legislators, independent legal experts, and digital-rights organizations to identify the actual gaps in existing law.

Which forms of deliberate deception can already be prosecuted? Which activities fall outside existing statutes? Are the difficulties caused by inadequate legislation, insufficient technical resources, or problems with implementation?

These are questions Congress could use help answering.

The PCO has an opportunity to provide technical findings and operational data from its own programs.

Any proposed legislation should also be carefully assessed for its effect on freedom of expression.

A person sharing inaccurate information in good faith should not automatically face criminal prosecution. Neither should someone expressing an unpopular opinion, publishing satire, or raising allegations against a government official.

And an allegation cannot be classified as false merely because the government denies it.

I would be particularly concerned about giving any administration broad authority to determine which political statements Filipinos are permitted to publish.

The same concern applies to government requests for social-media content removal.

There must be clear standards, documented evidence, appropriate review procedures, and safeguards against political abuse.

Another area I hope you will give attention to is public education.

You have extensive experience in television production, and you previously headed PTV. You understand how information can be presented in ways ordinary viewers can follow.

Perhaps PTV and government radio could develop regular, short programs teaching Filipinos how to recognize suspicious online content.

Show people how to verify government announcements, identify manipulated images, check the origin of viral quotations, and distinguish authentic documents from fabricated screenshots.

Explain how AI-generated audio and video can be used to impersonate public officials.

Make the programs available in Filipino and major Philippine languages. Allow schools, local governments, community organizations, and independent content creators to reproduce and distribute the educational materials.

I would also encourage the PCO to work with DepEd, CHED, and independent educational institutions to expand practical media literacy instruction.

The government should not assume that simply telling people to be careful online will change their habits.

Teach them how to verify information themselves.

I run a political blog, Direk Lino, and I regularly encounter people who accept questionable information because it supports what they already believe.

Sometimes they share it without checking. Sometimes they reject legitimate documents because the findings are unfavorable to their preferred politicians.

I have seen how difficult it can be to correct a false claim after it has circulated widely.

Even when the original post is removed, screenshots and copies can continue circulating. People may also retain the mistaken belief long after the correction has been published.

That is why I believe we need both technological intervention and sustained public education.

But I also recognize the limits of government involvement.

The PCO serves the President. That is the nature of the office.

It is expected to communicate government policies, explain the administration's decisions, and respond to inaccurate claims about presidential activities.

I have no problem with those responsibilities.

My concern arises when the same office undertakes verification activities intended to serve the wider public.

For that function to gain public trust, the methods and standards need to be transparent.

I hope you will consider inviting independent fact-checkers, researchers, journalists, legal experts, and digital-rights advocates to review the Anti-Fake News Desk's verification procedures.

They should be free to question government findings without losing access to cooperation or information.

The PCO could also publish regular performance reports.

How many complaints were received? What types of false information were reported? How many corrections were published? How many cases were referred to other agencies? What happened to those referrals?

How much public money was spent? What measurable improvements have the programs produced?

I would be interested in reading those reports, and I suspect many other Filipinos would be as well.

Direk Lino, I realize that your new position comes with considerable responsibilities.

You will be dealing with presidential communications, government announcements, public information, state media, and the daily demands of an administration that is constantly being scrutinized.

But I hope the fight against misinformation and organized disinformation receives sustained attention under your leadership.

And I hope the effort extends beyond protecting President Marcos from fabricated information.

The President has the resources of the government communications apparatus to respond to false claims about him.

Ordinary Filipinos generally do not have those resources.

Neither do teachers falsely accused online, small business owners targeted by fabricated posts, families deceived by fake government advisories, or voters exposed to manipulated election information.

They deserve reliable ways to verify information, report suspected deception, and seek assistance from the appropriate institutions.

I would like to see the PCO help develop an anti-disinformation program with transparent procedures, published standards, measurable results, and safeguards that prevent its use against legitimate political criticism.

A program that remains useful after the Marcos administration ends.

I am not expecting you or the PCO to eliminate fake news. That would be unrealistic.

But I believe the government can improve how it communicates, make verified information accessible, educate citizens, coordinate with technology companies, and help authorized investigators address organized deception when the evidence supports legal action.

And perhaps the PCO can begin by showing the public what its existing anti-disinformation programs have actually accomplished.

You are taking over an office that has already made commitments in this area. You have an opportunity to review those commitments, assess their results, and decide what needs to be improved.

I hope you will give these proposals serious consideration.

I also hope your office will be open to criticism and independent scrutiny as the programs develop. That is part of building public confidence in government institutions.

I wish you well, Direk Lino.

And I hope that under your leadership, Filipinos will eventually see the PCO's anti-disinformation efforts as a reliable public service, regardless of who occupies Malacañang.

Sincerely,

Gino

Morning Coffee Thoughts

Sources

CAN I RECOGNIZE A PSYCHOPATH BEFORE I VOTE FOR ONE?

Gino Borlado — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

I got curious about something.

I was reading about the qualifications required by law for someone to run for public office in the Philippines when a rather disturbing question entered my mind.

What if the person I’m voting for is a psychopath?

The question came from something I found strange about our election laws.

To become president of the Philippines, a person must be a natural-born Filipino citizen, a registered voter, able to read and write, at least 40 years old, and a resident of the country for at least ten years before the election.

For senator, the minimum age is 35. For a district representative, it’s 25. There are additional qualifications concerning citizenship, residency, literacy, and voter registration, along with legal grounds for disqualification.

But those qualifications tell me very little about the kind of person asking for my vote.

Is this someone who enjoys manipulating people? Someone who lies without feeling guilty? Someone who cannot accept being wrong? Someone who shows little concern when other people suffer?

And what happens when someone with those characteristics acquires enormous political power?

Some ordinary jobs involve psychological screening and background checks. Yet a person seeking the presidency, a seat in Congress, or a local government position does not generally have to undergo a psychological examination before running.

I’m talking about people who could control billions of pesos in public funds, make laws, direct government agencies, and influence decisions affecting millions of Filipinos.

So I wondered whether psychology could help me recognize a potentially dangerous personality before election day.

Or whether someone could hide troubling behavior behind a charming personality, confident speeches, and carefully prepared campaign appearances.

BEFORE I CONTINUE

I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist. I’m a political blogger who became curious about this subject.

This article is based on published psychological research, Philippine laws, and documented political events. I’m sharing what I learned and the questions that came to mind while reading.

I’m not diagnosing anyone. The political examples concern public statements, official records, and actual conduct, not anyone’s mental health.

WHAT EXACTLY IS A PSYCHOPATH?

When I hear the word psychopath, I usually think of murderers, serial killers, or violent people who enjoy hurting others.

But that isn’t necessarily what psychologists mean.

A person with characteristics associated with psychopathy doesn’t have to be physically violent.

Some can be charming, confident, persuasive, and successful in their careers.

What interests psychologists is a combination of characteristics involving how a person thinks, feels, and treats others.

For example, someone may repeatedly lie to get what they want. Another person may use charm to take advantage of people. Someone may believe they’re superior to everybody else and deserve special treatment.

Some appear to show very little guilt after hurting others. Others repeatedly disregard people’s rights or seem unconcerned about the suffering their decisions cause.

Psychopathy is a term used in psychological research. It is related to certain personality disorders, but it isn’t a separate official diagnosis in the main psychiatric diagnostic manual.

One thing I learned is that these behaviors, taken individually, do not establish psychopathy.

Someone who lies isn’t automatically a psychopath. Neither is an arrogant, aggressive, selfish, or emotionally distant person.

Psychologists study a person’s history and patterns of behavior. They don’t determine psychopathy from a few unpleasant incidents.

Still, certain characteristics caught my attention because they can resemble qualities commonly associated with political leadership.

A confident politician may appear competent.

Someone who refuses to back down may appear courageous.

A person who can persuade an entire crowd may appear exceptionally intelligent.

But what if the confidence is unsupported by knowledge? What if the refusal to back down comes from an inability to accept mistakes? What if the persuasive speaker is deliberately misleading the audience?

I wanted to know whether researchers had studied the connection between psychopathy and leadership.

WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS

In 2019, researchers Karen Landay, P. D. Harms, and Marcus Credé published a study about psychopathic characteristics and leadership.

They reviewed findings from 92 separate research samples.

The researchers found that people showing certain characteristics associated with psychopathy had a slightly greater tendency to become leaders.

But those characteristics were also associated with slightly poorer leadership performance. The researchers also found problems with a leadership style that involves motivating and developing other people.

The researchers cautioned against exaggerating the findings. The connections were generally small, and the research did not establish that leaders commonly have psychopathy.

Most of the research concerned workplaces and organizations, not politicians in the Philippines.

I found the results interesting because some personality characteristics may help people gain authority without necessarily helping them exercise it responsibly.

A candidate can be excellent at campaigning and still perform poorly in government.

Someone can know how to attract followers without knowing how to manage public money, handle criticism, or make responsible decisions.

That brings me to another question.

Apart from a candidate’s experience and leadership ability, how much attention do I give to personal character?

WHY CHARACTER CONCERNS ME

When I evaluate someone seeking public office, I naturally want to know whether that person can do the job.

Does the candidate understand government? Can the candidate manage public funds? Does the person have experience making difficult decisions?

But there’s another question I should probably ask.

What kind of person am I dealing with?

A person can be intelligent but dishonest. Someone can be an effective administrator while treating employees terribly. A politician may understand government procedures while showing little concern for people harmed by government decisions.

And even candidates running for positions that receive little public attention may eventually acquire considerable authority.

A vice mayor can become mayor when the mayor’s office becomes permanently vacant under circumstances provided by law.

A vice president can become president if the presidency becomes vacant because of death, resignation, removal, or permanent disability.

A congressman participates in making laws, decisions involving public spending, and investigations into government conduct.

The people holding these positions make decisions with real consequences.

A dishonest official may conceal the misuse of public money. Someone who abuses authority may use government agencies against critics. A reckless decision involving law enforcement can cost innocent people their lives.

Kawawa ang bayan kapag saka ko lang nalaman kung anong klaseng tao pala ang nabigyan ko ng kapangyarihan.

Filipinos sometimes describe disturbing behavior by saying, “May sapak yata sa ulo.”

But that expression can confuse bad conduct with mental illness.

A person can be cruel, dishonest, or abusive without having a psychiatric disorder. Someone receiving treatment for a mental health condition can also be perfectly capable of exercising public authority responsibly.

What I want to understand is how a candidate has behaved, especially when entrusted with power.

WHEN CHARM BECOMES MANIPULATION

I’ve watched politicians visit poor communities, hug elderly residents, carry babies, and deliver emotional speeches about poverty.

Some of them may be completely sincere.

But how would I know?

One characteristic psychologists study in psychopathy is the use of charm to manipulate others.

In ordinary language, someone knows how to make people like them and uses that ability to get what they want, sometimes at the expense of those same people.

Political campaigns are designed to persuade voters. Candidates have advisers who prepare speeches, arrange appearances, and help create favorable public impressions.

There’s nothing automatically wrong with that.

But I shouldn’t confuse a carefully prepared public image with evidence of good character.

Suppose a politician promises to fight corruption.

What happens when a close political ally faces serious allegations involving public funds?

Does the politician support a fair investigation, or begin attacking the people asking questions?

If a candidate promises transparency, what happens when questions concern spending in the candidate’s own office?

Are explanations supported by records?

The same concern applies to political disinformation.

Researchers have documented organized efforts to manipulate public opinion in the Philippines through social media. A 2025 academic publication from Oxford University Press describes organized and paid online political operations during Philippine elections, including campaigns to spread misleading information.

Suppose a false accusation spreads against a political opponent. Thousands of people share it. Eventually, reliable evidence shows that the accusation is false.

If a politician knowingly continues repeating the claim, I have reason to question that behavior.

I would still need evidence connecting the politician to the deception. Benefiting from a false claim does not automatically mean someone created it.

But public statements can be checked. Documents can be compared. Repeated falsehoods can be identified.

A politician’s charm may be difficult to judge. A documented record of deception gives me something I can investigate.

WHEN HUMAN SUFFERING BECOMES ACCEPTABLE

One real Philippine example made me think about how leaders regard human life.

In October 2024, during a Senate investigation into the government’s campaign against illegal drugs, a former president acknowledged encouraging police officers to provoke suspected criminals into responding in ways that could provide justification for killing them.

The Commission on Human Rights raised serious concerns about that testimony.

The former president also denied ordering police to kill suspects who were not resisting.

According to government figures, 6,252 people died during anti-drug operations between July 1, 2016, and May 31, 2022. That count did not include all other killings that human rights organizations linked to the campaign, including deaths attributed to unidentified gunmen.

Many of those killed were suspected of involvement in illegal drugs. But suspicion is not a conviction, and even people accused of serious crimes are entitled to protection under the law.

What interests me is how a leader reaches the point of encouraging methods that could result in someone’s death.

What consideration is given to the possibility of killing an innocent person?

And why do some supporters continue defending such methods despite serious questions about their legality and consequences?

These are questions about leadership, conduct, and accountability. The hearing testimony and the killings are documented political events, not evidence of a psychiatric diagnosis.

I also wonder whether political loyalty sometimes causes people to excuse actions they would condemn if another politician were responsible.

Because the law is supposed to protect people regardless of whether they are popular, powerful, or politically useful.

HOW A POLITICIAN RESPONDS TO EVIDENCE

Another example comes from the August 2026 impeachment proceedings involving confidential government funds.

Commission on Audit auditor Roderick Wamil testified about irregularities in documents submitted to account for the Office of the Vice President’s ₱125-million confidential fund expenditures in 2022.

Among the problems he identified were acknowledgment receipts submitted instead of the sales invoices or official receipts he said were required under government auditing rules. He also questioned whether the documents sufficiently established how the money had been used.

The prosecution presented the findings as evidence supporting allegations of misuse. The official concerned disputed wrongdoing.

The testimony raised serious questions about the handling of government funds, but it did not, by itself, amount to a final finding of criminal responsibility.

I’m interested in how officials respond when questioned about their handling of public money.

Do they provide explanations supported by records? Do they cooperate with authorized investigators? If mistakes are identified, are they corrected?

There can be legitimate reasons to challenge audit findings. Confidential funds also involve information that cannot always be released publicly.

But the funds remain subject to lawful audit.

The same questions apply when politicians make statements that later conflict with documentary evidence.

Sometimes an official changes an explanation. Sometimes responsibility is passed to subordinates. Sometimes attention turns toward attacking the investigators.

Those responses don’t automatically prove wrongdoing. But they can be compared with the records.

If an official claims a project was completed, I can check inspection reports.

If a politician denies making a statement, I can look for the original recording.

If someone blames a subordinate for a decision, I can investigate who authorized it.

I may never know whether that person feels guilty.

But I can find out whether the public explanation is supported by evidence.

DID THE GOVERNMENT EVER CONSIDER PSYCHOLOGICAL SCREENING?

This part of my research surprised me.

I initially thought Philippine law had completely ignored the mental fitness of political candidates.

I was wrong.

Section 12 of the Omnibus Election Code disqualifies someone who has been declared insane or incompetent by a competent authority.

The Local Government Code also contains a provision concerning mental incapacity among the grounds for disqualifying local candidates.

These laws use outdated descriptions, but the provisions exist.

However, they don’t create a general requirement for every candidate to undergo psychological examination before running.

And these legal disqualifications don’t mean a candidate can be excluded simply for displaying manipulation, cruelty, arrogance, or dishonesty. Those behaviors are not proof of the conditions described in the law.

Then I discovered that lawmakers had previously proposed a screening requirement.

On July 2, 2004, Senator Rodolfo Biazon filed Senate Bill No. 1305, proposing that people seeking national or local elective office undergo a neuropsychiatric examination before filing their certificates of candidacy.

His son, then-Representative Ruffy Biazon, filed a similar proposal in the House of Representatives on August 11, 2004.

The Senate bill remained pending in committee. Neither proposal became law.

So I cannot say that the government never considered psychological screening.

It did, more than twenty years ago.

But why wasn’t the proposal adopted?

The legislative records I reviewed establish that the proposals were filed and did not become law. They don’t establish a single reason for their failure.

And after reading about psychological testing, I began recognizing some serious problems with the idea.

WOULD PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING WORK?

My first instinct was to support mandatory screening.

If someone wants to become president, shouldn’t there be a way of checking whether that person is psychologically capable of handling enormous responsibility?

But psychological examinations have limitations.

I couldn’t find convincing evidence that mandatory psychological screening can reliably identify which political candidates will later become corrupt or abuse their authority.

There are also questions about whether a screening test would accurately assess the kinds of behavior I’m concerned about.

And there’s a constitutional problem.

The qualifications for certain national elective offices are written into the Constitution. A law adding new grounds for excluding otherwise qualified candidates could face serious legal challenges.

Who would administer the tests?

Who would decide which psychological characteristics make someone unfit for public office?

Suppose a presidential candidate receives an unfavorable assessment from a government-appointed panel. What if the results are inaccurate or influenced by political interests?

Would the candidate be allowed to challenge the findings?

I wouldn’t want psychiatric examinations to become another weapon against political opponents.

That possibility makes me cautious about demanding mandatory testing without knowing whether it would actually help.

Still, I think the government could do a better job of giving voters access to reliable information about candidates.

Court decisions, government audit findings, legislative voting records, official disclosures, and records of public performance could be made easier to find and understand.

Of course, allegations must be distinguished from proven wrongdoing, and legitimate privacy protections must remain.

Such information wouldn’t identify psychopaths.

But it would make it easier to investigate how someone behaved when previously entrusted with public responsibility.

WHAT CAN I ACTUALLY DO AS A VOTER?

One thing I learned is that even psychiatrists are careful about publicly assessing people they have never examined.

The American Psychiatric Association follows an ethical principle called the Goldwater Rule.

In simple terms, psychiatrists should not publicly offer professional opinions about the psychiatric condition of someone they haven’t properly evaluated and without the necessary authorization.

If trained professionals recognize those limits, I certainly shouldn’t be diagnosing politicians from speeches and Facebook videos.

But I can still investigate their records.

Before supporting a candidate, I can check whether that person has made repeated claims contradicted by reliable evidence.

I can look at how government money was handled, what official investigations found, and how previous controversies were resolved.

I can pay attention to how the candidate treated critics, ordinary citizens, and people who disagreed with them.

And I can ask whether the politician applies the same standards of accountability to political allies and opponents.

I also have to be careful about my own political preferences.

It’s easy to condemn dishonesty when an opponent is involved and make excuses when the same behavior comes from someone I support.

If I’m serious about accountability, I can’t allow personal admiration to determine whether I accept or reject evidence.

WHAT STILL CONCERNS ME

I started this research because I found the qualifications for public office surprisingly shallow.

After reading the laws and psychological studies, I understand why mandatory testing isn’t as simple as it initially sounds.

But one concern remains.

I can vote for someone who satisfies every legal qualification and still know very little about that person’s character.

A candidate may have a history of dishonesty, manipulation, or abuse of authority. Some of that information may already be available in court decisions, government records, and previous investigations.

Yet I may never encounter it if I rely entirely on campaign speeches, political advertisements, and what supporters tell me.

And I’m talking about people who could eventually become mayors, congressmen, senators, or even president.

I began by asking whether I could recognize a psychopath before voting for one.

The research tells me I cannot reliably make that determination.

But I can investigate a candidate’s record. I can question contradictions, check documents, and pay attention to how someone behaves when given authority.

I still think the government should make that information easier for voters to access.

Because if I fail to do my homework before election day, I might discover too late what kind of person I’ve helped put into office.

At kapag nangyari iyon, hindi lang ako ang magsisisi. Buong bayan ang maaaring magdusa.

Sources

THE ₱319 MILLION QUESTION: WHAT CALE88 STILL HAS TO EXPLAIN

Gino Borlado — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

When Antonio Trillanes said that Cale88 Foods Corporation received ₱319 million from China, I did not want to use his press conference as proof. I wanted the AMLC records, the companies behind the transfers, the export history, the bank activity and the basis for raising money laundering.

AMLC Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura confirmed that Cale88 received ₱319,326,770.41 in inward remittances from mainland China and Hong Kong. AMLC records presented in court also placed Cale88’s total foreign inward remittances at about ₱368.84 million and its total inflows from 2022 through 2025 at ₱776,643,950.36.

Manases “Mans” Carpio, husband of Vice President Sara Duterte, was an incorporator, director and shareholder of Cale88. Corporate records presented during the proceedings showed his ownership reaching 47.5 percent through 2024.

Those records justify scrutiny of Cale88. They do not prove that Beijing paid Sara Duterte or that Carpio personally received the Chinese remittances.

THE THREE SUSPICIOUS TRANSACTIONS

AMLC records contained three suspicious transaction reports involving Cale88. Together they amounted to approximately ₱9.78 million.

Buenaventura read the stated reason for the transactions in court: there was “no underlying legal or trade obligation, purpose or economic justification.”

Philippine anti-money-laundering law identifies the absence of an underlying legal or trade obligation, purpose or economic justification as one circumstance that can make a transaction suspicious. It also identifies transactions whose amounts appear inconsistent with the customer’s business or financial capacity.

An STR does not establish that a crime occurred. It means a covered institution identified circumstances serious enough to trigger reporting under the law.

For those three transactions, investigators need to identify the sender, originating bank, receiving account, invoice, purchase order, bill of lading, customs declaration, goods shipped, value declared and corresponding entry in Cale88’s books.

CALE88 REALLY EXPORTED BANANA CHIPS

Cale88 was not a company with no observable business operation. Government export-promotion records and independent trade records show that it manufactured and exported banana chips, including shipments to Chinese buyers.

Some companies appearing in the AMLC remittance records also appear in trade records involving Cale88 products. Yiwu Yunnong Import and Export appears both as a remitter and as a buyer of Cale88 banana chips.

AMLC records identified a December 16, 2024 transaction reported by Security Bank’s Davao Rizal branch involving Yiwu Yunnong. The transfer was US$75,207, then equivalent to approximately ₱4.397 million.

Another transfer, approximately ₱5.656 million on October 31, 2024, was reported by BPI and identified Jin Hua Dong Xi Trading Co. as the counterparty.

That gives investigators identifiable payments that can be compared with identifiable commercial records.

Genuine exports can explain genuine payments. They do not establish that every remittance matched the value of goods actually shipped.

THE CHINESE STATE CONNECTION

One counterparty identified in the AMLC records is China National Township Enterprises.

Its own corporate profile says the company became wholly owned by China National Agricultural Development Group in 1999 and became a secondary enterprise of that group. That places China National Township Enterprises inside a Chinese state-owned agricultural group.

Senator Risa Hontiveros also raised Beijing Zhenweifang Food and its relationship with Xinjiang Fruit Industry Group. Public corporate material supports an investment and corporate relationship between the two. Xinjiang Fruit Industry Group is state-owned and maintains formal Communist Party structures within its organization.

I would not turn those ownership links into something the evidence has not proved.

AMLC did not establish that Beijing ordered the ₱319 million in remittances. State ownership of a buyer does not tell us why a specific commercial payment was made.

The relevant question is whether those payments correspond to genuine commercial obligations at genuine values.

THE ₱776.6 MILLION

AMLC records showed ₱776,643,950.36 entering Cale88 accounts from 2022 through 2025. They also showed ₱1,254,736,297.08 in aggregate reported transactions during that period.

Those figures are different measures. The ₱1.254-billion amount represents aggregate transactions reported to AMLC. The ₱776.64-million figure represents inflows.

Trillanes has separately said that Cale88 declared cumulative sales of about ₱208.49 million. I have not independently authenticated every audited financial statement behind that total, so I would keep that number attributed to him.

Bank inflows can come from sales, loans, shareholder advances, capital contributions, refunds, transfers between accounts and other sources. The question is how Cale88 recorded the ₱776.64 million and whether supporting documents exist for the significant transactions.

THE SECURITY BANK ACCOUNTS

On October 7, Security Bank Branch Banking Group head Leslie Cham testified that Cale88 maintained two peso checking accounts with the bank.

The first was opened in August 2024. The second was opened in October 2025. Both were closed in July 2026.

Cham confirmed ₱40,138,766.28 in Cale88 inflows through Security Bank in 2024 and ₱40,001,101.79 in outflows. For 2025, Cale88 recorded ₱6,265,915.66 in inflows.

The December 2025 ending balances of the two accounts were ₱332,530.95 and ₱21,164.27.

Cham also explained how Security Bank normally handles large transactions. For exporters and manufacturers, the bank can ask for documents such as sales invoices or financing contracts to establish the source or purpose of funds. He said the bank generally does not accept remittances without the supporting documents it asks for and would usually return the funds.

During questioning, Gatchalian read from an STR saying that a client failed to provide supporting documents and remained unresponsive to requests for clarification, leaving the bank unable to validate the source and purpose of a transaction. Another STR referred to fresh funds that were not commensurate with the client’s declared financial profile.

Cham would not confirm whether Security Bank itself filed those Cale88 STRs because STR information is protected by AMLA confidentiality rules.

Senator Bam Aquino then asked Cham how money could have entered if the bank normally demanded documents. Cham said he could not determine what happened in the specific transactions without reviewing the records, including whether the money was eventually returned or retained.

He did confirm that the transactions involving the Chinese companies had been referred to Security Bank’s compliance office.

That part deserves closer examination because it gives investigators another paper trail: what documents were requested, what Cale88 provided, what compliance found, and whether any questioned funds remained in the accounts.

THE JULY 2026 ACCOUNT CLOSURES

Both known Cale88 Security Bank checking accounts were closed in July 2026.

Closing an account does not establish concealment. A business can close accounts for ordinary operational reasons.

Investigators can still ask what happened next. Was Cale88 continuing to sell and export products after July? Did it open replacement accounts elsewhere? Where did the remaining business activity move?

Security Bank’s disclosed transaction totals account for only part of the ₱776.64 million in AMLC inflows. BPI also appears in the remittance records. A complete banking reconstruction would identify every Cale88 account involved in the AMLC data, when each account was opened and closed, and where major transfers went.

COULD THIS INVOLVE MONEY LAUNDERING?

There is a factual and legal basis to investigate that possibility.

Gatchalian asked Buenaventura whether Cale88 could be a candidate for a money-laundering investigation if the ₱776.6 million could not be accounted for in the company’s books.

Buenaventura said it could be a candidate, subject to other factors. He also said investigators would need to identify a predicate unlawful activity behind the funds.

That distinction is necessary because Philippine money-laundering law deals with proceeds of unlawful activity. A large bank inflow, an STR or a transaction that has not yet been publicly explained does not establish money laundering.

AMLC did not testify that the ₱776.6 million was already missing from Cale88’s books. That premise came from Gatchalian’s question.

The three STRs nevertheless provide a concrete AML issue because the reporting institutions identified the absence of an underlying legal or trade obligation, purpose or economic justification.

TRADE-BASED MONEY LAUNDERING

The existence of genuine Cale88 exports does not automatically eliminate a money-laundering inquiry.

The Financial Action Task Force recognizes trade-based money laundering, where legitimate or apparently legitimate international trade can be manipulated to transfer or disguise criminal proceeds.

Methods can include over-invoicing, under-invoicing, multiple invoices for one shipment, false quantities, false descriptions or payments that do not correspond with the goods delivered.

There is no public evidence establishing that Cale88 used any of those methods.

But the financial and shipping records give investigators a way to test the possibility. A remittance can be compared against the invoice, shipment, customs declaration, quantity, price and ledger entry behind it.

If a ₱5 million payment corresponds with a legitimate ₱5 million commercial obligation and shipment, that supports the business explanation.

If the supporting transaction does not exist, or the commercial records cannot account for the amount transferred, investigators have another problem to examine.

WHERE DID THE MONEY GO AFTER CALE88?

The AMLC records discussed in court do not show that Sara Duterte personally received the ₱319.33 million.

Buenaventura said the records concerned Cale88 and did not identify an amount personally received by Duterte or Carpio.

Carpio’s 47.5-percent ownership also does not make corporate funds his personal funds. A personal-benefit theory would need another part of the trail: dividends, shareholder withdrawals, advances, related-party payments, asset purchases or transfers from Cale88 to Carpio, Duterte or another related entity.

That downstream trail has not been publicly established.

THE TAX AND EMPLOYEE QUESTIONS

Trillanes said Cale88 reported approximately ₱150 million in 2024 sales while paying around ₱10,705 in income tax. He also said the company reported no rank-and-file employees that year and two employees in 2025.

The tax figure needs the underlying tax return. Revenue is not taxable income. Cost of goods sold, operating expenses, deductions, credits and taxable income have to be examined before anyone can conclude that the amount of tax paid was improper.

The employee figures also need production records. Cale88 could have used contractors, manpower agencies or another entity to manufacture and pack products. Payroll and contracting records should identify who actually performed the work.

Tax evasion can qualify as an AMLA predicate offense under defined statutory conditions. I found no public evidence establishing those conditions against Cale88.

CALE88’S OLD WEBSITE

Cale88 previously used `cale88foods.com`.

Trade records identify that domain as Cale88’s website, and historical DNS data shows an older infrastructure footprint beginning on September 1, 2023.

The old domain used GoDaddy-related nameservers, `ns03.domaincontrol.com` and `ns04.domaincontrol.com`, pointed to IP address `208.109.21.36`, and had an MX record for `mail.cale88foods.com`.

The historical DNS service records that configuration through January 29, 2025.

January 29 should not be described as the date the domain expired. It is only the last old DNS snapshot currently visible in the historical dataset.

THE OCTOBER 3 DOMAIN

The current `cale88foods.com` registration is new.

Available registration data shows the domain was registered on October 3, 2026 at 2:05 PM through Squarespace Domains and updated at 4:08 PM.

At 5:55 PM that same day, an automated scan recorded the domain returning an HTTP 302 redirect to the website of the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines.

That happened one day after Trillanes publicly raised Cale88 and the China remittances.

The current registrant’s identity is withheld. I found no evidence linking the October 3 registrant to Cale88, Carpio, Sara Duterte or the Chinese Embassy.

The redirect therefore cannot be used as evidence that Cale88 itself maintained a website connected to the embassy.

THE POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS

The registration and redirect were intentional acts by whoever controlled the domain on October 3. What we do not know is the identity or motive of that person.

Someone may have noticed an available domain associated with a company suddenly receiving national attention, bought it and redirected it to the Chinese Embassy as a political stunt.

Someone may have wanted people searching for Cale88 to believe that its old website had always been connected to the embassy.

A person associated with Cale88 or its old website could also have reacquired it, although I found no evidence supporting that explanation.

An unrelated third party could also have registered an expired domain and chosen the redirect afterward.

The October 3 registration is therefore worth investigating, but it should remain separate from the AMLC evidence until someone identifies the registrant.

THE FACEBOOK PAGE

Cale88’s present Facebook footprint appears thin for a company that had operated for years, participated in international trade fairs and maintained an export presence.

I cannot presently prove that the page was deliberately sanitized.

That would need historical Facebook captures, Page Transparency records, cached material, archived posts, tagged photographs or screenshots showing content that previously existed and was later removed.

There may still be enough third-party material to reconstruct the page’s earlier public activity.

THE TIMELINE

Cale88 was incorporated and operating before the current controversy. Its old website had a visible DNS footprint beginning in 2023.

Its first known Security Bank checking account opened in August 2024. A second opened in October 2025.

Both were closed in July 2026.

Trillanes publicly raised Cale88’s Chinese remittances on October 2.

A new registration of `cale88foods.com` appeared on October 3 at 2:05 PM. Within hours, the domain was redirecting to the Chinese Embassy.

AMLC then confirmed the China and Hong Kong remittances in the impeachment court, followed by Security Bank testimony identifying the Cale88 accounts and transaction volumes.

Chronology does not establish coordination. It gives investigators dates that can be tested against corporate, banking and digital records.

WHAT STILL NEEDS TO BE ANSWERED

The three STRs need to be matched against actual contracts, invoices and shipments. Cale88’s ₱776.64 million in inflows needs to be reconciled with its accounting records, and significant outflows need to be traced.

The complete Cale88 banking structure also remains unknown publicly. Security Bank explains only part of the financial activity recorded by AMLC.

The July 2026 account closures need context if Cale88 was still operating afterward.

The old domain history can be reconstructed further to determine when Cale88 lost or surrendered control of `cale88foods.com`, while the October 3 registrant should be investigated independently.

The Facebook history can be reconstructed before anyone claims that it was deliberately erased.

AMLC has confirmed the Chinese remittances, the larger inflows and three transactions reported as suspicious. Security Bank has confirmed two Cale88 accounts, their transaction activity and their July 2026 closure. Trade records show that Cale88 conducted real export business. Corporate records show connections between some Chinese counterparties and state-owned enterprises.

The available evidence does not establish that China financed Sara Duterte or that Cale88 committed money laundering.

It gives investigators a financial trail that can now be checked against the documents that should exist if the transactions were legitimate.

Sources

BEFORE YOU WORRY ABOUT THE SELFIE, KNOW WHAT DAPAT ISA LANG IS ASKING YOU TO SIGN

Gino Borlado — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Earlier today, an MCT community member emailed me asking what I thought about the Dapat Isa Lang registration page. His concern was understandable because the page asks for personal information, a handwritten signature and a selfie.

I opened the site, went through the form, read the privacy notice and checked the rules covering a People’s Initiative. The first thing people need to know is that this is part of a signature campaign for a proposed Anti-Political Dynasty Law. When you complete the process, you are joining as a co-petitioner in that initiative.

That context explains why Dapat Isa Lang is asking for information that would look excessive on an ordinary website.

WHAT THE FORM ASKS FOR

The current D1L co-petitioner form asks for your name, date of birth and the place where you are registered to vote. It also asks for an image of your handwritten signature and a selfie while holding the completed signature card below your chin so your face and the card can both be seen.

The form does not currently ask you to upload a government ID. D1L’s privacy notice says copies of government IDs should not be collected unless there is a documented legal or operational need and the collection is proportionate to that purpose.

The selfie is part of the present process, and I understand why some people would hesitate there. A photograph of your face beside your handwritten signature is sensitive information, so anyone collecting it has to explain what it is for and how it will be protected.

D1L says the information may be used to verify identity and eligibility, detect duplicate or fraudulent submissions, preserve evidence that the person voluntarily joined the petition, process withdrawals and support verification connected with the People’s Initiative.

Once you keep the signature campaign in view, those requirements begin to make sense.

ONE SIGNATURE SHOULD REPRESENT ONE PERSON

Under Republic Act No. 6735 and COMELEC rules, a national legislative initiative needs signatures from at least 10 percent of registered voters nationwide, with at least 3 percent of registered voters represented in every legislative district.

COMELEC rules also provide for verification of the signatures and the voter-registration status of the petitioners. So when Dapat Isa Lang gathers a signature, that entry is supposed to represent an actual registered voter who voluntarily joined the petition.

That creates an obvious problem for any online collection system. A name and an email address alone leave room for repeated submissions, impersonation and organized attempts to flood the database with questionable entries.

I have already thought about the same problem for MCT. When I was working on survey and commenting features, I kept asking myself how I could prevent one person from pretending to be many people.

If one operator can submit 100 survey responses, those responses can no longer be treated as 100 Filipinos. If one person can create dozens of accounts, that person can manufacture the appearance of public support or outrage.

I considered stronger identity controls for that reason. I wanted a system where one person could not turn himself into an army simply because he knew how to create accounts or automate submissions.

Dapat Isa Lang is dealing with the same problem while gathering signatures that may eventually be presented as support from registered voters across the country. The selfie, signature image, voter location and duplicate checks all serve that verification process.

THE TROLL PROBLEM IS REAL

We already know what organized political operators can do online in the Philippines.

Meta has removed Philippine networks for coordinated inauthentic behavior. Its 2019 investigation found fake and authentic accounts being used together to distribute political content while hiding who was behind the operation.

Researchers have also documented paid cyber troops and troll operations in Philippine electoral politics. Anyone who has watched Philippine political spaces online has seen how a small group can create many accounts, repeat the same claims and flood a discussion until actual users are buried under manufactured activity.

A signature campaign has to prepare for the same kind of abuse.

Somebody could feed hundreds of fake names into the D1L system, submit the same people several times or deliberately contaminate the database with entries that cannot survive verification. Even if those entries are eventually caught, somebody still has to identify them and separate them from legitimate submissions.

Weak verification would make that easier.

If Dapat Isa Lang eventually says several million Filipinos joined the petition, I would want those numbers to correspond to actual Filipinos who chose to sign. That is the job of the verification process.

I CHECKED WHO IS BEHIND DAPAT ISA LANG

I also wanted to know who was collecting the information.

Dapat Isa Lang can be traced to identifiable people and organizations. The People’s Initiative Coalition Against Dynasty publicly launched its digital platform on September 30, 2026.

Retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio demonstrated the online signing process during the launch. Former COMELEC chairman and 1986 Constitutional Commission member Christian Monsod also participated. PICAD convenor Eirene Aguila and Dapat Isa Lang head Karlo Abadines have been publicly identified with the campaign.

The petition itself is published on the website. D1L’s privacy notice identifies 1SAMBAYAN CORP. as the Personal Information Controller operating the digital co-petitioner platform.

Those are the checks I would want before giving any civic website my signature and photograph. I want identifiable people, an identifiable organization, a published purpose and documents I can inspect. Dapat Isa Lang has those.

I ALSO FOUND PROBLEMS

I do not think people should stop asking questions simply because the campaign can be traced to real people and organizations.

The privacy page still has unfinished portions that D1L should fix. Some fields for the Data Protection Officer remain incomplete, and parts dealing with processors, storage and retention also appear unfinished.

That is a problem because the site is asking people to submit their date of birth, voter location, signature and photograph. A signer should be able to find the proper contact information for the person handling privacy concerns and know who may process the records, where the information is stored and how long D1L plans to retain it.

I also noticed figures on the signing page showing 1,234,567 supporting signatures and a target of 3,000,000. I would not use those numbers as evidence of how many people have signed.

The publicly discussed campaign target has been around 7.5 million signatures, while the legal threshold is based on the nationwide 10 percent and district-level 3 percent formula. The figures currently displayed on the page look like test numbers that were left there, and D1L should clean that up.

I should add that this is my reading of the site as it appears now. If D1L intends those figures or unfinished fields to mean something else, a small change to the page could easily remove the confusion.

THE COMELEC QUESTION IS STILL OPEN

There is also a legal question people should know about.

COMELEC has reopened the People’s Initiative process for national legislation. Chairman George Garcia has also said that the existing rules do not yet cover electronic signatures.

So the fact that D1L can collect signatures online does not mean COMELEC has already accepted every digitally collected signature as legally sufficient. D1L can gather co-petitioners, organize the submissions and preserve records showing who participated, while COMELEC still has to decide how electronically gathered signatures will be handled under its rules.

I HAVE DEALT WITH THE SAME PROBLEM ON MCT

After going through the site, I understand why Dapat Isa Lang built verification into the signing process. They are collecting signatures for a People’s Initiative, and every valid submission is supposed to stand for one registered voter who voluntarily joined the petition.

I have already dealt with a smaller version of the same problem while thinking about MCT surveys and comments. If I cannot control duplication, organized users can distort what the numbers appear to say.

That does not give D1L a free pass. The selfie deserves scrutiny, the handling of the data deserves scrutiny, and the unfinished privacy disclosures need to be fixed.

But I understand what the verification process is trying to protect.

If one million people signed, I want one million actual people behind those signatures. I do not want duplicate submissions, invented names or political operators inflating or contaminating the count.

That is the problem Dapat Isa Lang is trying to solve with its verification process. And if, after reading the petition and the privacy notice, you are comfortable with how that process works, then the next step is simply deciding whether you want to participate.

IF YOU WANT TO SIGN OR HELP

If you have read the petition and the privacy notice and you decide that you want to join the People’s Initiative, you can sign as a co-petitioner through the official D1L digital platform:

https://d1l.org/signthepetition

Dapat Isa Lang is also accepting people who want to volunteer and help with the campaign and signature gathering:

https://dapat.isalang.org/join/member

Read what you are signing, read how your information will be handled and decide for yourself whether you want to participate. If you do join, the point of the verification process is simple: your signature should represent you, once.

Sources

YOU HAD ONE JOB AND YOU COULDN’T EVEN DO IT

Gino Borlado — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

If my political future depended on a group of senators whose votes could decide whether I stayed in office, I would want them disciplined. I would want them careful with timing, careful with their numbers, careful about the fights they pick, and very careful about what comes out of their mouths.

There was a rumor earlier this year that Sara Duterte threw a laptop at one of her defense lawyers, Michael Poa. Both Duterte and Poa denied it, so I am treating it exactly as that, an unproven rumor. Still, after reviewing what the senators now occupying the minority have been doing these past several months, I can understand why somebody came up with the image.

If it were true, though, I think the laptop would be inadequate. Bring the entire desktop rig, tower, monitor, keyboard, mouse, UPS, desk and ergonomic chair. Maybe include the printer.

I started seeing a pattern while reviewing the cases involving Rodante Marcoleta and Jinggoy Estrada. I went back through my impeachment tracker, the Senate leadership fights, the Bato dela Rosa episode, Robin Padilla’s statements and the fights surrounding Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial.

Some moves came too early. Others were too aggressive. Some depended on numbers that were never secure, while attempts to protect one person sometimes created another person who also needed protection. Several senators talked before their own group had even agreed on what it wanted to do.

The group looks busy. It also looks scattered, and that is a terrible combination when your political future depends on counting votes.

Sara Duterte needs senator-judges who are legally able to participate, physically available when they are needed, and willing to vote in her favor when judgment comes. That is the standard I used in looking at what her Senate allies have been doing.

A NOTE ABOUT THE CURRENT MINORITY

Part of this happened when Alan Peter Cayetano’s group still controlled the Senate majority. Cayetano became Senate president on May 11 with 13 votes, and that group later lost control when Joel Villanueva joined the other side and Sherwin Gatchalian’s group reached 13. Gatchalian was formally elected Senate president on June 17.

So when I refer to the current minority, I am talking about the group that eventually ended up there. The lineup changed along the way.

I am also not claiming every senator in that group acts only for Sara Duterte. They have their own alliances, cases, ambitions and interests. I am looking at senators who repeatedly took positions favorable to her defense, defended one another through legal and political controversies, and fought over rules that could affect her impeachment trial.

THEY TOOK CONTROL BEFORE THEY COULD HOLD IT

May 11 looked like a major political win for Alan Peter Cayetano. Tito Sotto was removed as Senate president, Cayetano took over, and his group had 13 votes, exactly enough to control a 24-member Senate.

The weakness was already there. A 13-member majority gives you no room to lose anyone, and one of the senators helping supply that number was Bato dela Rosa, whose ability to appear regularly was already uncertain because of the ICC arrest warrant hanging over him.

That should have encouraged caution. Cayetano instead publicly declared that the 13 were intact.

Weeks later, Villanueva moved to the other side. Cayetano no longer had 13, Gatchalian did, and the Senate presidency followed the number.

They had the Senate presidency. They never had a comfortable grip on it.

The May 11 leadership change also meant Senate committees had to be reorganized. Soon afterward, Marcoleta pushed for wider use of remote participation, something obviously useful to a group already facing attendance problems.

When Cayetano’s side tried to move it, senators on the other side objected. One of the problems raised was that the Committee on Rules had not even been set up again after the leadership change.

The other senators walked out. The Senate lost its quorum, and the proposal could not move.

They changed the Senate, left committee work unfinished, then almost immediately needed a rule that ran into the mess created by that unfinished work.

ALAN PETER CAYETANO TALKS TOO FUCKING MUCH

I do not mean this simply because he gives long speeches. Politicians give long speeches, and Cayetano has never been shy about talking.

My problem is that he keeps committing himself publicly before he knows whether the facts, the numbers or even his own allies will still support what he is saying several days later. That turns ordinary political setbacks into statements that can be replayed against him.

He said the 13 were intact. The 13 broke.

He fought to keep the fixed 16-vote count. The impeachment court reopened the issue and dropped the fixed 16.

He argued for the participation of detained senators Estrada and Marcoleta in Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial. Once those senators were under Sandiganbayan custody, neither Cayetano nor the Senate could simply order them back into the chamber.

Cayetano keeps announcing where he stands before he knows whether he can keep standing there. Sometimes shutting up for a while is good politics.

BATO NEEDED PROTECTION. THEN ROBIN NEEDED PROTECTION TOO.

After Dela Rosa left the Senate, Robin Padilla publicly acknowledged that Dela Rosa rode with him and that he dropped him off in Makati. Padilla denies helping him evade arrest, and a complaint is not a conviction.

The group already had Bato’s problem to deal with. Then Robin explained his own role in transporting him, and another senator suddenly had questions to answer from the same episode.

Protect Bato, then defend Robin. Explain what happened, challenge how authorities behaved, argue about Senate independence, then answer whatever came next.

Sara Duterte’s impeachment was still moving while all of that was happening.

When Jinggoy Estrada was taken into custody in connection with his plunder case, Cayetano and members of his group did not attend the scheduled Senate session. Cayetano called on the other senators to join them and allow the Senate to “go quiet” as a protest.

The other side refused. Bato was already unavailable and Estrada was detained, yet that was the moment the group chose for another confrontation.

I cannot prove that the boycott caused Cayetano to lose the Senate presidency, and I will not pretend that I can. The group was already struggling with attendance and numbers, chose to stop Senate work as an act of solidarity with Estrada, and soon found itself out of the majority.

THE SENATE DOES NOT CONTROL THE SANDIGANBAYAN

The Senate cannot simply decide that two detained senators should walk out of detention and report for impeachment duty. Once Estrada and Marcoleta were under Sandiganbayan custody, they had to ask the anti-graft court for permission to attend.

Estrada did exactly that, and the Sandiganbayan denied his request. The court pointed out that the impeachment trial could run for 31 weeks and said repeated temporary release could not simply be treated as emergency leave.

Cayetano could argue. The minority could complain. The Senate could say it wanted Estrada there. None of those things placed him back in the chamber.

Marcoleta later said he would not ask the Sandiganbayan for permission because he rejected Chiz Escudero’s role as presiding officer of the impeachment court. Would the court have allowed him to participate? We do not know.

But if your goal is keeping every possible favorable vote available for Sara Duterte, refusing even to ask means you stop your own attempt before the court can answer.

Political anger cannot cast an impeachment vote. A senator can.

Marcoleta also publicly discussed the ₱75 million he received before the 2025 elections. His defense says the money was a campaign contribution, while prosecutors dispute how the funds were described and reported. His criminal liability remains for the Sandiganbayan to decide.

I am not deciding Marcoleta’s case here. Prosecutors later used his own public statement as evidence during his trial.

That was exposure he did not need to create for himself.

ROBIN TALKED BEFORE HIS OWN SIDE HAD A POSITION

Padilla did something similar politically before the impeachment court had even started its work. He publicly floated the possibility that the group could resist convening the impeachment court.

Then Bong Go said the group had never discussed such a plan, while Jinggoy Estrada and Imee Marcos also distanced themselves from the idea. One senator had already discussed a huge constitutional fight in public before his own side had agreed that it wanted that fight.

If your bloc is considering something that serious, perhaps agree among yourselves before somebody talks about it on camera. Instead, Padilla’s allies were left explaining a position they had never agreed to.

THE STRATEGY DOESN’T LOOK VERY STRATEGIC

I keep looking for somebody inside this group who appears to be saying, “Eto na lang muna. Leave that one alone. We can deal with it later. Don’t answer that yet. Protect the votes first.”

Maybe somebody is saying it and nobody is listening. Maybe nobody is saying it at all.

Too often, whatever happens that day becomes the next political fight. Bato has a problem, deal with Bato. Estrada gets arrested, stop Senate work. Marcoleta cannot participate, find a way to get Marcoleta back. Cayetano hears something he disagrees with, go explain it publicly. Somebody questions the leadership, defend the leadership. Somebody raises the vote count, fight that too.

Watching them sometimes reminds me of the old Road Runner cartoons. They rush into the next move before checking what the previous one did, then the rock falls, the bridge collapses, the dynamite goes off, and they are already preparing the next contraption.

Except this is not ACME. These are Senate votes, court orders, criminal cases and an impeachment trial involving the Vice President of the Philippines.

Their timing keeps hurting them because they keep answering today’s problem while creating next week’s problem. There does not seem to be enough sorting between what has to be dealt with now, what can wait and what should simply be left alone.

Cayetano’s group also challenged Chiz Escudero’s role as presiding officer and lost. Escudero stayed in the chair and later issued the initial interpretation that conviction would need 16 votes.

Sara Duterte’s own lawyers wanted that ruling kept. The presiding officer some of her Senate allies fought gave her defense one of its best early positions.

Once they had it, the job was keeping it.

They could not.

THEY HAD 16. THEN THEY LOST IT.

On September 23, the impeachment court voted 13 to 1 to drop the fixed 16-vote count and instead base the number on senators legally and factually able to participate when judgment is rendered. Six senator-judges did not participate.

With four senators then unable to participate because of legal issues, the immediate number needed for conviction became 14 instead of 16.

Bato had become unavailable. Estrada and Marcoleta were detained. Estrada asked the Sandiganbayan for permission to participate and was denied, while Marcoleta decided he would not ask.

For a group trying to keep the strongest possible protection around Sara Duterte, that is one hell of a sequence.

THE PRESSURE IS REAL. SO ARE THEIR OWN MISTAKES.

Alan Peter and Pia Cayetano have both said their group is under pressure. Looking at the timing of what has happened around several senators, I understand why they say that.

I can see what feels like an invisible hand in the timing. I cannot prove who owns that hand, whether one person is directing it, or whether every case and investigation is connected. I also refuse to pretend that people who should answer serious accusations should somehow be spared because their votes happen to be useful to Sara Duterte.

Estrada should answer the case against him. Marcoleta should answer his. Anyone else facing a real case should do the same.

What catches my attention is when these things happen and what they do to the Senate numbers.

I wrote before that Chiz Escudero looked to me like a man operating on a very short leash. Looking at Joel Villanueva, I cannot ignore the same question. I am not saying somebody ordered either senator to act a certain way. I am watching what happens around them and when it happens.

Now Loren Legarda has entered the picture. Her spokesman, Tony La Viña, said on October 2 that he would not rule out Legarda joining the Senate majority when she returns from medical leave. He also said she may already be talking with colleagues, although he rejected the idea that any possible move should automatically be tied to Sara Duterte’s impeachment.

At the same time, allegations involving Legarda and her son, Rep. Leandro Leviste, are under investigation. Legarda’s camp has called the case political.

Legarda has not switched. Her camp has only refused to rule it out.

Villanueva already left Cayetano’s 13. Now another member’s camp is openly saying another move is possible.

If Legarda eventually crosses, nobody needs to manufacture the irony for Alan Peter Cayetano. He already supplied it when he declared the 13 solid.

The minority may genuinely be under pressure. Somebody may even be very good at recognizing the right moment to apply it. Cases, investigations and political openings can arrive at times that make life very difficult for senators whose votes Sara Duterte may need.

Whoever is applying that pressure does not have to create the minority’s weaknesses. The minority keeps supplying them.

Nobody forced Cayetano to speak as though his 13 were unbreakable when he had no spare vote. Nobody forced Padilla to discuss Bato’s movements publicly. Nobody forced Marcoleta to talk about the ₱75 million that prosecutors later used as evidence.

Nobody forced the group to keep opening another political fight while its numbers were already getting thinner.

THE CURRENT MAJORITY APPEARS TO UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE

So far, based on my tracking, Gatchalian’s majority has handled its position differently. It has generally kept the leadership drama down, continued Senate work and allowed hearings, rulings and votes to do much of the talking.

I also do not see Kiko Pangilinan or Risa Hontiveros constantly firing up Facebook Live because Alan Peter Cayetano has made another political argument. They speak, criticize and take positions, but they are not creating the same stream of running commentary.

I am not claiming the minority controls every troll page supporting it, and I am not claiming every account spreading false or misleading claims receives instructions from a senator. I have no evidence for either claim.

But trolls and partisan pages need material. Long Facebook Live sessions, premature declarations, dramatic accusations and confident claims give them ready-made clips that can be chopped up, stripped of context and repeated all over social media.

Cayetano keeps giving them plenty to work with. The current majority, so far, has been quieter and does not appear interested in answering every Cayetano statement with another live session.

They can still screw this up. Their numbers can break, members can make poor decisions, and they can become as confident as the people they replaced.

So far, though, they seem to understand one useful rule.

Power does not need a Facebook Live every time you use it.

SHOULD I EVEN BE WRITING THIS?

I did have one slightly funny thought while putting all of this together. Am I helping the minority by pointing out what I think they are doing wrong?

Then I looked at the cup beside me.

Morning Coffee Thoughts is a small blog, and I am writing this while drinking 3-in-1 coffee in the kitchen. I seriously doubt anybody in the Senate minority is waiting for my latest post before deciding what to do next.

But if a blogger having 3-in-1 coffee in his kitchen can go through the dates, votes, statements and cases and notice the same pattern repeating, why can’t they?

Maybe I am wrong about some of it. Maybe there is a brilliant plan behind all of this that I cannot see.

From where I am standing, though, it looks like Road Runner politics without anybody checking where the cliff is.

YOU HAD ONE JOB

The minority has not lost every argument. Its senator-judges have raised legitimate questions, tested prosecution evidence and won some points along the way.

They took the Senate presidency and lost it. They protected senators and ended up with additional problems. They fought for detained colleagues whose attendance was controlled by a court outside the Senate, and they talked publicly about moves their own allies had not agreed upon.

Then the fixed 16 disappeared.

Now even Legarda’s camp is refusing to rule out another move to the majority.

Sara Duterte does not need another livestream, another declaration that somebody is under attack, another display of solidarity or another senator explaining somebody’s movements on television. She needs senators who can actually vote.

You had one job.

And from where I’m looking now, after all the bad timing, loose talk, lost numbers, detained allies, broken blocs and the disappearance of the fixed 16, Sara's political future is fucked.

And that's a good thing for the Philippines.

Sources

WHY I RARELY WRITE ABOUT ROWENA GUANZON

Gino Borlado — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 07:37:00 GMT

An MCT follower recently asked me why I have hardly written about Rowena Guanzon. The person wanted to know what I think of her, especially with all the noise and fanfare she has been making for the Dutertes.

The question was fair. Guanzon is not exactly difficult to notice. She has been in government, she knows how to get attention, and she has become increasingly visible around Sara Duterte and the politics surrounding 2028.

The truth is, I have written about her before. This was when MCT was still new and I was still getting a feel for what I wanted it to become.

Back then, I had a series called PROFILES, where I wrote about public personalities, their careers and backgrounds. Guanzon was one of them, and after that biographical piece, she mostly disappeared from MCT.

I wasn't avoiding her. I rarely found what she was doing interesting enough to spend hours researching and writing about it.

THE CAREER BEFORE THE BARDAGULAN

Guanzon came into public view with substantial government and academic credentials. She had been mayor of Cadiz City, served as a commissioner of the Commission on Audit, spent seven years as a commissioner of the Commission on Elections, studied law at UP, earned a master's degree in public administration from Harvard Kennedy School and taught law.

That background is worth remembering because the Guanzon many Filipinos encounter today is often associated with political combat and social media bardagulan. Her combative style also did not begin when she started supporting Sara Duterte.

In January 2022, while still a COMELEC commissioner, Guanzon publicly challenged Partido Federal ng Pilipinas lawyer George Briones to a fistfight during their dispute over the Bongbong Marcos disqualification case. After retiring from COMELEC, she became so closely associated with online bardagulan that she even used “Queen of Bardagulan” in her Facebook bio.

Her politics at the time were very different from where they are now. She openly supported Leni Robredo in 2022, and some people who opposed Marcos enjoyed Guanzon's confrontational style.

I didn't find the bardagulan especially informative then, and I don't find it informative now. Political alignment does not change that standard for me.

WHEN THE INSULTS BECOME THE CONTENT

Calling Guanzon merely loud leaves out part of her public behavior. Some of her confrontations have moved from political argument into direct personal insult.

The December 2025 Power Plant Mall incident is one example. Guanzon said the man involved had humiliated and insulted her first, and she later filed complaints for unjust vexation and grave oral defamation.

The widely circulated video also showed Guanzon berating the couple, calling the man “stupid” and “ignoramus,” and invoking Rolex and Gucci during the confrontation. When former presidential adviser Ronald Llamas later mocked the Rolex and Gucci episode, Guanzon responded by attacking his appearance.

Those exchanges help explain why so much of the attention around Guanzon has felt like political noise to me. I don't find personal insults impressive, and I don't confuse them with wit or political substance.

THE P3PWD EPISODE IS DIFFERENT

The P3PWD case is more substantial because it involved an attempt to enter Congress and eventually produced a Supreme Court ruling.

P3PWD won one party-list seat in the 2022 elections. Its original nominees later withdrew, Guanzon became the first substitute nominee, and COMELEC approved the substitution.

The Supreme Court later voided COMELEC's approval of the post-election substitutions, including Guanzon's. The Court ruled that COMELEC committed grave abuse of discretion in approving the substitutions under the circumstances of the case.

There is an important qualification. The Supreme Court dismissed the contempt charge accusing Guanzon of violating the temporary restraining order because the TRO was directed at COMELEC and the House of Representatives, not at Guanzon personally.

The Court nevertheless addressed her continued public claim that she was a congresswoman after she knew about the TRO. In its decision, the Court said that by claiming to be a congresswoman despite knowing the TRO restrained her substitution, she “disseminated a false claim and committed an act of disinformation.”

For me, that is far more relevant than another round of social media fighting. It involves an official process, a Supreme Court decision and the conduct of someone who now wants to seek national office.

FROM KAKAMPINK TO SARA DUTERTE

Guanzon openly supported Leni Robredo in 2022. As late as July 2025, she was still publicly rejecting the DDS label and saying, “Hindi po ako DDS. Kakampink po ako.”

By March 2026, her political direction had changed. She accepted the endorsement of the Cebu Alliance for Duterte 2028 for a possible Senate run and publicly committed herself to campaigning for Sara Duterte for president in 2028.

Guanzon has explained her support in terms of corruption and accountability. She has said she believes Sara Duterte would hold corrupt officials accountable and has spoken about zero tolerance for corruption.

That explanation belongs here because there is no need to guess at her motives. What can be documented is that Guanzon went from publicly identifying herself as Kakampink in July 2025 to openly campaigning for Sara Duterte and later saying she hoped to be included in Duterte's 2028 Senate slate.

People can make their own judgment from that progression.

MOSTLY NOISE, LARGELY INSIGNIFICANT

I should probably explain that Guanzon is not alone in this category for me. I have roughly the same reaction to people like Harry Roque, Salvador Panelo, Vic Rodriguez, Israelito Torreon, Jimmy Bondoc, Ferdinand Topacio and a few others.

I know who they are. I see the statements, interviews, arguments and political appearances, but I rarely find every new provocation worth turning into an MCT article.

Most of it, to me, is noise. Much of that noise is largely insignificant compared with the government records, court decisions, audit findings, legislation, public spending and official acts competing for the same amount of my time.

That has largely been my attitude toward Guanzon. I know she is there and I see what she says. Volume alone has never been enough to make me interested.

SHE WANTS TO BE A SENATOR

This is where I have a reason to pay closer attention.

Guanzon has said she intends to seek a Senate seat in 2028, and by August 2026 she was saying she hoped Sara Duterte would include her in her senatorial slate. She has also begun talking about what she wants to do if elected.

Among the proposals she has raised are reviewing the 12 percent VAT, reducing or removing VAT on medicines for vulnerable sectors, reviewing compulsory PhilHealth contributions for OFWs who already have employer-provided health insurance, improving health benefits for poor patients and persons with disabilities, and increasing Visayan representation.

Those proposals deserve to be assessed on their own terms. A Senate candidacy also puts a candidate's public record, conduct and political alliances before voters because the office carries substantial national authority.

There are only 24 senators. They legislate, act on the national budget, can conduct inquiries in aid of legislation, and the Senate has the sole constitutional power to try and decide impeachment cases.

There is also the political composition of the chamber Guanzon wants to join. In July 2025, Ronald dela Rosa publicly identified a seven-member Duterte bloc he called the “Duter7”: himself, Bong Go, Robin Padilla, Rodante Marcoleta, Imee Marcos, Mark Villar and Camille Villar.

That was the bloc Dela Rosa identified at that point in 2025, and Senate alliances can change. Guanzon's own position is easier to state: she supports Sara Duterte for president and has said she hopes to be included in Duterte's Senate slate.

For someone seeking a Senate seat, the public record deserves more attention than the latest insult or online fight. Guanzon's résumé, the P3PWD episode, her political alliances, policy proposals and public behavior are all available for voters to assess.

WHY I RARELY WRITE ABOUT HER

So I finally have a better answer for the person who asked why MCT rarely writes about Rowena Guanzon. For years, I saw the bardagulan, the insults, the political fights and eventually her turn toward Sara Duterte, but none of it gave me much reason to write about her.

Her Senate ambition changes that. Once someone asks Filipinos for one of only 24 seats in the Senate, I become interested in the record behind the noise.

She is interesting, but interesting is never enough.

Sources

THAT’S PRESIDENTIABLE TO YOU?

Gino Borlado — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 03:54:00 GMT

I saw Baste Duterte appear before the Senate impeachment court dressed entirely in black.

My first thought was: who died?

But apparently, in some circles, the all-black look and the gangster posture read as power.

His appearance drew “mafia boss” comparisons online, while some reactions praised him as confident or stylish. At the same time, politicians had already been discussing Baste as a possible fallback for 2028 if Sara Duterte could not run.

Those are two separate developments, but once they start getting mixed together, I have a question: what exactly are we using as evidence that somebody is presidential material?

I have zero hate for Baste Duterte. I do not know him personally, and I am not interested in his haircut, tattoos or clothes.

I am interested in what he actually showed Filipinos once he was placed under sustained questioning.

A PLATFORM FOR WHAT?

Baste appeared on September 29 as a prosecution witness in the impeachment trial of his sister, Vice President Sara Duterte. The impeachment court declared him a hostile witness, which allowed prosecutors to use leading questions. That ruling did not amount to a finding that he had committed wrongdoing.

Much of the questioning dealt with contracts between the Davao City government and GenCorp Industries Inc.

Sara Duterte listed GenCorp as a business interest in her 2024 and 2025 Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth. SEC records presented during the trial, however, did not list her as an incorporator, director or stockholder of GenCorp. The impeachment court has heard both sets of records, and that discrepancy remains something the senator-judges have to weigh.

Baste testified that he did not know about his sister’s declared interest in GenCorp when the city dealt with the company. He said he would not have allowed the contracts had he known.

He also confirmed that he had delegated authority to Assistant City Administrator Tristan Dwight Domingo to sign contracts on his behalf. Asked about accountability, Baste said it still stopped with him.

Now we are talking about something useful.

How much did the mayor know about contracts entered into by his own city government? How much did he personally review? What did he delegate, and what responsibility remained with him?

Those questions tell us far more about a politician than whether he looked intimidating in black.

WHAT EXACTLY IMPRESSED PEOPLE?

This is where I have trouble following the excitement around the appearance.

If somebody thought Baste looked good, okay. Clothes are clothes. Somebody can look stylish without that having anything to do with public office.

But once appearance starts bleeding into talk about presidential potential, the standard changes.

What did the September 29 hearing actually test?

It tested parts of Baste’s knowledge of Davao City procurement. It showed how he answered questions about GenCorp. It gave Filipinos a chance to hear him discuss delegated authority and responsibility.

It did not test his understanding of monetary policy, national taxation, agriculture, education, healthcare, energy, defense, foreign relations or the West Philippine Sea.

That does not prove he lacks knowledge in those areas. It simply means the hearing gave us no basis for reaching that conclusion either way.

So if somebody watched him walk into the Senate in black and immediately saw a future president, I would like to know what information produced that conclusion.

THE “SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH YOU” LINE

My first reaction was harsher: if that was enough to impress you, something is wrong with you.

But that sentence is too broad unless I explain exactly what I mean.

The useful criticism is not about somebody’s intelligence, education or sanity. Supporting Baste Duterte does not prove any of those things about a person.

The question is the standard being applied.

An intimidating appearance does not tell us how somebody handles a national budget. Swagger does not tell us whether somebody understands food security or foreign policy. A famous surname gives us family history, not a complete assessment of the person carrying it.

Those are very different kinds of information.

That is the part I want people to think about.

THE MAFIA BOSS THING

Then there is the “mafia boss” comparison.

The phrase circulated online after Baste’s appearance, along with comparisons to action characters and AI-generated drama figures. Some reactions treated the all-black look positively.

I understand the pop-culture reference. The image is supposed to communicate control, intimidation and somebody who cannot easily be pushed around.

But what does any of that tell us about governing?

That is where the comparison stops being useful.

Someone can project toughness and still leave unanswered questions about administrative skill. Someone can have commanding body language without having demonstrated a national policy program.

If the discussion is about fashion or presence, then call it fashion or presence.

If the discussion is about the presidency, then I want information about governing.

HAVEN’T YOU LEARNED FROM RODRIGO DUTERTE’S POLITICS?

This is also why the celebration of the “mafia boss” image bothers me.

We have already seen what happens when political toughness becomes a product.

Rodrigo Duterte built much of his political appeal around being the tough guy who spoke differently from traditional politicians.

Academic studies of his political style describe the deliberate use of coarse language, belligerence, anti-elite rhetoric and the image of a leader willing to ignore the usual restraints of politics to get things done.

That style was not accidental. It was part of the political persona that helped distinguish him from the people he portrayed as weak, elitist or unwilling to act. And you are falling for it. Again.

Filipinos already know where one of the biggest expressions of that politics ended up.

His drug war produced at least 6,248 officially acknowledged deaths by the end of his administration, while human-rights organizations have given much higher estimates.

Rodrigo Duterte is now in ICC custody, and in April 2026 the International Criminal Court confirmed three counts of crimes against humanity involving murder and attempted murder and committed him to trial. That is not a conviction. Not yet, at least. His trial is scheduled to begin on November 30, 2026.

So when I see people admiring another Duterte because he looks intimidating, I cannot pretend we have never seen this kind of politics before.

That is the lesson I would rather discuss.

Did the swagger produce better institutions? Did fear make government more accountable? Did coarse language solve corruption? Did presenting a president as somebody who should be feared make the country better governed?

Those questions cannot be answered with a photograph of Baste wearing black.

And perhaps that is exactly what bothers me about the “mafia boss” praise. We have already had six years of a Duterte presidency in which toughness, profanity and hostility toward critics became part of the political brand. Now, four years later, some Filipinos seem ready to be impressed all over again by the image of another Duterte looking dangerous.

If Baste Duterte has something better to offer, then show us that.

Show us the governing record. Show us the judgment. Show us what he understands about the country beyond Davao City.

The black clothes can stay in the photograph.

The presidency demands much more than the performance of toughness.

BASTE DOES HAVE A RECORD

Baste Duterte should also be judged on more than one hearing.

He has served in Davao City government for years. He became vice mayor in 2019 and mayor in 2022. After winning the vice mayoralty in 2025, he later became mayor through succession when Rodrigo Duterte could not assume office. Baste formally took his oath as mayor in January 2026.

Davao City also recorded strong economic growth during his earlier mayoral term.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the city economy grew 7.5 percent in 2023 and 7.9 percent in 2024. Davao City posted the fastest growth in Davao Region in both years.

Those numbers belong in any fair assessment of his record.

They also cannot simply be credited entirely to one mayor. A city economy reflects businesses, workers, consumers, investment, national policy, local policy and conditions inherited from previous years.

So the more useful research goes deeper.

Which programs did Baste initiate? What changed because of his decisions? How did Davao perform in areas directly affected by city government? What weaknesses appeared during his administration, and how did he respond?

Those are questions that can actually tell Filipinos something about the executive record of Sebastian Duterte.

IS HE REALLY PLAN B?

The possibility of Baste becoming a fallback candidate for 2028 did not begin with memes.

In April, ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio publicly called Baste the Duterte camp’s “Plan B” after Baste became president of PDP-Laban. Tinio is an opposition politician, so his claim by itself does not prove that the Duterte camp had decided anything.

Then Mike Defensor, a Duterte ally, discussed the same scenario and said Baste could be fielded if Sara Duterte were prevented from running. Defensor said, “Ikakandidato namin ’to.”

That is enough to say the possibility has been discussed seriously inside Philippine politics.

It is not enough to say Baste has already been formally selected as the Duterte family’s presidential replacement.

That distinction should stay intact.

If the Plan B discussion grows, then Baste should receive the same scrutiny any possible national candidate should receive. His Davao record belongs in that scrutiny, along with his positions on national issues and his performance when questioned about decisions made under his authority.

That is far more useful than trying to infer presidential ability from an outfit.

WHAT ARE WE ACTUALLY LOOKING FOR?

This goes beyond Baste Duterte.

Many Filipinos have children or grandchildren who will live with the consequences of the political choices made over the next several elections.

So what information should people demand before treating somebody as presidential material?

A local record deserves attention. Policy positions deserve attention. Decisions made in office, use of public money, acceptance of responsibility and the ability to explain government actions are all things voters can inspect.

Public image is information too, but it answers a different question.

It tells us how somebody presents himself.

It does not tell us how he would run the Philippines.

Baste Duterte now has greater national visibility. He is Davao City mayor, he has taken a larger role in PDP-Laban, and his name has entered public discussion about 2028.

That gives Filipinos plenty of reason to keep watching him.

But if the discussion reaches the presidency, the questions should get harder, not easier.

Ask about Davao.

Ask about GenCorp.

Ask what he knew as mayor and what he delegated.

Ask what he believes about the economy, agriculture, education, national security, China and the West Philippine Sea.

Ask what he would actually do with presidential power.

Then judge the answers.

Because whatever somebody thought of Baste Duterte’s all-black appearance, the presidency requires an assessment much larger than an image from one morning at the Senate.

And that is the question I would rather leave with readers:

What exactly should make somebody presidentiable?

Sources

BASTE DUTERTE: HOW MUCH CAN A MAYOR AFFORD NOT TO KNOW?

Gino Borlado — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 04:12:00 GMT

Months ago, somebody told me something about Sebastian “Baste” Duterte that I chose not to write about.

According to this person, there was an occasion when a visitor was supposed to meet the mayor of Davao City. While they were looking for him, somebody supposedly told them: “Huwag niyo na pong hanapin ’yan at madalas ’yan wala.”

I did not put much stock in it.

It was second-hand information. I did not hear the conversation myself, and I had no attendance records, official schedules, travel records or other documents that could prove Baste Duterte was frequently absent from his duties.

So I left it alone.

Then I watched Baste Duterte testify before the Senate impeachment court on September 29.

His testimony did not prove he was frequently absent from City Hall. It raised a different question.

How much can a mayor afford not to know about the government he leads?

THE RECORDS DO NOT AGREE

Before getting to Baste, there is already a problem in the records involving GenCorp Industries Inc.

Sara Duterte’s 2024 and 2025 SALNs identified GenCorp as a business interest. Her 2024 SALN described her as a stockholder, said the interest was acquired in 2013, and described GenCorp as formerly Times Square B Food Corp. and Great Jolly Times Food Corp.

Then the SEC witness testified that the corporate records he examined did not show Sara Duterte as a direct GenCorp incorporator or stockholder. He also testified that the SEC records treated GenCorp, Times Square B Food and Great Jolly Times Food as separate corporations, not merely different names of one corporation.

That discrepancy remains unresolved.

The SEC witness discussed possible explanations, such as an indirect interest or a trust arrangement, but he did not testify that either arrangement actually existed. He also said the records his department reviewed did not include beneficial ownership declarations.

So I am not going to claim the records prove hidden ownership.

But I am also not going to pretend the records agree.

Sara Duterte’s sworn SALN describes one thing. The SEC corporate records presented to the impeachment court show another.

THE DAVAO CITY CONTRACTS

PhilGEPS records presented before the impeachment court showed 15 Davao City contracts with GenCorp worth about P34.216 million. Four went through public bidding and 11 through negotiated small-value procurement.

Baste Duterte gave different figures. He said Davao City had 19 GenCorp transactions worth more than P33.2 million, with four through competitive public bidding and 15 through small-value procurement.

PhilGEPS says 15 contracts worth about P34.216 million.

Davao City says 19 transactions worth about P33.2 million.

That difference still needs an explanation.

The PhilGEPS records covered Davao City awards from July 2022 through June 2026. Baste became mayor on July 1, 2022. After the 2025 elections he became vice mayor, but the DILG directed him to perform the duties of acting mayor because Rodrigo Duterte could not assume the office. Baste formally took his oath as mayor again on January 23, 2026 under the law on succession.

So throughout the period covered by the Davao City GenCorp awards presented in the hearing, Baste was exercising mayoral powers.

WHAT BASTE ACTUALLY KNEW

There is a difference between saying Baste knew nothing about GenCorp and saying he did not know about Sara’s declared interest in GenCorp.

During his testimony, Baste acknowledged that when GenCorp contracts reached his office, he became aware of them. His position was that he did not know Sara Duterte had declared an interest in the company.

Baste said neither her name nor the Duterte surname appeared in the corporate documents GenCorp submitted to the city. He said he did not discuss his sister’s businesses with her and had not personally examined GenCorp’s corporate records.

He also said he asked Assistant City Administrator Tristan Dwight Domingo whether GenCorp had complied with the process. According to Baste, he was told that the company qualified and that proper procedures had been followed.

Then Baste said something that makes his lack of knowledge relevant.

He said that if he had known his sister had an interest in GenCorp, he would not have allowed the city to award contracts to the company.

If this information was significant enough to change his decision, how did the city government under his supervision fail to bring it to him?

That is not an accusation of corruption.

It is a question about executive supervision.

DELEGATION AND SUPERVISION

Philippine law recognizes that senior government officials cannot personally recheck every document prepared by their subordinates.

The Supreme Court acknowledged that reality in Arias v. Sandiganbayan. Heads of offices may reasonably rely on people assigned to process and review government transactions.

Baste also formally delegated procurement and signing functions to city officials. A government as large as Davao City cannot function without delegation.

But later Supreme Court decisions have also rejected the idea that Arias automatically protects an official whenever somebody below him handled the work. Circumstances can arise that call for closer inquiry, especially when the official’s own position includes review and supervision.

I do not expect Baste Duterte to perform the BAC’s work.

The question is whether he knew enough about his own administration to recognize when something called for his attention.

WHAT THE LAW EXPECTS FROM A MAYOR

The Constitution gives us the starting point:

“Public office is a public trust.”

Article XI, Section 1 says public officers must remain accountable to the people and serve with responsibility, integrity, loyalty and efficiency.

The Local Government Code gives the mayor an executive job.

Section 455 identifies the city mayor as the chief executive and gives the office general supervision and control over city programs, projects, services and activities.

The mayor represents the city in business transactions, has authority to examine city books and records, and is responsible for seeing that executive officials and employees perform their functions.

That is the standard I am using here.

Not whether Baste personally checked every quotation or signed every piece of paper.

Whether he exercised the supervision attached to the office.

THE PROCUREMENT STRUCTURE STILL PUTS THE MAYOR AT THE TOP

The GenCorp transactions span several years, so the procurement rules have to be matched to the date of each transaction.

Earlier transactions fell under Republic Act No. 9184 and its implementing rules. Republic Act No. 12009, the New Government Procurement Act, came later and contains transition provisions for procurement activities begun under the previous system.

Under RA 9184, the local chief executive was already the Head of the Procuring Entity, or HoPE, for an LGU.

The BAC had its own legal functions, and authorized officials could exercise delegated powers.

But Baste himself confirmed during his testimony that even when Domingo signed contracts under delegated authority, Baste remained the final accountable officer as HoPE.

The work can be delegated.

Accountability at the top does not disappear with the signature.

THE FIVE-YEAR REQUIREMENT

There was another exchange during Baste’s testimony that deserves attention.

Baste had described GenCorp as having been rigorously evaluated.

During questioning, he was confronted with a 2024 Davao City procurement requirement stating that bidders had to have operated in the relevant line of business for at least five years.

GenCorp was registered in 2020.

Asked whether he personally knew that GenCorp satisfied that requirement, Baste said he did not know and that city records could be checked. He later said compliance was presumed and that the BAC may have modified the rule for that procurement.

If the requirement was lawfully modified, the procurement file should show what changed and the basis for doing so.

I am not treating the five-year provision as proof of an illegal award. The complete procurement file is needed before reaching that conclusion.

But Baste’s own description of GenCorp as rigorously evaluated creates a fair question.

What did that evaluation consist of, who performed it, and what did the records show about the five-year requirement?

THE P8.4-MILLION FOOD CONTRACT

One transaction discussed during the hearing involved a P8.4-million contract for up to 60,000 servings of fried chicken, rice and bottled water requested by the City Mayor’s Office.

GenCorp was the single calculated responsive bidder.

That fact alone does not prove an illegal procurement. Philippine procurement rules allow an award to a single responsive bidder when prescribed conditions are met.

The useful questions are in the procurement file: what qualifications were imposed, what GenCorp submitted, what corporate information was disclosed, what the BAC verified, and who approved the transaction.

THE FAMILY CONNECTION

RA 9184 contained disclosure rules involving relationships between bidders and the HoPE.

For competitive bidding, the law called for a sworn statement concerning whether the bidder, or an officer of a corporate bidder, was related to the HoPE within the third civil degree.

Sara Duterte is Baste Duterte’s sister.

But that does not allow me to declare GenCorp automatically disqualified from every city transaction.

We first have to know Sara’s actual legal relationship to GenCorp at the time of each procurement, which procurement method was used, and which rules applied.

Again, we return to the same discrepancy.

Sara’s SALN identifies her as a stockholder.

The SEC records presented in the impeachment trial did not directly list her as one.

That has to be resolved before reaching a legal conclusion.

THE JAIME TAN CRUZ CONNECTION

The hearing also produced another connection.

Baste confirmed that Jaime Tan Cruz is his business partner in Chinese Gen Bee Foods Corp. The 2026 General Information Sheet presented in court listed Baste, Paolo Duterte and Cruz as shareholders.

Cruz also appears in the GenCorp ownership trail presented during the trial. JTC Group of Companies Philippines Inc. held a controlling stake in GenCorp, and SEC records presented in court showed Cruz representing JTC Group in GenCorp.

Baste said he did not know Cruz was connected to GenCorp either.

Being business partners in one company does not prove that Baste knew what Cruz was doing in another company.

But the connection makes the corporate records even more relevant.

WHAT DID GENCORP DISCLOSE TO DAVAO CITY?

For me, this is one of the biggest unanswered questions.

Baste’s defense partly relies on the absence of Sara Duterte’s name from GenCorp’s corporate papers submitted to the city.

Then I want to see those papers.

What did GenCorp submit when it sought Davao City contracts?

What ownership and officer information appeared in those documents?

What sworn declarations accompanied the bids or quotations?

What did the BAC and city procurement officers see when they evaluated the company?

If those records gave Davao City no reasonable indication of Sara Duterte’s declared interest, that supports Baste’s explanation.

If they contained information that should have triggered additional questions, that points somewhere else.

THE GOVERNMENT’S OWN STANDARD FOR PUBLIC SERVICE

Republic Act No. 6713 says public officials must place public interest above personal interest and use government powers and resources efficiently, effectively, honestly and economically. It also expects professionalism, competence and skill in the performance of official duties.

The Seal of Good Local Governance Act also treats transparency and accountability in the use of public funds as basic indicators of LGU performance.

DILG’s Local Government Academy gives incoming city mayors practical responsibilities that include organizing executive offices, reviewing the fiscal condition of the LGU, working with barangays, reviewing the Annual Investment Program and preparing the executive budget.

The mayor is not a ceremonial figure.

It is an executive office with financial, administrative and supervisory responsibilities.

BASTE SET HIS OWN STANDARD

When Baste took his oath as incoming mayor in June 2022, he told Dabawenyos:

“Inefficiency in local government will not be tolerated.”

Good.

Then that standard should apply here.

If GenCorp met the qualifications imposed by Davao City, the records should show it.

If city officials had no reasonable way to know about Sara Duterte’s declared interest, the documentary trail should support that explanation.

If the five-year requirement was lawfully modified, the procurement file should show how and why.

Public accountability does not ask us to presume guilt.

It also does not ask us to stop asking questions because somebody else handled the paperwork.

THE DUTERTE NAME DOES NOT ANSWER FOR BASTE

Rodrigo Duterte’s performance as mayor does not answer whether Sebastian Duterte performed his own duties well. Sara Duterte’s record does not answer it either.

Baste holds his own office and exercises his own powers.

His performance has to be assessed from his own decisions, supervision, administration and results.

The same standard should apply to every elected official, regardless of surname.

BACK TO THE STORY I DID NOT USE

So I go back to what somebody told me months ago:

“Huwag niyo na pong hanapin ’yan at madalas ’yan wala.”

I still cannot verify it, so I still will not present it as fact.

Baste may have been outside City Hall doing official work. The account may have been exaggerated. There may be another explanation entirely.

But after his testimony, whether he was physically inside City Hall has become the less interesting question.

The better question is whether he was sufficiently informed about the administration he was leading.

We know GenCorp contracts reached his office.

We know he says he did not know Sara had declared an interest in GenCorp.

We know he says that knowledge would have changed his decision.

We know he acknowledged that although procurement functions and signing authority were delegated, accountability stopped with him.

None of those facts proves corruption.

They do give the public a legitimate basis to ask whether Baste’s lack of knowledge reflected reasonable delegation, weak internal controls, poor communication inside the city government, or inadequate executive supervision.

“I did not know” is an answer.

For the chief executive of a city, it can also lead to the next question:

Mayor, why didn’t you know?

Sources

KAKAMPINK TROLLS? I WENT BACK TO THE DATA.

Gino Borlado — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 13:39:00 GMT

I have to start with an admission.

This topic came from a request by a commuter and transportation page. They asked me if I could look into “Kakampink trolls.”

My first reaction was to push back a little. I do not like spoon-feeding people with information. Part of what I am trying to do with MCT is help people develop the habit of reading, researching, comparing sources and putting information together for themselves.

I would rather have readers who know how to look for an answer than readers who have to wait for me to hand them one.

The page replied that political research is not really their specialty. Fair enough.

Research is a skill, and political disinformation research is an even narrower one. I am not going to judge a commuter and transportation page according to how well it can investigate political influence operations.

Parang hinusgahan ko ang isda dahil hindi siya makalipad nang malayo.

So I took the request.

The question caught my attention for another reason: I have researched this before.

I already had studies, fact checks, platform reports and notes from the 2022 election.

I just never turned them into an article because what I had seen then did not look like the same pattern of publicly documented fake-account and disinformation operations I was finding around pro-Marcos, pro-Duterte and Uniteam networks.

That did not mean I thought Kakampinks were above criticism.

I had already spent a lot of time calling out our own behavior after 2022: the condescension, dogpiling, moral superiority and tendency to treat people who voted differently as stupid or beneath us.

I was a Kakampink in 2022. I am not one now. I realized that if I wanted to be genuinely pro-Philippines, I had to shave off my political color and be willing to criticize every camp, including the one I once belonged to.

I had also been thinking about something else: coordination itself is not the problem.

People fighting disinformation can organize, respond quickly and amplify verified information.

The line is crossed when coordination turns into deception through fake identities, hidden sponsorship, manufactured support or information you know is false - exactly what a Uniteam supporter was doing then.

So I went back to the data.

BEFORE I CALL ANYONE A TROLL

Filipinos use the word “troll” so loosely that it can become almost useless.

Someone disagrees with you, troll. Someone insults your candidate, troll. A thousand people post the same hashtag, troll army. Someone spends all day defending a politician, bayaran. No profile picture, fake account.

Any of those suspicions can turn out to be correct. None proves anything on its own.

A real supporter can be rude, dishonest, gullible or obsessive without belonging to an organized operation.

A volunteer digital activist can coordinate hashtags, share campaign graphics, promote rallies and ask other supporters to amplify posts without pretending to be somebody else.

Then there is brigading. Real users can collectively report, reply to or pressure a target. The activity can be coordinated while the people involved remain genuine individuals using genuine accounts.

A paid political influencer is another category. The person may be real and may post under a real name. The question is whether the political relationship or compensation is disclosed.

A fake-account operator goes further. One person may control several identities and use them to create the appearance that many unrelated people independently hold the same opinion.

There is also a difference between misinformation and disinformation.

Misinformation can be false or inaccurate information shared by someone who believes it.

Disinformation involves deliberate deception.

Intent is harder to prove, which is why I am not going to label every false pro-Robredo post as disinformation simply because it was wrong.

Meta uses the term coordinated inauthentic behavior for operations that work together while misleading users about who they are or what they are doing. Fake accounts are often central to that kind of activity.

Then there is the biggest claim of all: campaign control.

If I find 500 fake accounts supporting Leni Robredo, I can say I found 500 fake accounts supporting Leni Robredo. I cannot jump from there to “Leni Robredo operated them” without evidence connecting those accounts to her campaign.

The same rule applies to Marcos, Duterte or anyone else. Support is one claim. Coordination is another. Payment is another. Fake identity is another. Campaign control is another.

If we throw all of those into one bucket and call them “trolls,” we stop investigating and start insulting each other.

THE KAKAMPINK VOLUNTEER MACHINE WAS REAL

The first thing the evidence shows is that the Robredo volunteer operation was highly organized.

Before the filing of certificates of candidacy in 2021, PCIJ found at least 47 Robredo-supporting Facebook pages that had paid for political ads. Thirty-three of those pages were managed by only two individuals.

After the filing period, PCIJ found another 64 support pages buying ads for Robredo, more support pages than it had identified for any other presidential candidate at that stage. Most openly disclosed that they supported Robredo.

Robredo spokesperson Barry Gutierrez also told PCIJ that volunteers coordinated with the campaign team either to boost official posts or produce their own materials.

During the official 90-day campaign, PCIJ’s review of Facebook Ad Library data found ₱58.75 million in advertising supporting Robredo. Around ₱11 million came from her official pages, while much of the rest came from supporters.

That is a large and organized political operation. It is not, by itself, evidence of a troll farm.

And I have no problem saying that because I believe people pushing for accountable government should organize too.

If thousands of real people openly coordinate around factual information, I do not suddenly call them trolls because they support a politician.

The harder questions begin when we look at how some of that organization was used.

THE PART KAKAMPINKS SHOULD NOT DENY

Some Kakampink groups engaged in brigading.

A Cambridge University Press study on KpopStans for Leni documented a March 9, 2022 “Mass Report Hour.”

Participants circulated lists of Twitter and Facebook accounts they believed were spreading false information, shared reporting instructions, posted screenshots after reporting targets and celebrated when some accounts were suspended.

The Parallel Public Spheres research on the 2022 election also discussed this kind of collective targeting as brigading.

I understand the instinct behind it. If you believe an account is spreading lies during an election, reporting it can feel like public service. But once a group organizes people around selected targets, we are no longer talking about unrelated users independently deciding to report something.

The participants may have been genuine volunteers using genuine accounts. The activity itself was still coordinated pressure against selected targets.

And yes, some Kakampinks were simply assholes online. There was condescension, dogpiling and the habit of treating people who voted differently as if they were stupid, uneducated or beneath the people correcting them.

Being on the side of good governance does not give anyone permission to mock someone’s English, parade their mistakes for applause or turn disagreement into public humiliation.

You can be correct about a politician and still behave badly toward another Filipino.

YES, FALSE INFORMATION CAME FROM SOME PRO-ROBREDO ACCOUNTS TOO

There is no reason to pretend otherwise.

AFP debunked posts claiming Robredo’s February 2022 Naga rally was the biggest campaign rally in Philippine political history. The posts attached supposed crowd estimates to the Philippine National Police and the Associated Press. Representatives of both organizations denied issuing those figures.

VERA Files also documented posts falsely presenting a 2019 photograph of journalist Atom Araullo holding a Gabriela Women’s Party placard as proof that he supported Robredo in 2022. Araullo himself confirmed that the photo came from a Gabriela event he was covering and had nothing to do with Robredo’s presidential campaign.

So if the claim is simply that false information also circulated from pro-Robredo accounts and pages, the answer is yes.

The harder question is how much of it there was and how it compared with false information moving in the other direction.

Tsek.ph’s second election analysis covered 685 fact checks published through the end of April 2022. Among false or misleading claims involving Ferdinand Marcos Jr., 92 percent were favorable to him. Among disinformation involving Robredo, 96 percent was negative toward her.

That dataset is not a census of every false post produced during the election. It reflects claims checked by Tsek.ph’s partner organizations, so it has limits.

Still, it does not show an evenly divided disinformation environment. False pro-Robredo content existed, while the available fact-checking data also showed Robredo absorbing overwhelmingly negative disinformation and Marcos benefiting overwhelmingly from favorable false or misleading claims.

Both can be true at the same time.

THE FINDING THAT CHANGED MY EARLIER VIEW

This is where my old impression needed correction.

A 2023 Internews study looked at covert political influence during the 2022 election across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok.

Researchers identified 1,425 influencer accounts they assessed as likely involved in covert political campaigning, representing at least 584 unique influencers across platforms.

The researchers also modeled the possible financial value of commissioned influencer work.

In their model, influencer activity supporting Marcos was valued at around ₱351 million, Robredo at around ₱135 million, Isko Moreno at ₱42 million and Manny Pacquiao at ₱1 million.

I would be dishonest if I left Robredo’s number out because it complicates the image of a purely volunteer Pink campaign. I would also be dishonest if I turned that into, “Leni Robredo spent ₱135 million on trolls.”

The researchers warned against reading the estimates that way. They did not have data confirming that every influencer who openly supported a candidate had actually been commissioned by that candidate or campaign.

What the study gives us is narrower. There is serious evidence of a covert political influencer industry during the 2022 election. Accounts supporting Robredo were part of the researchers’ model, and the estimated value attached to pro-Robredo influence activity was substantial.

That was the part I had not given enough attention before. The Pink online operation had a huge volunteer base, but volunteer activity was not the whole picture.

PAYMENT STILL DOES NOT TELL US WHO CONTROLLED THE OPERATION

A real influencer can be paid to promote a candidate while using a real identity. That raises questions about disclosure and campaign spending, especially when audiences are not told that political content was commissioned.

A fake-account network is a different operation.

Meta’s reporting before the 2022 election shows how commercial this business can become. The company said it removed around a dozen clusters focused on fake engagement. In one case, a social-media management agency used more than 700 accounts to post and share political and entertainment content.

Meta also found people running inauthentic engagement activity for several candidates during the same election. Some operators are simply selling a service.

So an account promoting a politician does not automatically tell us who owns it, who pays it or who controls it.

WHERE THE EVIDENCE STOPS

After going through the platform reports and research I could find, I did not find a Meta takedown or comparable platform finding that tied a coordinated fake-account network to Robredo’s official campaign.

That does not prove that no such operation ever existed. It means I cannot claim that one did based on the evidence I found.

Political impersonation also makes attribution difficult. A fake account can pretend to support anyone. A paid operator can work for several clients. A volunteer can look like a professional operator, while a professional operator can pose as an enthusiastic volunteer.

A pink profile photo proves very little. So does a hashtag.

WHY I DID NOT PUT THE KAKAMPINK AND DDS OR UNITEAM OPERATIONS IN THE SAME BOX

In 2019, Meta removed 200 Philippine Facebook and Instagram pages, groups and accounts for coordinated inauthentic behavior.

Meta said the people behind the activity used both authentic and fake accounts, concealed who they were and were linked to a network organized by Nic Gabunada, who had led social-media work for Rodrigo Duterte’s 2016 presidential campaign.

During the 2022 presidential race, Twitter suspended more than 300 accounts from what it described as the Marcos supporter base for violating its platform-manipulation and spam policy.

The Marcos camp questioned whether those accounts actually belonged to its supporters, and Twitter did not say the official Marcos campaign controlled them.

That qualification stays. I cannot demand strict proof when I look at Kakampink activity, then throw that standard away when I look at Marcos supporters.

But when I put those platform actions beside Tsek.ph’s fact-checking data and the research on fake-account operations in Philippine politics, I still do not see evidence showing identical operations on the two sides.

That was my reading before, and most of it survived this second look. What changed was my understanding of the Pink side because I had treated it too heavily as a volunteer operation.

There were real volunteers. There was brigading. There was false information. There was covert influencer activity.

What I still did not find was public evidence proving that the official Robredo campaign ran a coordinated fake-account troll farm.

SO, WERE THERE KAKAMPINK TROLLS?

It depends on what you mean.

If you mean real Kakampinks who harassed people, joined pile-ons, mass-reported accounts, mocked voters or spread false claims, yes. Those people existed.

If you mean organized Kakampink digital activists, yes. That is documented.

If you mean coordinated brigading, yes. Researchers documented it.

If you mean covert influencers supporting Robredo, there is serious research supporting that category, with a very large warning attached to the spending estimates.

If you mean fake-account operators working for the official Robredo campaign, I did not find enough evidence to state that as fact.

And if somebody has better evidence, I want to see it.

My standard has not changed. Organize. Respond quickly. Amplify verified information. Work together against disinformation. But do not manufacture people who do not exist, hide political sponsorship, fabricate evidence or knowingly spread false information.

If a Kakampink crosses that line, call it what it is.

Apply the same standard to everyone else.

Sources

ANG KAMANYAKAN NG ILANG PILIPINO: HOW BEL ZAMORA’S WAY OF SPEAKING BECAME SEXUALIZED

Gino Borlado — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 03:48:00 GMT

I spent nearly 20 years in the call center industry, so when Atty. Bel Zamora started questioning a witness during the September 28 impeachment hearing, the way she spoke did not sound strange to me.

Conyo? Absolutely. That R in “baril” was very conyo, and I completely understand why people noticed it. I noticed it too.

What I did not hear was a woman trying to seduce somebody.

Then I started reading the comments.

Suddenly, people were calling her “malandi.” Others said she sounded like she was trying to seduce the witness. There were jokes about erections, ovulation, a “bedroom voice,” whether she was married, whether the police officer was attracted to her, and whether Zamora knew exactly what she was doing with her voice.

Some people were basically writing sexual fan fiction around a congresswoman conducting a direct examination.

And I thought: Wait. What exactly did this woman do?

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED

Police Major Joericson Sangalang of the Philippine National Police Firearms and Explosives Office testified that Vice President Sara Duterte had 22 firearms registered under her name, while her husband, lawyer Manases “Mans” Carpio, had 29.

Zamora was presenting him as a prosecution witness under Article II of the impeachment case involving allegations of unexplained wealth. Senator-judges themselves questioned the relevance of the firearms testimony, so there was plenty to argue about without discussing Zamora’s sexuality.

Did the witness advance the prosecution’s case? Was the connection to the Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth properly developed? Was Zamora effective during direct examination? Was she prepared enough?

Those are fair questions.

Even saying that you find her speaking style irritating is fair. People dislike accents, voices and mannerisms all the time.

But somewhere along the way, criticism of how she performed became commentary about what kind of woman people imagined her to be.

Before getting there, though, I want to correct something that was already being distorted online.

The joke was not that “maraming baril” itself was sexual. What caught people’s attention was how Zamora pronounced “baril,” especially that R.

Very conyo.

Some commenters later started writing versions such as “malaking… baril” and “ganito kalaking baril,” then attached penis jokes to the altered wording. The hearing transcript I checked does not contain that supposed line.

So even the sexual joke was partly created by people changing what they had heard.

That is worth remembering.

CONYO IS NOT JUST AN ACCENT

I also think we need to understand what conyo means in the Philippine setting.

We often use the word as shorthand for Taglish spoken with a particular accent. But conyo has long referred to something broader than pronunciation.

Linguistic research describes conyo as both a recognizable social persona and a recognizable speech register. It has been associated historically with urban elites, aspirational groups and private-school-educated youth, especially in Manila.

The Taglish is part of it. So are the expressions, pronunciation, cadence, code-switching and certain words associated with the group.

But from my own experience, conyo is also connected to a social world.

I had the opportunity to work closely with people who came from that world for years. The call center industry brought Filipinos from wildly different backgrounds into the same workplace, and I found myself working beside people whose upbringing, schools, barkada and family circumstances were very different from mine.

At one point, I was fully in the middle of what people around us jokingly referred to as the “war of the dudes and the pares.”

If you were around certain BPO circles during that period, you probably encountered versions of it. There were people who naturally called everyone “dude,” others who used “pare,” and all the social signals and jokes that came with those groups.

I heard the accents every day. I heard the vocabulary. I understood the social codes.

But I never assimilated the speaking style.

I grew up poor.

That life was never mine.

I could work with people from that background, become friends with them and understand how they spoke without suddenly acquiring the same speech patterns. Being surrounded by a social group does not erase where you came from or the environment that formed you.

That familiarity was not limited to people I worked with.

Four of my closest female friends over the years spoke very much like Bel Zamora.

I knew them well, spent countless hours talking with them, and their cadence never struck me as flirtation or sexual signaling. That was simply how they spoke.

So when I heard Zamora, the voice itself did not suggest anything sexual to me. It sounded familiar.

SHE HAS ALWAYS TALKED LIKE THAT

Another thing became obvious when I checked Zamora’s earlier appearances.

She did not suddenly discover this speaking voice while questioning a male police officer.

Watch her interviews. Watch the House proceedings. Watch the prosecution press conferences. The pronunciation, the English-dominant cadence, the kolehiyala quality and the tendency to speak softly while smiling were already there.

Even people in the same online discussions were pointing this out.

“Based sa previous interviews niya, ganyan na talaga siya magsalita.”

“If nanonood kayo ng presscon after trial, ganyan talaga magsalita si Cong Bel.”

Another commenter said her accent has always sounded that way and that she is normally “smiley smiley.”

So if you have been monitoring the lower House deliberations and the prosecution team instead of encountering Bel Zamora for the first time through a viral clip, you probably would not have been shocked by her voice.

You might still find it annoying.

You might still make fun of the R.

But the idea that she suddenly adopted some seductive courtroom persona becomes harder to sustain once you have actually watched her speak before.

WHEN THE COMMENTS TURNED SEXUAL

This is where I draw the line.

Calling her conyo is not misogyny.

Laughing at the pronunciation of “baril” is not misogyny.

Saying you dislike her voice is not misogyny.

Criticizing her direct examination is certainly not misogyny.

Women in government do not get immunity from criticism simply because they are women. I would never want that standard applied to any politician.

Then look at what some people actually wrote.

“Ba’t parang nang-aakit si Ma’am?”

“What’s with the bedroom voice?”

“Erection your honor!”

“Bat ang landi ng body language and intonation ni madam?”

“Ovulating ba si madam?”

There were comments about whether Zamora was married. There were claims that she was flirting to gain an advantage. One commenter compared her to educated escorts in hotel lobbies.

That is no longer criticism of a lawyer’s performance.

Nobody needs to speculate about a woman’s ovulation to evaluate direct examination.

Nobody needs an erection joke to assess evidence.

Nobody needs to compare a congresswoman with an escort to explain that they dislike her courtroom style.

And if your analysis of an impeachment prosecutor somehow ends with her sex appeal, the discussion has already gone somewhere else.

I also want to keep the scale accurate. Reddit comments are not a scientific survey of Filipinos. I cannot take two threads and declare that the entire country thinks this way.

There were also commenters telling people to stop sexualizing her. Others repeatedly explained that Zamora had always spoken that way.

What the threads give us is documented evidence of how a visible group of Filipino social-media users reacted.

That evidence is ugly enough without exaggerating it.

THEN REMEMBER BONG SUNTAY

The reaction becomes even stranger when you remember what happened in the House in March.

Quezon City Rep. Bong Suntay is also a lawyer. During a House Committee on Justice hearing on the impeachment complaints against Sara Duterte, Suntay used actress Anne Curtis while making an analogy.

He talked about seeing Curtis, finding her beautiful and experiencing desire. His words included: “may desire sa loob ko na nag-init talaga,” followed by his reference to imagining what could happen.

There was no need to interpret his accent.

There was no need to wonder whether an R sounded sexy.

A male congressman and lawyer actually introduced his sexual thoughts about a woman into an official congressional proceeding.

Bel Zamora objected.

She moved to have Suntay’s statement removed from the record and reminded the committee that Women’s Month had just begun. The committee agreed to strike the remarks.

The Philippine Commission on Women later condemned Suntay’s statement as sexual objectification.

Now compare that with what happened to Zamora.

Months after objecting to a male colleague sexualizing an actress in Congress, Zamora appeared in the impeachment court and spoke the way she has spoken before.

And people sexualized her.

The man actually talked about his sexual desire.

The woman talked about firearms.

Yet somehow, strangers managed to make her sexuality part of the discussion too.

THERE IS RESEARCH ON THIS

I am not pointing this out because I feel any need to defend Zamora. I have no personal stake in doing so. She does not even represent my district.

A 2022 peer-reviewed Philippine study examined sexist humor aimed at a Filipina politician in online discussions.

The researchers found that sexualized jokes can do more than insult a woman personally. They can also weaken how people regard her legitimacy as a political actor.

UN Women Philippines has also warned about online abuse directed at women in politics, including sexual harassment, misogynistic speech and attacks tied to gender.

That does not mean every insult directed at a female politician qualifies as misogyny.

The content tells us what kind of attack we are looking at.

Call a politician incompetent and you are criticizing competence.

Call her dishonest and you are questioning honesty.

Call her unprepared and you are criticizing preparation.

Start discussing whether she is horny, ovulating, seductive or using sex to influence men, and gender has entered the attack in a very different way.

That is exactly what happened in some of the reaction to Bel Zamora.

NOTHING WAS WRONG WITH THE WAY SHE TALKED

I went back and listened again.

I still hear conyo.

I still hear the R.

I still understand why some Filipinos find that manner of speaking funny or irritating. I spent nearly 20 years around people who spoke in similar ways, and even I never adopted it.

There is still nothing wrong with the way Bel Zamora talked.

You can dislike the accent. You can laugh at the R. You can find her cadence irritating, question her courtroom performance or criticize the way she handled the examination.

All of that is fair.

But if you listened to her and heard seduction, if you looked at her expressions and saw a sexual invitation, if your response was “malandi,” “bedroom voice,” ovulation jokes or erections, then something is wrong with the way you are looking at her.

She was speaking. You sexualized it.

And your sexualized criticism of the way Bel Zamora speaks tells me far more about you than it does about her.

Sources

FOR A FEW GUNS MORE

Gino Borlado — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 08:06:00 GMT

I do not own a gun. I have never owned one, and until this week I had never seriously read Philippine firearms law. This is my first time researching the subject, and the firearm records raised in Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial gave me a reason to finally learn how the system works.

Back in June, House prosecutors said PNP records showed 52 firearms registered to Vice President Sara Duterte and her husband, lawyer Manases “Mans” Carpio. On September 28, Police Maj. Joericson Sangalang of the PNP Firearms and Explosives Office gave the Senate impeachment court a more exact count: 22 firearms registered to Sara and 29 to Mans, 51 in all. He estimated Sara’s firearms at ₱2,184,550 and Mans’s at ₱5,035,820, or ₱7,220,370 combined. The best-supported figure now is 51, not the earlier 52.

The basic question is still a good one: Can a Filipino civilian legally own 22 or 29 guns?

Yes.

HOW PHILIPPINE LAW COUNTS GUN OWNERSHIP

Republic Act No. 10591, the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act, divides individual Licenses to Own and Possess Firearms, or LTOPFs, into five types. Type 1 allows up to two registered firearms, Type 2 up to five, Type 3 up to ten, Type 4 up to fifteen, and Type 5 allows a certified gun collector to own and possess more than fifteen.

RA 10591 does not set another numerical ceiling after fifteen. It simply says “more than fifteen.” Twenty, thirty or more firearms are therefore not illegal merely because of the number, provided the owner and the firearms comply with the licensing, registration and other rules in the law.

WHY ARE THERE FIVE TYPES?

The law adds controls as the allowed number rises. All Types 1 through 5 need a locked vault, container or another approved security measure for firearm storage. Types 3 through 5 also have bond and inspection provisions, while Type 5 adds certified gun-collector status.

There is a constitutional limit on the inspection provision. In Acosta v. Ochoa, the Supreme Court ruled that the PNP cannot use firearm licensing as authority for a warrantless search of an applicant’s home. A home inspection still needs a valid search warrant.

I also searched for an official explanation of why Congress chose two, five, ten and fifteen as the cutoffs. I did not find a reliable legislative source explaining those exact numbers. The statute gives us the categories and their conditions, but not a formula for the thresholds.

WHAT MAKES SOMEONE A TYPE 5 GUN COLLECTOR?

An LTOPF applicant has to satisfy the qualifications in RA 10591 and the PNP rules, including citizenship and age rules, proof of income or occupation, police and NBI clearances, neuro-psychiatric clearance, drug testing and gun-safety training.

Type 5 adds another document: a Gun Collector’s Certificate. PNP licensing requirements published on an official PNP site list that certificate separately for a Type 5 licensee, while the 2018 rules say the FEO issues guidelines for authorization to acquire additional firearms under Type 5.

Section 9 of RA 10591 does not say an applicant has to prove a personal need for firearm number sixteen. Type 5 is a collector category, not a threat classification, and public office or profession does not substitute for the licensing conditions.

Sara Duterte does not qualify for Type 5 merely because she is Vice President. Mans Carpio does not qualify merely because he is a lawyer. If either legally owns more than fifteen registered firearms at one time, the statutory category is Type 5 and the collector rules come with it.

THE PNP COUNT PUTS BOTH ABOVE TYPE 4

Sangalang testified that Sara has 22 firearms registered under her name: 14 pistols, two revolvers, five rifles and one shotgun. Mans has 29: 16 pistols, two revolvers, ten rifles and one shotgun. On the face of those figures, both are above the Type 4 ceiling of fifteen.

If these are concurrent registrations, Section 9 points to Type 5 for each owner. Yet the public reports of Sangalang’s testimony that I reviewed give the firearm count, types and estimated values without identifying either person’s LTOPF category or showing a Gun Collector’s Certificate.

Those documents may exist. I simply have not seen them in the public reporting I reviewed. They are the next records I would ask the FEO to identify.

THE FOUR CLASS-A LIGHT WEAPONS NEED THEIR OWN CHECK

Sangalang also testified that three rifles registered to Sara are classified by the PNP as Class-A light weapons: a Bushmaster XM-15, a Heckler & Koch 416 and a Heckler & Koch G36. One rifle registered to Mans was also classified as a Class-A light weapon.

RA 10591 generally reserves light weapons for the AFP, PNP and other law-enforcement agencies authorized by the President. The same law, however, contains an exception for private individuals who already had licenses to possess Class-A light weapons when RA 10591 took effect. Those owners may continue possessing them and renewing their licenses, subject to the other provisions of the law.

The existence of four Class-A firearms in the PNP records is therefore not enough to call their possession illegal. The acquisition and licensing dates are needed to determine whether the grandfather provision applies.

WHY ARE THE GUNS IN THE IMPEACHMENT CASE?

The prosecution is not arguing that 51 guns are illegal simply because there are 51 of them. Its position is that firearms registered to Sara and Mans were assets allegedly absent from Sara’s Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth, and that their value is relevant to Article II of the impeachment case, which includes allegations involving unexplained wealth.

Republic Act No. 6713 says a SALN must disclose personal property and acquisition cost, along with other assets, liabilities, business interests and financial connections. It also covers the filer’s spouse, subject to legal rules governing the spouses’ property relations.

Current Civil Service Commission rules go further. Under the 2025 Omnibus Rules on the SALN, registered personal property such as motor vehicles, boats, aircraft and firearms must be declared individually.

That current rule is useful for SALNs filed under it, but the prosecution’s allegations reach earlier filing years as well. Each SALN has to be assessed under the law and rules applicable to its filing period.

THE SUPREME COURT HAS ALREADY DEALT WITH FIREARMS OMITTED FROM A SALN

In San Diego v. Fact-Finding Investigation Committee, the Supreme Court dealt with a police officer who failed to disclose firearms in his SALN. The Court said the SALN form had spaces for “Other Personal Property” and acquisition cost, and held that non-declaration of the firearms could support liability for Simple Negligence.

The Court did not automatically treat the omission as Dishonesty. It found no showing in that case that the omission made the officer’s accumulated wealth manifestly disproportionate to his income or that he could not properly account for the source of the firearms.

That distinction applies here as a legal caution. If firearms that should have been declared were omitted, the omission is legally relevant. Omission alone, however, does not prove corruption, illegal acquisition or unexplained wealth. Those conclusions need additional evidence.

WHY DO MANS CARPIO’S 29 GUNS ENTER SARA’S SALN DISCUSSION?

RA 6713 generally includes the assets, liabilities, net worth and financial interests of a public official’s spouse. The Supreme Court recognized an exception in Abid-Babano v. Executive Secretary for spouses whose marriage is governed by complete separation of property.

During Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial on July 20, her defense confirmed that she and Mans married in 2007 and had no prenuptial agreement. The impeachment court applied the Family Code’s default absolute-community regime and ruled that Mans’s financial records were relevant to determining Sara’s financial position.

That does not automatically turn every firearm registered to Mans into Sara’s own personal property. The Family Code contains exclusions from absolute community, and acquisition dates and circumstances can affect how a particular asset is classified. But Mans’s financial records cannot be dismissed as irrelevant merely because the guns are registered in his name.

WHAT 51 GUNS DO NOT PROVE

The PNP count alone does not prove illegal firearm possession, corruption, hidden wealth or the existence of a private armed group. It also does not tell us why Sara or Mans wanted so many guns or who, if anyone, they believed they needed protection from.

I still cannot answer the question, “Who are they arming themselves against?” Registration records cannot answer motive. They can answer whether licenses, registrations, acquisition dates and values line up with the law and with the SALNs filed for the same periods.

WHAT THE DOCUMENTS CAN ANSWER

For each firearm, the useful records are the registered owner, date of acquisition, acquisition cost, registration status and any later transfer or disposal. For Sara and Mans, the FEO records should also identify the LTOPF category in force during the periods covered by the firearm list and, if Type 5 applied, the corresponding Gun Collector’s Certificate.

For the four Class-A light weapons, the acquisition and licensing history should tell us whether the grandfather provision applies. Those records can then be placed beside the SALNs for the corresponding years.

If the licenses were proper, the record should show that. The same goes for Type 5 collector status, firearm registrations, and any transfers that affect the count. We already have one correction from the PNP witness: the earlier prosecution figure of 52 has become 51.

If registered firearms that should have appeared in a SALN were omitted, the prosecution should identify the firearm, the filing year and the acquisition cost, then prove the omission from the actual SALN. A large collection is a reason to check the records. It is not a substitute for them.

RA 10591 answers how a civilian can legally own this many guns. The harder questions are now documentary: whether Sara Duterte and Mans Carpio held the correct licenses, whether the four Class-A weapons fall under the legal exception, and whether their firearm records match the SALNs for the relevant years.

Sources

THE PEOPLE WHO HAD TO IDENTIFY THE BODIES

Gino Borlado — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 02:58:41 GMT

For years, much of the argument over the drug war happened through numbers. We argued about how many people were killed, how many died during police operations, how many allegedly fought back and how many deaths could fairly be attributed to the government’s campaign. Those numbers are necessary because they help us understand the scale of what happened. But they leave out much of what surviving families have been trying to tell us.

A body count cannot explain what it was like to search for your child and discover days later that his body was already in a funeral home. It cannot explain what a mother goes through after hearing that her son, who had difficulty running because of a disability, was allegedly ordered to run before he was shot. And it cannot tell us how another mother continued living after burying four sons over nearly six years.

The independent, civil-society-led Philippine Truth Commission has begun holding public truth-telling sessions where surviving families can recount these experiences. It is not a government body. It documents their accounts and examines them alongside records and other evidence. Its work includes killings connected with the national anti-drug campaign and apparent death-squad killings in Davao City that happened years earlier.

I have been reading the testimony and the older records behind these cases. What stays with me is how much we lose when a person’s life is reduced to a statistic, a police entry or the word “nanlaban.” We hear the accusation and the official explanation, argue about them for a while, and move on. The family still has to find the body, arrange the burial and live with questions that may remain unanswered for years.

WHAT THE FAMILIES CAN TELL US

Listening to a surviving relative does not mean accepting every claim without checking it. We can compare the account with police documents, other witnesses and findings from an examination of the remains. Some claims will be supported, while others may weaken when records conflict or witnesses change their accounts. If I am going to write about these families, I also have to be honest about those problems.

Their testimony preserves things that a police report rarely captures: what happened before the death, what relatives were told afterward, where they searched, whom they approached for help and what happened when they filed complaints. It lets us follow what happened to the family in the months and years after public attention had gone elsewhere.

RAYMART SIAPO

Luzviminda Siapo was working in Kuwait when her son Raymart was killed in Navotas on March 29, 2017. He had congenital clubfoot, a condition present from birth that affected his ability to walk and run. The Truth Commission describes him as 18, although some reports published at the time gave his age as 19.

According to the Commission, a neighbor accused Raymart of selling marijuana, and he was taken hours later. Reports from 2017 record witness accounts of armed men bringing him near a bridge and ordering him to run before shooting him. Ronald dela Rosa, then chief of the Philippine National Police, publicly described the killing as murder and ordered the Northern Police District to investigate.

Raymart’s remains were exhumed years later, and forensic pathologist Dr. Raquel Fortun presented preliminary findings to the Truth Commission. According to GMA’s report on the hearing, some bones were missing, which limited the examination. The original death certificate and police medical report recorded gunshot wounds to the head. Fortun questioned parts of the earlier documentation, identified gunshot wounds as the cause of death and said the exact number of shots could not be determined from the available remains.

Fortun classified the manner of death as homicide. That medical finding does not, by itself, establish murder or tell us who should be held criminally responsible. Her examination gives investigators more evidence to compare with the earlier records and witness accounts, although the available remains could not answer every question.

Luzviminda’s question is simple enough for anyone to understand. If her son had committed an offense, why was he not arrested and brought through the justice system? She does not have to prove that Raymart was perfect for that question to deserve an answer. An accusation, however serious, still has to be dealt with through a lawful process.

DARWIN HAMOY

The second public truth-telling session centered on Mariza Hamoy and her son Darwin, who was 17 when he was killed during a police anti-drug operation in Payatas, Quezon City, on August 15, 2016. The Truth Commission describes him as a student who helped his family by carrying people’s purchases at the market for small amounts of money.

Police said officers conducting a drug operation encountered armed resistance. Darwin and four other men were killed. His family disputed the police account, and Mariza and relatives of other victims pursued complaints against the officers involved.

But the families’ complaint ran into problems. According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, another complainant, Polo, initially supported their version but later signed an affidavit withdrawing her complaint and said she had not witnessed the incident. The Ombudsman dismissed the complaint in 2018, treating Mariza’s and another complainant’s accounts as hearsay because they had not witnessed the shooting. The newspaper noted that the resolution did not mention Polo’s retraction.

The same report raised a question about the police account. The Ombudsman relied partly on direct-assault charges against survivor Harold Arevalo to support the claim of a gunfight. But the Inquirer reported that his case had already been dismissed in January 2018 because prosecutors failed to prove that he had exchanged gunfire with police. The newspaper said it was unclear whether the Ombudsman knew about that dismissal. Neither development, on its own, settles how the five men died.

Darwin’s remains were later exhumed, and Fortun examined them alongside the earlier medical records. According to the Truth Commission, the examination documented injuries consistent with gunshot wounds and classified the manner of death as homicide. As with Raymart, that finding does not establish who fired the shots or determine criminal responsibility. It provides physical evidence to compare with the different accounts.

While reading about the complaints and medical findings, I kept thinking about what Mariza had already gone through just to bring her son home. According to VERA Files, she searched for days before learning that his body had been taken to a funeral parlor. She worked as a street sweeper and then had to find the money for his funeral and burial.

Mariza managed to buy Darwin a new barong before he was placed in the casket. She explained that she did not want him buried in old clothes because this would be the last time she could buy her son something to wear. I keep coming back to that detail. While the public was being told about another police operation, she was finding money to bury her child and choosing the last clothes she would ever buy for him.

CLARITA ALIA

Clarita Alia’s account takes us further back, before the national anti-drug campaign began in 2016. A vegetable vendor from Davao City, she lost four teenage sons—Richard, Christopher, Bobby and Fernando—between 2001 and 2007. She testified before the Truth Commission on September 25, 2026.

Their cases appear in Human Rights Watch’s 2009 investigation of apparent death-squad killings in Mindanao. Some ages and dates conflict, even between sections of that report. I cannot confidently give those disputed details as settled facts.

Clarita told HRW that police tried to take Richard without a warrant. When she resisted, she said, an officer threatened that her sons would be killed “one by one.” HRW recorded her account; that alone does not prove the threat was made. It described the brothers’ deaths as apparent death-squad killings by unidentified perpetrators and reported no arrests in the four cases by publication.

The report also recorded Richard’s earlier arrests for petty crimes, a cellphone-theft accusation against Bobby, and Fernando’s arrest for sniffing rugby, an industrial solvent. Arrests and accusations do not establish guilt.

According to the Commission, Clarita sent Fernando away because she feared for him after losing three sons. He returned and was killed in 2007. She has continued seeking accountability. Her position is that any offenses should have been dealt with through arrest and a court hearing.

I do not think a parent should have to present a flawless child before the public is willing to ask whether his death was lawful. Whatever accusations existed, they still needed to be investigated. They could not replace a case, a hearing and a judgment.

THESE ACCOUNTS WERE ALREADY ON RECORD

HRW interviewed Clarita in 2008 and published her account in 2009, seventeen years before these hearings. Its wider investigation reported evidence of police or local-government involvement in some killings and fear among witnesses. Those findings were not court judgments.

The older record gives investigators something to compare with what people are saying now. They can look for changes, missing details and questions that were never answered.

The Commission says it will examine the earlier Davao killings alongside cases from the national campaign, including what carried over and what changed. Any claim connecting the people, organizations or methods involved still needs evidence.

WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARD

Public attention often follows a killing only as far as the police report, the funeral and the argument over what happened. For the families, that is the beginning of years of searching, explaining and asking for help.

Luzviminda had to return from Kuwait and begin asking what happened to Raymart. Mariza had to find Darwin, raise money for his funeral and pursue complaints through a process in which parts of the evidence later weakened. Clarita lived through the deaths of four sons over nearly six years and continued asking for accountability.

Their experiences also show why finding out what happened becomes harder as the years pass. Witnesses become afraid or change their accounts. Documents may be incomplete, and memories have to be compared with records made closer to the event. An examination of the remains can reveal problems in earlier medical reports without identifying who committed the killing. Even basic details, including a victim’s age, sometimes differ across sources.

LISTENING TO THE PEOPLE LEFT BEHIND

For years, public arguments about these killings often began by asking whether the victim used drugs, sold them, committed other crimes or resisted police. Those questions belong in an investigation, but their answers do not, by themselves, establish that a killing was lawful. An accusation is not a conviction, an intelligence record is not a court judgment, and previous wrongdoing does not cancel a person’s right to due process.

Reading these accounts makes it harder to leave the discussion at labels such as “drug suspect,” “criminal” or “nanlaban.” I think about the families trying to understand what happened, dealing with conflicting accounts and deciding whether to keep pursuing a complaint. I think about the ordinary things that still had to be done while they were grieving, including finding money and choosing clothes for a burial.

Someone had to identify the body, pay for the coffin, approach the police and file complaints. Someone had to remember dates, repeat names and keep asking questions after most people had stopped paying attention. These are things a body count cannot tell us, and I do not want to lose them in another argument about which political side is right.

We have spent years debating the drug war. Reading these accounts made me ask how much time I had actually given the people left behind. I think we owe them that attention, along with the care to check what they tell us and be honest about what remains unanswered.

Sources

DO WE REALLY SUPPORT FACT-CHECKERS?

Gino Borlado — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 22:59:00 GMT

Within the MCT community, I have been wondering how strong our support for fact-checking organizations really is.

Posts from VERA Files, Rappler Fact Check, AFP Fact Check Philippines and other fact-checking groups rarely seem to receive the attention that political opinions, angry reactions and viral accusations attract. I notice the same weak response even among academics, professionals, policy-minded readers and advocates of good governance.

I do not have the numbers to prove this. I am saying it based on the engagement I see in and around this page, and it makes me wonder what we really mean when we say we value verified information.

Supporting fact-checkers takes more than agreeing with them after they confirm something we already believe. We can follow their pages, share their findings, send them suspicious claims, cite their work and accept their corrections when the evidence goes against our politics.

They cannot check every video, quote card, altered photograph, invented headline and recycled lie that appears online. Their work can only go so far when a false post spreads across hundreds of accounts while the correction reaches the same small circle of readers.

REPORTING FALSE CONTENT RESPONSIBLY

I initially thought of asking everyone to mass-report pages that repeatedly spread disinformation. The more I looked into how Facebook handles reports, the more cautious I became about that proposal.

A report should point to an actual violation. It should never become a weapon against a page, journalist, critic or ordinary user whose politics we dislike.

Facebook itself says the number of reports does not determine whether content is removed. Its reviewers are supposed to apply the same Community Standards whether a post receives one report or thousands.

That means a mass-reporting campaign cannot turn a post allowed under Meta’s rules into a violation. It can still create noise, encourage retaliation and send legitimate work into a review system that already makes mistakes.

The better approach is to report the exact post, photograph, video or account activity involved. Choose the closest truthful reporting category, include the fact-check when the form allows more information, and keep the URL and a screenshot.

Do not report an entire page merely because one post is wrong. Report the page itself when there is a clear record of deception, impersonation, scams, coordinated abuse or repeated violations.

Once a user reports an already debunked post, Meta has to decide what to do with it. Many users lose confidence in the process at this stage.

FALSE DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN REMOVABLE

Meta does not treat every false statement as a violation of its Community Standards; it says it removes misinformation when the content is likely to contribute directly to imminent physical harm. It also removes some deceptive content connected to voting and other specific harms covered by its policies, while many other false claims remain online.

The third-party fact-checking system works differently. A fact-checker can rate a post false, partly false or altered, after which Meta may attach a warning, reduce its reach and restrict a repeat offender’s ability to advertise or earn money.

The fact-checker does not delete the post, suspend the account or ban the page. Meta makes those decisions.

This explains the message users often receive after reporting a clearly false post: Facebook reviewed it and found that it did not violate the Community Standards. Facebook is only saying it found no reason to remove the post under the rule used to review the report; the truth of the claim is a separate question that Meta does a poor job of explaining.

WHAT HAPPENED TO FACEBOOK’S FACT-CHECKING PARTNERSHIP?

Facebook introduced its third-party fact-checking program in the Philippines in April 2018 with VERA Files and Rappler. Agence France-Presse later became another Philippine partner.

Meta announced in January 2025 that it would end the program in the United States and replace it there with Community Notes. This confused many people because reports often described the change as the end of Facebook fact-checking without making clear that it applied only in the United States.

The Philippine partnership was still in place after that United States announcement. During a House hearing on April 8, 2025, Meta public policy director Rafael Frankel named VERA Files, Rappler and AFP as the company’s Philippine fact-checking partners and said the program would continue outside the United States.

Current VERA Files pages still describe the organization as part of Meta’s third-party fact-checking program. AFP’s report on its 2025 digital investigation work, published in 2026, also said the Meta contract had ended in the United States while continuing in other regions for the time being.

I found no public Meta announcement ending the partnership in the Philippines. What remains uncertain is how long Meta intends to keep it, how much support it still gives the program and whether Community Notes will eventually replace it here.

HOW DOES META REVIEW A REPORT?

Meta says its system uses automation and human reviewers. Reports may be sent to different reviewers based on language and the suspected violation, while automated systems can remove content when they are almost certain that a rule was broken or send less certain cases to a person.

The company says it decides which reports to handle first based on the possible harm, how widely the content is spreading and the likelihood that it breaks a rule. Reports are therefore not always handled in the order they arrive.

Meta has not clearly explained how it decides which ordinary reports get priority. Based on its public explanations, the reporting category, possible rule violation, harm, reach, language and need for someone familiar with the issue can all affect where a report goes and how quickly it is handled.

Meta’s public explanation still leaves users without enough information about a specific decision. When Meta says a post did not violate its rules, which rule was tested?

Did automation close the report, did a person read the full article, was the disputed claim checked, and did the reviewer understand the Philippine context?

Meta also has a problem with context. Its reviewers and automated systems can understand the words in a post and still miss the history, coded language, political timing or local damage behind them.

Meta knows this problem exists. In 2021, the company acknowledged that AI still struggled to understand content across languages, cultures and countries because the same words can have very different meanings depending on where and how they are used.

Human review does not automatically solve that problem. Meta told Amnesty International in 2024 that it had human-review capacity in Filipino and Cebuano, but it did not say how many reviewers it employed for either language.

Amnesty noted that Filipino and Cebuano represent only two of around 170 languages spoken in the country. It also reported that other major languages, including Ilocano, were not covered by Facebook content moderators assigned to review posts in those languages.

A Philippine case decided by the independent Oversight Board in November 2025 shows how the system can fail at several levels. A manipulated video used footage of a protest in Serbia, added chants of “Duterte” and made it appear that supporters of former president Rodrigo Duterte were demonstrating in the Netherlands after his arrest.

Meta’s automated system flagged the original video as possible misinformation, and similar versions had already been rated false by Philippine fact-checkers. The original still received around 100,000 views because fact-checkers could not review everything in their queue.

When another user reported a reshared version, Meta did not prioritize the report for human review. A person later reviewed the appeal and upheld the decision to leave the post untouched.

The Oversight Board said Meta should have placed a High-Risk warning on the video. It also found that Meta should have treated Duterte’s arrest as a critical political event because misleading posts were spreading during a period of heightened tension.

Failures can happen at every stage. Automated systems miss local context, crowded queues keep posts from fact-checkers, human reviewers make mistakes, and Meta’s own rules allow many false claims to remain online.

I cannot say Meta is unaware of the problem. It has studied the risks, hired reviewers, built automated systems and worked with local fact-checkers; its knowledge has still not produced the consistent and sustained response needed to match the scale of the damage.

Users usually receive a result with little useful explanation. That vague answer leaves people wondering whether Meta is ignoring disinformation or removing legitimate posts without understanding them.

I have experienced the second problem three times. Three MCT articles backed by factual sources were removed after being reported for alleged Community Standards violations, yet the notices did not identify the exact sentence, image or context that supposedly crossed the line.

I appealed. All three articles were restored.

The fact that Meta restored them tells me the first decisions were reversed after another review. It did not tell me how the errors happened, which part of each article triggered the action or what would prevent the same thing from happening again.

I have also seen already debunked misinformation remain online after many people reported it. Meta’s own rule explains why the number of reports does not force removal; it still does not explain why a known repeat offender can keep circulating false claims with no clear consequence.

META SHOULD USE FACT-CHECKERS’ WORK MORE EFFECTIVELY

Meta should take its cue from credible fact-checking organizations when deciding which pages and accounts need a deeper review. A long record of independent fact checks can reveal repeat offenders that Meta may miss when it reviews only one post at a time.

That record should make Meta look carefully at what the page has been doing. One disputed rating should never produce an automatic ban because such a rule could easily be used to silence legitimate speech.

Meta already says it can reduce the reach of accounts that repeatedly share content rated false and restrict their advertising or ability to earn money. Pages may be removed for repeated Community Standards violations, and networks engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior may also be removed.

What Meta has not told us is when these penalties begin. How many confirmed false posts bring restrictions on an entire page, how long do the penalties last, what kind of pattern leads to suspension, and when does repeated deception finally result in a ban?

Meta should publish and explain those rules in language ordinary users can understand. It should also tell the person reporting a post whether the claim was sent for fact-checking, reviewed only under the Community Standards, given less reach, left untouched or sent for further review because the account may be a repeat offender.

WHERE TO FIND CREDIBLE FACT CHECKS

For regularly published Philippine fact checks, follow VERA Files Fact Check, Rappler Fact Check, AFP Fact Check Philippines, ABS-CBN Fact Check, PressOne.PH Fact Check, MindaNews Fact Check, Philstar.com Fact Check, News5 Fact Check, the University of the Philippines’ FactRakers and Probe Productions’ Tsek/Eks.

Other Philippine groups and projects publishing fact checks or verification reports include Fact-Check PH by Assortedge, Fact Check Philippines, Interaksyon’s Rumor Cop, GMA’s Fact or Fake, Altermidya’s #FactsFirstPH reports, Bulatlat’s Reality Check, Explained PH Fact Check, the Los Banos Times Fact-Check project, FYT, DZUP and Akademiya at Bayan Kontra Disimpormasyon at Dayaan.

Readers should also follow Tsek.ph and #FactsFirstPH. Tsek.ph brought together 24 media, academic and civil-society initiatives for the 2025 elections, while #FactsFirstPH has connected news organizations with groups working in research, law, education and civil society.

The Tsek.ph list of partners is the best single directory for the wider Philippine network because projects appear, pause and reorganize over time. FactCheck.ph is VERA Files’ learning and tip-line site; it should not be confused with Fact Check Philippines or Fact-Check PH by Assortedge, which are separate groups.

These groups do not all work the same way. Some are newsrooms, some are coalitions or university projects, and others are archives from earlier fact-checking campaigns; before relying on one, check how it verifies claims, cites sources, identifies its funders and corrects errors.

For claims coming from outside the Philippines, useful sources include Reuters Fact Check, AP Fact Check, BBC Verify, Full Fact, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, Snopes and Lead Stories.

Government portals such as FACTS.gov.ph can help locate an official denial or agency position. An official government statement can still be wrong or incomplete, so check it against documents, data and independent reporting.

WHAT CAN THE MCT COMMUNITY DO?

Follow at least one credible fact-checking organization today. When you encounter a post that has already been debunked, report that exact content using the most accurate category and save the post URL, a screenshot, the published fact-check and Meta’s response.

If Meta leaves the post online, request another review when that option is offered. If Meta removes a legitimate post or article, appeal it and keep the notices that show what happened.

We can begin keeping a record of those decisions inside the MCT community. A shared record of what Meta removes, leaves online and restores may tell us more than isolated complaints ever will.

So here is my question: if we say we care about truth and good governance, are we willing to help verified information travel farther, report repeat disinformation responsibly and hold Meta accountable for the decisions it makes after we click Report?

Sources

THE TROLL NETWORK DEFENDING SARA DUTERTE IS WORKING OVERTIME

Gino Borlado — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 22:48:00 GMT

I want Sara Duterte held accountable for any offense proven through lawful proceedings. If the Senate convicts her and imposes disqualification after a fair trial, then I want that constitutional penalty enforced. I do not want someone found unfit to hold public office becoming president of an already downtrodden country.

She is still entitled to due process. The prosecution must prove its charges. Her lawyers must be allowed to challenge the evidence, question the witnesses and present her defense.

That same demand for evidence should apply to the people defending her online.

FALSEHOODS MADE TO LOOK LIKE NEWS

The fake news defending Sara Duterte is no longer confined to anonymous accounts posting angry comments.

It is coming from pages with names designed to resemble news organizations. They publish cards marked “BREAKING NEWS,” use photographs of politicians and lawyers, attribute statements to recognizable people and present invented claims using the visual language of journalism.

Some posts use artificial intelligence. Others use altered images, edited clips or completely fabricated quotations.

One fake card becomes ten reposts. Ten reposts become hundreds of comments. After enough repetition, people stop asking where the claim came from.

THE FAKE DUTERTE VIDEO

On September 23, VERA Files reported that a video showing former president Rodrigo Duterte asking Filipinos to pray for and support his daughter was AI-manipulated.

The original upload identified the video as AI-generated satire. A pro-Duterte TikTok account reposted it about two hours later without that warning. When VERA Files published its report, that copy had already received more than 209,000 views and 21,566 engagements.

Viewers encountering the repost were seeing what appeared to be a genuine appeal from Rodrigo Duterte. Here was an aging father, then appearing before the International Criminal Court, supposedly asking supporters to rally behind his daughter.

Except he did not make that appeal.

THE INVENTED JOEL CHUA QUOTE

Another card falsely quoted House prosecutor Joel Chua as saying that congressmen did not care if the country’s money ran out, so long as Sara Duterte was removed and her brothers were imprisoned.

VERA Files traced the altered card to an authentic discussion involving Chua. The statement attributed to him did not appear in that discussion, nor was there any official record of him saying it.

At least 15 copies of the false card collectively received about 49,000 reactions, 17,513 comments and 5,046 shares when VERA Files counted them.

It did not need to be real. It only needed Chua’s photograph, quotation marks and a news-looking layout.

THE INVENTED MICHAEL POA QUOTE

The same tactic was used against Michael Poa, a lawyer for Sara Duterte.

A page calling itself Central Luzon News Update attributed a hostile statement to Poa attacking House prosecutor Terry Ridon. Poa denied making it. VERA Files found no public record supporting the quotation.

The page had previously carried the name SMNI News North Central Luzon. That history gave it the appearance of a regional news outlet even after its name had changed.

The false statement was reproduced in other graphics and circulated by additional pages. The person being impersonated was part of Sara Duterte’s own defense team. Even that did not stop them from manufacturing a quotation under his name.

FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT THE COST OF THE TRIAL

Disinformation also spread about how much the impeachment proceedings supposedly cost taxpayers.

Posts claimed that the trial cost ₱25 million, ₱70 million or even ₱600 million. Some took the Senate’s ordinary daily operating cost and presented it as money spent exclusively on Sara Duterte’s trial.

Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian said the Senate incurred no additional expense from conducting the trial because it was handled like a plenary session. He also said the prosecution and defense paid for their own food, printing and internet expenses.

VERA Files reported that lawyer Yvette Contacto, identified as PDP-Laban’s national legal affairs chairperson, publicly repeated the unsupported ₱70-million-per-day figure. Harry Roque and several pages also circulated versions of the ₱25-million claim.

A lawyer says it. A former official reposts it. A page converts it into a graphic. Supporters then repeat it as though an official accounting document exists.

No such document supported those daily figures.

A CLEAN AUDIT OPINION DOES NOT END THE QUESTION

Another line used to defend Sara Duterte is that the Office of the Vice President received an unmodified audit opinion from the Commission on Audit.

COA explains that an unmodified opinion concerns whether financial statements are fairly presented. It does not certify that every transaction complied with every law, nor does it declare an agency free from corruption.

COA also affirmed a notice of disallowance covering approximately ₱73.28 million in OVP confidential expenditures from December 2022. State auditors said the documents submitted did not sufficiently support the questioned spending under the rules governing confidential funds.

A notice of disallowance is not a criminal conviction. It also cannot honestly be erased by citing the general audit opinion.

THE GRACIOSO ALLEGATION

Former police officer Rodulfo Gracioso has alleged that more than ₱2 billion was delivered to Sara Duterte through more than 20 transactions.

Sara Duterte denied knowing him or receiving the money. The camp of former House speaker Lord Allan Velasco also rejected Gracioso’s claims. His dismissal from the Philippine National Police for grave misconduct is relevant when assessing his credibility.

NBI Director Melvin Matibag reportedly said portions of Gracioso’s statements had been checked through other means. The supporting evidence has not been released in full for public examination.

I will not present his entire account as proven. Investigators and prosecutors must connect it to documents, witnesses, financial records or other independent evidence. His allegations should be investigated seriously, and his credibility should be tested just as seriously.

ACCOUNTABILITY CAN ALSO BE ORGANIZED

I suspect there is an organized political and legal effort to hold Sara Duterte accountable and prevent her from becoming president.

I see nothing inherently wrong with that, provided the effort uses credible evidence and lawful proceedings.

The line is crossed when evidence is fabricated, witnesses are coached to lie, public officials are threatened or institutions are pressured to reach a predetermined result. If anyone seeking her conviction does those things, that conduct should also be exposed.

I want Sara Duterte stopped from becoming president through the Constitution and credible evidence. A dishonest conviction would damage the same institutions tasked with holding her accountable.

WHAT I SEE ONLINE

I have no evidence that Sara Duterte personally directs these accounts. I also cannot prove that every page answers to one operator.

What I see is repeated content, common targets, copied language, synchronized amplification and a steady supply of fabricated material serving the same political purpose. I see supposedly personal accounts, news-looking pages, political personalities and people presented as legal authorities helping questionable claims travel farther.

I consider that a political influence operation.

The result is an online defense system that can manufacture doubt faster than fact-checkers can correct it.

FAKE NEWS CANNOT DECIDE THE CASE

Trolls can harass witnesses, attack prosecutors and flood comment sections. They cannot lawfully acquit Sara Duterte through Facebook reactions.

They cannot convert a fabricated quote card into sworn testimony or an AI-generated video into a genuine statement from Rodrigo Duterte. They cannot erase records properly authenticated and admitted during the proceedings.

The impeachment case belongs to the Senate. Any separate criminal or administrative case belongs to the institution given authority by law. None should answer to the Dutertes, the Marcoses or an online mob.

KEEP GOING, BUT DO IT LAWFULLY

I support the continued investigation of Sara Duterte. Examine the confidential funds. Question the people involved. Test the witness accounts. Follow the money wherever the records lead.

If the prosecution cannot prove its charges, she should not be convicted. If the evidence proves them and the Senate convicts her, then the constitutional penalties should follow, including disqualification if the Senate imposes it.

Let the trolls work overtime.

So long as the officials handling these cases remain free from Duterte influence, Marcos influence and pressure from online mobs, no volume of trolling can lawfully clear Sara Duterte.

If the evidence proves the charges, hold her accountable. If the Senate convicts her and imposes disqualification, keep her away from Malacañang.

The country should never apologize for imposing a lawful consequence after a fair trial.

Sources

MARY JANE VELOSO, FOUR PRESIDENTS, AND SIXTEEN YEARS SHE CANNOT GET BACK

Gino Borlado — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Mary Jane Veloso was 25 years old when she arrived at the airport in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, on April 25, 2010.

Customs officers found 2.6 kilograms of heroin hidden inside the luggage she was carrying. Mary Jane has maintained for the past sixteen years that she did not know the drugs were there.

On September 24, 2026, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed her absolute pardon.

Mary Jane is now 41.

Twenty-five.

Forty-one.

Sixteen years disappeared between those two ages.

GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO

Mary Jane was arrested during the final months of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's presidency.

The problem that eventually swallowed Mary Jane's life was already known to the Philippine government.

On February 8, 2010, more than two months before Mary Jane's arrest, Arroyo issued Administrative Order No. 279 creating an inter-agency task force specifically to prevent Filipinos from being recruited as drug couriers by international trafficking syndicates.

The order described Filipinos being "enticed, duped, and subsequently recruited" as international drug couriers, with some eventually receiving death sentences abroad.

Mary Jane was arrested on April 25.

She eventually told her family that she was in jail in May. Her family sought government assistance in August, by which time Arroyo had already left Malacañang and Benigno Aquino III had become president.

Arroyo's government had identified the danger before Mary Jane's arrest. Her case soon became an example of the problem the government was already trying to address.

BENIGNO AQUINO III

Aquino inherited the case when Mary Jane was still 25.

In October 2010, an Indonesian court sentenced her to death. The Philippine Embassy appealed, and government funds were used to hire private Indonesian lawyers for her.

Indonesia's appellate court and Supreme Court eventually upheld the sentence.

Aquino personally sought clemency from Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2011.

After Joko Widodo became president, the Philippine government continued seeking relief.

By April 2015, Mary Jane had been transferred to Nusakambangan, the island prison where Indonesia carried out executions.

She was 30 years old.

Eight other prisoners were scheduled to die with her.

Then Maria Cristina Sergio, the woman Mary Jane identified as the person who recruited her, surrendered to authorities in the Philippines.

Philippine prosecutors were pursuing cases involving human trafficking, illegal recruitment and estafa. Mary Jane could be a witness.

Aquino made another appeal to Widodo.

The Philippine government argued that Mary Jane's testimony was needed in the criminal case involving the people accused of recruiting her.

Indonesia stopped the execution.

Eight other prisoners were executed that night.

Mary Jane lived.

Aquino's government had pursued appeals for years, and its final intervention came during the most dangerous hours of Mary Jane's life.

She remained in prison, but she was alive.

RODRIGO DUTERTE

Rodrigo Duterte inherited a woman who was still under a death sentence in Indonesia.

His presidency created an uncomfortable contrast because Duterte had built much of his political identity around an aggressive campaign against illegal drugs.

When Duterte met Widodo in Indonesia in September 2016, Mary Jane's case was discussed privately.

Reports later emerged in Indonesia claiming Duterte had effectively told Widodo that he would respect whatever Indonesia decided, which some interpreted as a "go-ahead" for the execution.

The Duterte administration disputed that interpretation.

Duterte publicly said the Philippines would respect Indonesia's judicial process. Palace spokesperson Ernesto Abella later said Duterte had not given a green light for Mary Jane's execution and that the government would pursue clemency if necessary.

Meanwhile, the Philippine government continued pursuing the prosecution of Sergio and Julius Lacanilao.

A legal problem remained. Mary Jane was imprisoned in Indonesia and could not simply appear in a Philippine courtroom.

The Office of the Solicitor General fought for a way to allow her testimony.

In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that Mary Jane could testify through deposition by written interrogatories. The Court reaffirmed that ruling in 2022.

Duterte left office with Mary Jane still in Indonesia.

FERDINAND MARCOS JR.

When Ferdinand Marcos Jr. became president in 2022, Mary Jane had already spent twelve years in Indonesian custody.

His administration again sought clemency.

The case moved in a different direction after Prabowo Subianto became president of Indonesia.

Indonesia began negotiating transfers involving foreign prisoners, and the Philippines reached an agreement allowing Mary Jane to return home.

On December 17, 2024, Indonesian authorities turned her over to Philippine officials.

She arrived in Manila on December 18.

She was 39 years old.

The transfer did not erase her conviction. She remained a prisoner and continued serving her sentence in the Philippines.

Then, on September 24, 2026, Marcos signed her absolute pardon.

After more than sixteen years in detention, Mary Jane could finally leave prison.

THE YEARS SHE LOST

Mary Jane was 25 when she was arrested.

Think about your own life at 25.

Then imagine leaving the country because you believe there is work waiting for you, carrying a suitcase that will change everything.

Mary Jane's account has remained that she did not know heroin had been concealed inside the luggage. The Philippine Supreme Court, in decisions dealing with the prosecution of Sergio and Lacanilao, recorded her account of having been recruited through a false promise of overseas employment and being given the luggage she later carried into Indonesia.

The criminal cases involving her alleged recruiters have taken years themselves.

Sergio and Lacanilao were convicted in 2020 in a separate large-scale illegal recruitment case involving other complainants. The cases directly connected to Mary Jane involve qualified trafficking, illegal recruitment and estafa.

Mary Jane finally testified personally in June 2026.

Sixteen years had passed since her arrest.

There is still a legal distinction we should respect.

Mary Jane's claim that she was deceived does not authorize us to pronounce the defendants guilty in the pending cases involving her. Courts decide criminal liability.

What cannot be disputed is the time Mary Jane lost.

She nearly faced a firing squad at 30.

She returned to the Philippines at 39.

She received an absolute pardon at 41.

Her sons grew up while she was in prison.

In April 2015, when their mother was preparing for what everyone feared would be their final goodbye, they were 12 and 6 years old.

By the time she returned to the Philippines, they were young men.

Mary Jane said in 2024 that she had spent almost fifteen years separated from her children and had not been able to watch them grow up.

That is the cost that no legal document can calculate.

FOUR PRESIDENTS

There will naturally be arguments over which administration deserves credit.

Mary Jane's story is larger than that contest.

Arroyo's government had already recognized the recruitment of Filipino drug couriers as a serious national problem before Mary Jane was arrested.

Aquino's government pursued appeals through the Indonesian legal system and diplomatic channels, and its intervention preceded the 2015 reprieve.

Duterte's government continued the prosecution involving her alleged recruiters, while government lawyers successfully fought for her ability to testify despite her imprisonment abroad.

Marcos secured the agreement that brought her back to Philippine custody, then granted her absolute pardon.

Four administrations handled different parts of the same case.

Mary Jane carried the cost throughout all of them.

SIXTEEN YEARS

A pardon can free a prisoner.

It cannot return lost time.

Mary Jane cannot watch her sons grow up a second time.

She cannot redo her thirties.

She cannot erase the night in 2015 when she was preparing to die while eight other condemned prisoners were taken out and executed.

She is 41 years old now.

The woman who carried that suitcase was 25.

Sixteen years stand between them.

Sources

CAN SARA DUTERTE USE A BLIND TRUST AS A DEFENSE?

Gino Borlado — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 01:00:00 GMT

I got curious while watching Ces Oreña-Drilon interview my fellow Albayano, lawyer Howard Calleja, on One News.

Calleja was talking about Sara Duterte’s business interests and the restrictions that apply to officials occupying offices as powerful as the presidency and vice presidency. He argued that top officials should divest from businesses to avoid conflicts of interest.

While listening to them, I found myself asking a question that was not really answered by the interview.

What if Sara Duterte says she placed her business interests in a blind trust?

Would that save her from the accusation that she failed to divest after becoming Vice President?

I honestly did not know because I did not even know exactly what a blind trust was. Unlike Sara Duterte, whose 2024 Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth put her net worth at about ₱88.5 million, I do not have millions in spare change lying around that I need to figure out how to divest.

So I researched it.

WHAT IS A BLIND TRUST?

The simplest way I can explain a blind trust is this.

Imagine you own shares in several companies, but you are about to take a powerful government position. Your government decisions could affect those businesses, so people could reasonably question whether you are making decisions for the country or protecting your own money.

One way some officials deal with that problem is to hand control of their investments to an independent trustee.

The trustee manages the assets. Depending on how the trust is written, you cannot tell the trustee what to buy or sell, you do not vote the shares yourself, and you stay away from decisions involving the investments.

That is the “blind” part. You are separated from the management of the assets.

But giving somebody else control does not necessarily mean that you have stopped benefiting financially from the assets. You can stop driving the car while still owning the car.

That distinction is central to any blind-trust defense Sara Duterte might raise.

WHY A BLIND TRUST COULD HELP SARA

Article VII, Section 13 of the Constitution specifically applies to the President and Vice President, along with Cabinet members and their deputies or assistants.

It says they may not, during their tenure, directly or indirectly “participate in any business.” It separately prohibits them from having a financial interest in certain government contracts, franchises or special privileges, and says they must strictly avoid conflicts of interest.

Suppose Sara Duterte produces a real blind trust and the documents show that she handed control of her shares to an independent trustee after becoming Vice President. Suppose she could not direct the trustee, vote the shares, manage the companies or make corporate decisions.

Her lawyers could argue that she was no longer participating in those businesses even if some economic interest remained.

Something close to this distinction has already appeared during the impeachment trial. When SEC official Gerardo Del Rosario testified about Duterte’s corporate records, the questioning distinguished between what SEC records showed about ownership or board listings and what the SEC could actually prove about her personal participation in meetings or corporate decisions.

The SEC records can show that her name appeared. They do not automatically prove everything she personally did inside the company.

RA 6713 ASKS A HARDER QUESTION

Republic Act No. 6713 is the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.

Section 9 says a public official must avoid conflicts of interest. When a conflict arises, the law provides for resignation from a position in a private business enterprise and, when applicable, divestment of shareholdings or interests.

The law defines divestment as transferring title or disposing of an interest in property in a way that voluntarily, completely and actually deprives or dispossesses the official of the right or title.

Go back to our car.

You own it, but you give the keys to somebody else. That person decides where it goes, when it is used and how it is maintained.

You are no longer driving it.

But if the car still belongs to you and eventually comes back to you, did you dispose of it?

A blind trust can remove control. RA 6713 can still leave open the question of whether the official actually gave up the interest itself.

THEN I FOUND THE SENATE DELIBERATIONS

The senators who were working on what eventually became RA 6713 actually raised the blind-trust question.

During the October 13, 1987 Senate deliberations on Senate Bill No. 139, Senator Teofisto Guingona asked Senator Rene Saguisag about divestment.

Guingona raised almost exactly the situation I had been wondering about. Could an official avoid a conflict by putting property into a blind trust instead of permanently selling or transferring the assets?

He explained the idea in practical terms: custody, care and management would be placed in the trust because the official might not want to permanently sell the property while serving in government.

Saguisag, who was sponsoring the bill, pushed back against that idea. His response was that allowing someone to use a blind trust in that situation could be seen as some kind of dummy arrangement, and he pointed instead toward divestment or avoiding the conflicting transaction.

The Senate did not enact a sentence saying blind trusts are prohibited, and a sponsor’s answer during deliberations is not the same as a Supreme Court ruling.

But the exchange shows that lawmakers specifically considered the blind-trust alternative while writing the law, and the bill sponsor did not treat it as equivalent to divestment.

That creates a serious problem for any defense that tries to say a blind trust automatically satisfies RA 6713.

TWO POSSIBLE DEFENSES

Sara could theoretically argue that a blind trust proves she stopped participating in a business.

That could be relevant to Article VII, Section 13 of the Constitution.

A different argument would be that creating the blind trust itself satisfied an obligation to divest under RA 6713.

That second argument is harder because the statute speaks of completely and actually disposing of the right or title, while the Senate deliberations show that the blind-trust alternative was specifically raised and rejected by the bill sponsor as a substitute for divestment.

THE TRUST DOCUMENT WOULD HAVE TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS

If Sara Duterte eventually invokes a blind trust, the actual trust deed would be essential.

Who was the trustee? Was that person truly independent? Could Sara remove the trustee? Could she give instructions?

Could she vote the shares indirectly? Could she receive dividends or other income? Could she reclaim the assets? Was the trust revocable? When was it created? Which businesses were included?

Those details would show what Sara actually surrendered and what economic rights she continued to possess.

They would also show whether the arrangement helps her answer the constitutional prohibition against participating in business, or whether the defense is trying to present it as actual divestment under RA 6713.

WHAT THE SEC RECORDS ACTUALLY SHOW

The current impeachment evidence gives us something concrete to compare against any future blind-trust claim.

SEC Company Registration and Monitoring Department Director Gerardo Del Rosario testified that the General Information Sheets of Metro City Chow Foods Corporation listed Sara Duterte as a member of its board from 2022 through 2025. Records presented in court also showed a 20 percent shareholding associated with her.

During cross-examination, Del Rosario acknowledged that the SEC did not have meeting minutes showing whether Duterte personally attended board or compensation committee meetings. The SEC documents establish what the company reported in its filings, but they do not by themselves show every action Duterte personally took as a director.

That distinction protects both sides from overclaiming.

The prosecution can point to corporate records showing that Duterte continued to be listed as a director and shareholder.

The defense can point out that a filing with her name on it does not, by itself, prove that she attended meetings, voted on corporate matters or exercised management authority.

If Duterte had already resigned from the board and the corporate filings were outdated, her defense should be able to produce the resignation and records showing when she left.

If the filings accurately reflected her continuing directorship, handing shares to a trustee would not automatically remove her from a corporate board.

GENCORP ADDS ANOTHER QUESTION

There is also GenCorp Industries Inc.

Sara Duterte’s 2024 SALN listed GenCorp among her business interests and financial connections and identified her as a stockholder, with the interest acquired in 2013.

But the SEC records examined during the impeachment trial did not list her name as an incorporator or stockholder in the company records presented by the SEC witness.

That does not mean GenCorp was unregistered. The discrepancy is between what Duterte declared in her SALN and what appeared in the SEC corporate records reviewed during the trial.

There could be several explanations, including an indirect interest or another ownership arrangement that does not appear under her name in the particular filings presented.

If a blind trust or some other trust arrangement eventually enters the defense, GenCorp becomes especially interesting.

Could a trust explain why Duterte declared an economic interest in GenCorp while her name did not appear directly in the SEC ownership records?

Possibly.

But that explanation would need documents.

Without them, it remains a question, not an answer.

HER SALNS HAVE TO FIT THE STORY

Sara Duterte’s SALNs list business interests and financial connections, and her 2024 SALN placed her declared net worth at ₱88,512,370.22.

Disclosure alone does not prove wrongdoing. Someone can disclose an asset precisely because transparency rules tell public officials to declare what they own or what financial connections they have.

But if Sara eventually says she had already divested a particular interest, then the SALN, the SEC records and any trust document should be capable of being read together.

If the story is that ownership was surrendered, the records should help show where it went.

If the story is that ownership remained with Sara but control went to an independent trustee, then her lawyers would have to explain why that arrangement answers the particular provision they are accused of violating.

THE PROSECUTION STILL HAS TO PROVE ITS CASE

RA 6713 does not say that every public official must sell every investment simply because he or she entered government.

Section 9 connects the divestment obligation to a conflict of interest.

So if prosecutors rely on RA 6713, they still have to show why the particular business interest created the conflict contemplated by the law and what obligation followed from it.

If they rely on Article VII, Section 13, they have to show what they believe constitutes direct or indirect participation in business.

Ownership, control, participation, directorship and financial interest are related concepts, but they do not all mean the same thing.

A blind trust could help Sara answer one accusation while doing very little against another.

THE STRONGEST VERSION OF SARA’S DEFENSE

Suppose Sara produces a trust created at the proper time.

The trustee is independent. Sara cannot direct the trustee, remove the trustee whenever she pleases, vote the shares or participate in company decisions.

Suppose she also produces documents showing she had resigned from corporate boards and stopped exercising management authority.

That could be substantial evidence against an accusation that she continued participating in private businesses while Vice President.

The remaining question would be whether she still retained a beneficial economic interest and, if so, whether that arrangement qualifies as divestment under RA 6713.

The statutory language creates difficulty for that argument.

The Senate deliberations make it harder because Guingona specifically asked whether a blind trust could be used by an official who wanted to avoid a conflict without permanently surrendering the property, and Saguisag pointed instead toward actual divestment.

The exchange does not decide Sara Duterte’s impeachment case, but it does show that this was not an issue lawmakers failed to consider.

WHAT I CAME AWAY WITH

I started this because I was watching Ces Oreña-Drilon and Howard Calleja and realized there was a financial term I did not properly understand.

Now I understand why a blind trust could become useful to Sara Duterte.

If properly created and genuinely independent, it could help her argue that she stopped controlling or participating in a business.

When the question becomes actual divestment under RA 6713, the text of the law becomes harder for her, and the legislative history does not help.

So if Sara Duterte eventually presents a blind trust as part of her defense, I would want to see more than the name of the arrangement.

Show us the deed.

Show us the date.

Show us what she surrendered.

Show us what she kept.

Then we can see what the trust actually proves.

Sources

BLOCKING DISCORD IS A FUCKING IDIOTIC WAY TO PROTECT CHILDREN

Gino Borlado — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 06:26:37 GMT

UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 24, 2026: Shortly after I published this commentary, the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center announced during a live press conference that the Discord ban had been lifted.

Discord became inaccessible on several Philippine networks after the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center gave the platform 24 hours to establish a local presence and make commitments on child safety.

CICC Executive Director Renato “Aboy” Paraiso told TechWatchPH that his agency asked the National Telecommunications Commission to issue a blocking order and that Globe had begun implementing it. No public copy of that order had surfaced when this article was written. Neither the NTC nor the telecommunications companies publicly released a matching directive.

Several news outlets independently confirmed that Discord had become inaccessible through some providers. Access continued through others, making the restriction uneven from the beginning.

Users were already discussing virtual private networks and alternative Domain Name System settings. People familiar with the internet could walk around the government’s wall, while workers, students and less technical users were more likely to remain locked out.

May masabi lang na may ginagawa.

I USE DISCORD TO LEARN

I use Discord because I have been teaching myself coding, app development and website development. I do not spend my time in gaming discussions.

Discord calls its online communities servers. Inside those servers are channels where developers, students and other learners answer questions, troubleshoot code and share resources.

These groups are useful when you study on your own. I can read discussions among experienced developers, see how other people solve technical problems and ask for help when my code refuses to work.

Discord maintains an official community for developers. Research has also documented its use in software-engineering courses, computer-science education and collaboration among developers.

One University of Edinburgh study described software developers connecting GitHub activity to Discord and using Discord to communicate and work together. Research involving a remote software-engineering course also found that Discord increased interaction between students and teachers.

Losing access can mean missing a lesson, project discussion, client instruction or employment lead. People using the platform for lawful work and education should not be treated as acceptable collateral damage.

CICC Director Wayawaya “Aya” Macalma later discussed those uses during the agency’s Hotline 1326 radio program. Unbox PH and WalasTech reported that she apologized to affected users and said Discord had not made its business and educational uses clear to the agency.

That wording is important. Macalma did not categorically say the CICC had never heard of these uses. She placed the failure on Discord for not explaining them to the agency.

Her statement still exposes a basic failure of preparation. The government did not need Discord to explain that a major communications service was being used for business and education before seeking a restriction affecting its users.

Blocking first and learning about the platform afterward is brainless and fucking idiotic.

REDDIT IS ALSO PART OF MY WORK

Reddit is a source of information for me as a political writer. I never treat an anonymous post as established fact, but it can lead me to public documents, official statements, local developments and allegations that deserve independent checking.

It also shows what people are discussing outside statements released by politicians and government agencies. False and misleading posts are common, but Reddit also contains links, documents and details that can lead to legitimate reporting.

The CICC granted Reddit additional time after company representatives met with the agency and discussed commitments. Discord had sent a written response, but the CICC said the company had not offered the commitments it wanted.

Government has a valid reason to demand cooperation from foreign platforms. Philippine investigators need reachable contacts when a child is being threatened, abused or blackmailed, especially when account evidence may disappear.

A valid objective does not excuse a careless method.

WHAT THE GOVERNMENT ACTUALLY DID

The CICC asked Discord and Reddit to appoint resident agents or local representatives and establish a Philippine presence. It also wanted faster coordination, information sharing and a direct route for government requests.

Paraiso said Discord’s written response did not satisfy those demands. He then told TechWatchPH that the CICC requested an NTC block and that an order had been issued.

Other reports confirmed access failures on several networks. They did not independently establish that every provider received or implemented the same order, and some providers continued carrying the service.

The NTC should release the directive Paraiso says it issued. Filipinos have a right to know who signed it, what legal authority supported it, which providers received it and what Discord must do to challenge or end the restriction.

The CICC should also release the letter it sent Discord, the company’s response and the standards used to judge that response inadequate. Government cannot demand accountability from private companies while concealing the basis of its own action.

THE DANGER IS REAL

Online grooming, sexual coercion, self-harm communities and violent recruitment are documented threats. Ignoring them would be equally irresponsible.

The National Bureau of Investigation arrested a 19-year-old man in Pampanga after investigating the alleged sexual exploitation of children through Roblox. The NBI said the suspect befriended a child through the game and offered Robux in exchange for sexually exploitative images.

The Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group also reported rescue operations involving minors exposed to harmful online discussions, self-harm themes, violent imagery and material associated with violent extremism.

International cases show how these crimes can move between platforms. The United States Department of Justice charged five alleged leaders of Greggy’s Cult, a violent online network whose members allegedly found victims through Discord and games such as Roblox before bringing them into private video calls.

The case involved allegations of sexual exploitation, blackmail, degrading acts and self-harm. It shows why investigators need access to account records and why companies must respond quickly to lawful requests.

It also exposes the weakness of treating one application as the crime scene. An offender can meet a child in a game, continue through Discord, store material elsewhere and use another service for threats or payments.

The person and the evidence move. A platform block does not follow either one.

THE SHOOTING CONNECTION REMAINS UNRESOLVED

Philippine authorities increased their scrutiny of games and online communities after three fatal school shootings in 2026.

Interior Secretary Juanito Victor “Jonvic” Remulla called for GoreBox to be permanently banned after the Tacloban shooting. Following the Ateneo de Zamboanga University shooting, he said he would also push for a Roblox ban.

Posts blaming Senator Risa Hontiveros for proposing a blanket ban on online games were false. AFP found no official record of such a proposal from her and traced the public call for a ban to Remulla.

The possible connection between the Tacloban shooters and the violent network known as 764 is less settled than some government statements suggest.

Reports from the Senate hearing said authorities and researchers were examining possible grooming and extremist influence. They had not confirmed that the shooters belonged to 764 or that the network organized the attack.

BusinessMirror later quoted Paraiso as saying recovered messages established that the minors were active members who had been recruited and manipulated. The purported messages have not been publicly released for independent examination.

A subsequent analysis by the Global Network on Extremism and Technology identified Paraiso’s statement as the strongest official claim connecting the minors to 764. It also found that the public evidence could not establish whether contact occurred before the shooting or whether anyone directed the attack.

Those accounts conflict. No final public investigative report was found that resolves the contradiction or proves that Discord, Reddit or 764 directed the shooting.

The evidence supports continued investigation. It does not support treating use of a game or messaging service as proof that the service caused an attack.

GoreBox was initially blocked temporarily. Department of Information and Communications Technology Secretary Henry Aguda later said the restriction became permanent after discussions with the developer.

Authorities established that one Tacloban suspect regularly played the game. They did not publish evidence proving that GoreBox caused him to shoot his classmates.

Association should trigger an investigation. Converting it into causation only makes a ban easier to defend.

THE BLOCK FAILS ITS OWN TEST

The exact blocking method used by every Philippine provider has not been publicly documented. Technology outlets and users nevertheless reported that changing the DNS resolver restored access in many cases, although results differed by provider.

The Internet Society explains that DNS blocking does not remove content. It prevents a resolver from returning the usual address, leaving the service reachable through another resolver, a VPN or a direct connection.

The restriction therefore leaves Discord and its accounts online while creating an inconvenience at the entrance used by ordinary subscribers.

People engaged in criminal activity have strong reasons to learn a workaround or move elsewhere. A student attending a coding class, a freelancer waiting for a client or a parent unfamiliar with network settings may simply lose access.

Blocking selects for technical knowledge. The users most willing to evade government controls are also the ones least likely to remain blocked.

The Internet Society warns that DNS and Internet Protocol blocking can affect lawful services, create security problems and block more content than intended. Its policy guidance favors action against illegal material and the responsible actors, with network blocking reserved for necessary, proportionate and legally reviewed cases.

THE KNOWLEDGE GAP IS PART OF THE PROBLEM

Two UNICEF-backed Philippine studies found persistent gaps between how children use the internet and how well adults understand their online lives.

The Disrupting Harm study found that older caregivers had weaker digital skills and were less likely to recognize online risks. A separate Philippines Kids Online report found limited and inconsistent parental involvement in children’s internet activity, with unfamiliarity with technology identified as one possible reason.

These studies examined families, not public officials. They still warn against policies designed without a working knowledge of the technology being regulated.

Children and teenagers move quickly between games, social-media accounts, private servers and messaging applications. Instructions for changing DNS settings or installing a VPN can be passed through a short video or a message from a friend.

Officials responsible for cybercrime policy need to understand those movements. Protection becomes difficult when the intended beneficiaries know the digital environment better than the people writing the restrictions.

WHAT GOVERNMENT SHOULD DO

Republic Act No. 11930 already imposes duties on internet intermediaries in cases involving online sexual abuse or exploitation of children.

The law requires the preservation of subscriber, traffic and content data for specified periods. It also provides procedures for obtaining subscriber and traffic information and requires identified abusive material to be blocked or removed within the periods set by law.

Those are targeted powers aimed at evidence, content and offenders. Government should use them aggressively and publish the results.

Platforms serving Filipino children should maintain a reachable legal representative and an emergency contact that law-enforcement agencies can reach at any hour. Requests involving immediate threats should enter a dedicated channel with recorded response times.

Preservation requests should identify the accounts and evidence that must be retained. Investigators can then seek the proper subpoena, warrant or court order before the material disappears.

Child accounts should start with stronger privacy settings. Unknown adults should face limits on private messages, group invitations, file transfers and other features that can be used to isolate or exploit a minor.

Age checks should concentrate on risky features instead of forcing every user to surrender unnecessary personal information. Regulators should require public safety reports showing how quickly platforms respond, how many dangerous accounts are removed and how many emergency requests remain unanswered.

Penalties can increase when a company repeatedly ignores lawful orders. Fines, restrictions on a dangerous feature and court-supervised compliance measures can be used before cutting off an entire service.

A temporary platform suspension may become defensible when strong evidence shows continuing harm, lawful orders have failed and narrower remedies cannot protect users. Such a measure needs a published legal basis, independent review, a fixed expiration date and a clear appeal process.

THE REAL TEST

Child protection should be measured through rescued victims, preserved evidence, identified offenders and dangerous accounts removed before more children are harmed.

A block page proves that a telecommunications company can interrupt an ordinary connection. It says nothing about the groomer who changed a DNS setting, opened a VPN or contacted the child through another application.

Discord deserves scrutiny and should face penalties when it fails to remove abusive material, preserve evidence or respond to lawful requests.

Government owes Filipinos the same accountability. It should disclose its orders, defend their legal basis and show the measurable safety result produced by each restriction.

Children already know how to move between games, private servers, social-media accounts and VPNs. The officials tasked with protecting them need to understand those movements at least as well as they do.

A wall that users can walk around will never stop online grooming.

Sources

Day 28: The Business Records, the Government Contracts, and the Questions Still Open

Gino Borlado — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 13:37:39 GMT

The hearing opened with the defense's cross-examination of Securities and Exchange Commission official Gerardo Fernando del Rosario. Senators then questioned him about corporate income, shareholdings and the business interests declared in Vice President Sara Duterte's statements of assets, liabilities and net worth.

In the afternoon, PhilGEPS official Rendell Sopeña presented records of 49 government contract awards to Gencorp Industries Inc., with a combined value of ₱35,878,188.

The questions covered possible sources of Duterte's wealth, her reported company positions, and the prosecution's allegation that she retained business and financial interests while serving as vice president.

Opening of the session

The court established a quorum of 17 senator-judges and approved the previous session's journal without objection.

Del Rosario, director of the SEC's Company Registration and Monitoring Department, returned under his previous oath. Defense counsel Justin Gular began his cross-examination.

1. How the SEC summaries were prepared

The defense examined the preparation of the SEC summaries used by the prosecution.

Del Rosario said his office worked from a list of 16 corporations supplied by the House. The list was not independently drawn up by his office from Duterte's SALNs. He initially did not have access to those declarations.

The request was dated September 10, received on September 11, and completed on September 14. A five-person team worked through the weekend. The questioning referred to underlying records exceeding 3,000 pages.

Gular questioned the summaries' lack of signatures and dates, the documents used to prepare them, and the order in which the companies appeared.

The defense also raised the absence of the September 10 request letter from its copies, separating that letter from the later transmittal.

Prosecutor Erwin Matib objected that the defense was relying on the transmittal rather than the request letter when questioning the inclusion of incorporation records. The chair overruled the objection and allowed the witness to answer.

2. Dividends and the limits of the income records

The defense questioned whether the absence of declared dividends could establish that the companies had provided no income to Duterte.

The discussion covered the board's authority to declare dividends from unrestricted retained earnings, restrictions on retaining surplus profits, and exceptions involving approved expansion plans, loan conditions and other needs.

The hearing also separated two situations: records showing no declared dividends, and a lack of information because financial statements were unavailable.

Del Rosario could not establish every possible source of personal income from the corporate filings before him.

Other possible sources were raised during questioning, including salary, professional income, inheritance and property transactions. The witness did not establish amounts received from those sources.

The defense also established that the sales, revenues and losses in the financial statements were those of the companies. They could not automatically be treated as Duterte's personal income or losses.

3. Shareholding, business participation and personal knowledge

Gular questioned the difference between declaring a business interest and taking part in a company's operations.

Del Rosario said he lacked personal knowledge of Duterte attending meetings, making company decisions or managing the daily operations of the corporations discussed. His testimony was based on the records available to his department.

The defense asked about the preparation of corporate filings. It established that Duterte was not identified as the corporate secretary who swore to the general information sheets being examined.

Questions about possible nominee or trust arrangements followed. No actual agreement establishing such an arrangement was produced in that exchange.

The summaries did not include beneficial-ownership declarations, which can identify the people behind corporate shareholders. Del Rosario said his department did not handle those forms.

Gular also questioned Del Rosario about conflict of interest under Republic Act 6713. Matib objected that the questioning was outside the direct examination. The chair allowed it, noting that the witness had already given legal interpretations. Del Rosario's answers remained limited by the documents available to him and his lack of personal knowledge of Duterte's activities.

4. The prosecution returned to the board records

On redirect examination, Matib returned to the responsibilities of corporate directors and the approval of financial statements.

The filings discussed listed Duterte as a director and shareholder of Metro City Chow Foods Corporation from 2018 to 2025.

A statement of management responsibility described the board's role in overseeing financial reporting. Notes to the company's financial statements said its board approved and authorized the 2024 and 2023 statements on March 31, 2025.

Matib also had the witness read the provision on the board's powers to conduct the corporation's business and control its property.

On recross-examination, Gular returned to the witness's lack of personal knowledge of Duterte's participation. The questioning also covered the fact that a board can act through a majority.

The prosecution relied on her reported position and the board's responsibilities. The defense questioned what the witness could establish about her own actions.

5. Questions from the senator-judges

Erwin Tulfo: identities appearing across companies

Erwin Tulfo asked about Jaime T. Cruz, whose name appeared in the corporate discussion, and whether he was the same person appointed as special envoy to China for trade and investment under former President Rodrigo Duterte.

Matib confirmed the identity. When asked about Cruz declining an offered PhilHealth chairmanship, Matib gave a qualified answer that he believed this was so.

Raffy Tulfo: ownership and continued involvement

Raffy Tulfo questioned whether the size of a shareholding changes the fact that a person retains ownership. He connected his questions to the constitutional prohibition on business participation while holding certain public offices.

In a later round, he asked about the SEC's handling of records involving public officials and evidence of actual decisions or management activity.

The witness returned to the limits of the filings available to his office.

Sherwin Gatchalian: possible sources of wealth

Gatchalian examined whether the corporate records could help narrow down possible sources of Duterte's wealth growth.

His questions covered dividend information, companies with losses, missing reports and shortened corporate terms.

Del Rosario said the dividend information did not establish whether Duterte had other income from a company. Gatchalian acknowledged that she could have other sources of income while explaining that his questions concerned the corporations.

The discussion included SGT Fortune Horse and Three Kids Trucking Services, whose corporate terms the witness said had been shortened to dates in July 2017.

Gatchalian asked whether companies whose terms had already ended could account for later increases in Duterte's net worth. Del Rosario agreed with that proposition. This was an exchange between the senator and the witness; the court did not issue a finding that every possible source of income had been ruled out.

Gatchalian also asked about companies that fail to submit required reports. Del Rosario described notices and the possibility of revoking registration for continued noncompliance.

Kiko Pangilinan: who owns the corporate shareholders?

Pangilinan examined Gencorp's corporate shareholding structure, including JTC's reported holding in the company.

He asked how the people behind corporate shareholders could be identified. Del Rosario explained that the beneficial-ownership forms were outside his department's custody.

Pangilinan sought additional JTC records. The chair took the request under advisement and said he would await action from the prosecution.

In a later round, Pangilinan compared company sales with the dividend information presented. The discussion covered the retention of earnings for expansion and the fact that failing to declare dividends is not automatically unlawful.

Risa Hontiveros: payment for shares and ownership records

Hontiveros asked what the SEC records could establish about the amounts paid for company shares.

She also returned to the gap between Duterte's SALN declarations and the corporate filings.

Her questions included the use of beneficial-ownership declarations to identify the people behind layers of corporate ownership.

The witness could explain entries in the documents available to him, but could not establish every underlying transaction from those entries alone.

Bam Aquino: an explanation from the defense

Aquino asked how Duterte's declared interest in Gencorp could be explained alongside the absence of her name from the corporate records discussed.

Gular said it was premature to require the defense's explanation while the prosecution was still presenting its evidence.

Aquino respected that position and said the defense would have its turn. He also raised the possibility of obtaining an explanation from Gencorp's corporate officers.

JV Ejercito: an interest without dividends

Ejercito asked whether a shareholder retains a financial interest even without receiving dividends. Del Rosario said a financial interest remains while the person holds shares.

Ejercito then asked whether merely retaining shares, without taking part in management or business decisions, amounts to willfully continuing to engage in business. The exchange did not result in a court ruling on that question.

Francis Escudero: the SALN and SEC records

Presiding officer Francis Escudero examined the business entries in Duterte's SALNs and questioned the company names appearing in them.

The discussion returned to Gencorp and the earlier business names stated in the declarations.

Duterte's SALN declared a Gencorp stockholding. Del Rosario said the corporate filings he discussed did not list her as a shareholder.

Possible explanations were discussed, but the hearing did not resolve the mismatch.

6. The SEC witness was excused

Before Del Rosario was excused, the parties addressed the marking of the SEC summaries and related documents.

The court then took its lunch recess.

7. PhilGEPS presented the government-award records

In the afternoon, Sopeña, chief of the PhilGEPS Electronic Government Procurement Operations Division, took his oath.

Prosecutor Gerville Luistro conducted the direct examination. Roberto Batungbacal appeared for the defense.

Sopeña explained the PhilGEPS system, the uploading of procurement documents by government agencies, and how the records are searched and extracted.

He said his office's search under Gencorp produced 49 award records. He presented 231 documents, ultimately specifying a total of 484 pages, together with electronic copies.

8. Defense objections and time to inspect the documents

The defense raised objections concerning the presentation of new documents and its need to inspect them before cross-examination.

Luistro referred to the prosecution's earlier reservation to present the records. The chair confirmed the reservation and allowed the presentation to proceed, while giving the defense time to review the material.

The defense also questioned an unsigned and undated summary and sought printed copies. The chair directed that copies be furnished and addressed the later marking of the documents.

When the witness referred to a document at the stand, the chair instructed him to seek permission before doing so.

9. Questions about signatures, branch details and the summaries

As Luistro went through procurement documents, the defense challenged a question asking the witness to identify signatures. The question was rephrased, and he read the contracting parties' names from the document.

The chair also directed the prosecution to move past menu details and concentrate on the contract evidence.

During questions about a branch location, Luistro referred to Google Maps. The defense objected to counsel supplying facts. The chair struck her statement.

The hearing clarified that the raw database extract and the summary spreadsheet were different items. Sopeña said he had prepared summary tabs to organize the extracted information.

Later, the defense questioned the existence of prepared graphs when the prosecution had said it was seeing the documents for the first time.

Luistro said volunteer lawyers had worked on them while the examination continued. The chair said this was a subject for cross-examination.

10. The 49 awards and their stated values

Sopeña gave the following breakdown:

Procuring agency	Award records	Total value
Davao City government	15	₱34,216,900
PhilHealth Regional Office XI	33	₱1,331,288
OWWA Regional Welfare Office XI	1	₱330,000

Escudero identified the period covered as July 21, 2022 to June 23, 2026. The defense pointed out that Duterte was no longer Davao City mayor during that period.

Luistro linked the records to the allegation under Article II that Duterte had not divested her business and financial interests. She relied on Duterte's SALN declaration of a Gencorp shareholding and later cited the constitutional prohibition on a vice president being financially interested, directly or indirectly, in government contracts.

The defense disputed the relevance of the records and the prosecution's argument. The chair allowed Luistro to finish presenting them.

The amounts stated were the values of the awards to Gencorp. They were not presented as a calculation of money personally paid to Duterte.

11. The request for judicial notice

Luistro asked the court to take judicial notice of Duterte's SALN entries, constitutional provisions and procurement-law provisions. She also sought recognition of Sebastian Duterte's role as Davao City's local chief executive and head of the procuring entity.

The chair took judicial notice of the laws cited, but expressly excluded one party's interpretation, meaning or application of those laws from that ruling.

Escudero also returned to both parts of the ownership question: Duterte's declaration of a Gencorp interest and the SEC testimony about her absence from the corporate filings discussed.

He said the senator-judges would evaluate and weigh the testimony. He left the requested proof concerning Sebastian Duterte's relationship to the respondent for his later appearance.

12. Next proceedings

Sopeña's direct examination ended. His cross-examination, if any, was set for Monday, September 28.

The trial was suspended until September 23 at 10 a.m. for oral arguments on Erwin Tulfo's challenge concerning the number of votes required for conviction.

Each side was allotted 15 minutes, followed by questions from the senator-judges. A vote on the challenge was planned after the arguments.

Where the hearing left the case

The day added government-award records and further examination of corporate filings, dividend information and Duterte's declared business interests.

The prosecution connected the records to its allegations concerning business participation and financial interests during her vice presidency. The defense challenged the evidence, its relevance and what the witnesses could establish from it.

The Gencorp ownership mismatch remained unresolved in the day's proceedings. Sopeña had not yet undergone cross-examination. The court left the senator-judges to weigh the testimony and set the next proceedings.

HOW DOES A CHILD GET FROM A GAME TO THIS?

Gino Borlado — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 01:50:25 GMT

If your child plays online games, you might want to read this.

I have been a gamer for most of my life. My first console was a hand-me-down Atari 2600. I moved on to the Family Computer, and gaming became a much bigger part of my life when the first PlayStation came along. Since then, I have owned every PlayStation generation, mostly second-hand because I could never afford a brand-new unit.

Through all those years of playing, I never once wanted to hurt someone because of a game. That is my experience, and it is one reason I am careful about blaming gaming whenever something terrible happens involving a young person who plays.

I understand why children enjoy games. I still enjoy them myself. Gaming can be a safe, enjoyable hobby. But the people a child meets while playing deserve our attention, especially when those people begin asking for secrecy, making demands, or carrying the conversation into private chats.

When I think back to my Atari, I knew who was playing beside me. Today, a child can be sitting alone in a room while talking to people we have never met. The conversation can continue during the game, after it ends, or on another app entirely. As a gamer and a father, that is the change that worries me.

SEVEN CHILDREN IN LAGUNA

Earlier this year, police stepped in after learning that seven 15-year-olds in Calamba, Laguna, were allegedly planning to attack their school. According to a Philippine Star report, also published by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, the children had met someone through Roblox. That person later sent a link to their group chat. The report, based on police records, said the attack was planned for February 16. Police reached the children on February 2 after receiving information from law enforcers abroad.

The Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group said someone the children met online had encouraged them toward violence and told them to go to another platform to get guns. Police stepped in before they could buy the weapons.

These children were fifteen. Somewhere between playing a game and talking to someone they met there, police say they reached the point of planning an attack on their school. For a parent, that is a frightening distance to imagine a child traveling without us knowing.

Roblox is named here because it appears in the reporting on this case. But whether your child plays Roblox, Valorant, or another online game, it helps to know who they regularly play and talk with. We may recognize the game on the screen without knowing much about the people our children meet through it.

THE CONVERSATION CAN CONTINUE SOMEWHERE ELSE

A child meets another player, enjoys playing with them, and starts looking forward to seeing them online. Later, someone suggests continuing the conversation on Discord, Telegram, or another app. To a child, that may feel like giving a new friend another way to stay in touch.

For parents, this is easy to miss. We may have checked the game and changed its safety settings. We may have decided it was suitable for our child. But those settings do not follow the child into every other app. The game can close while the conversation continues.

The FBI has warned that violent online groups, including those known as 764, reach young people through games, social media, and messaging apps. Some first build a friendship or what appears to be a romantic relationship. They then use trust, threats, shame, and blackmail to push children into harmful acts. The agency has described cases involving sexual abuse, self-harm, harm to animals, and suicide.

The frightening part is that the child may already trust the person before the threats begin. We might see an unfamiliar name on a screen. Our child might see someone who listens, gives them attention, or makes them feel welcome.

WHEN A FRIEND STARTS MAKING DEMANDS

One case in the United States shows what authorities say can happen after that first contact.

In December 2025, the US Department of Justice announced charges against five alleged leaders of a group called Greggy’s Cult. Prosecutors said the group found victims on Discord and games including Roblox and Counter-Strike. Children were allegedly told to perform sexual or humiliating acts during video calls. People watching recorded those acts and shared them. Prosecutors also said victims were pressured into hurting themselves and doing things to prove their loyalty. Those charges were allegations, not findings of guilt.

The FBI describes how pictures and recordings can then be used against a child. Someone threatens to send them to the child’s family or friends unless the child follows another demand. What has already happened becomes a way to force something else to happen.

This helps explain why telling a frightened child to “just block them” may not feel like an answer. The child may believe the person can still expose them, embarrass them, or hurt someone they love. Blocking an account does not automatically make that fear disappear.

As parents, we also need to think about what our children expect from us. If they believe we will shout, shame them, or punish them before listening, telling us may feel like another danger. We have to be able to hear something upsetting without making our child wish they had kept quiet.

WHEN THE DEMANDS GET WORSE

Are children being given increasingly harmful things to do? The FBI describes that kind of growing pressure. Its warning explains how a relationship can turn into demands that become more harmful, with recordings used to keep the victim under control. But that does not establish a fixed list of tasks that every child follows, or prove that self-harm always leads to hurting someone else.

For a parent, the point is to pay attention before a demand becomes extreme. I would want my daughter to know she can refuse anything that frightens or humiliates her. Having agreed to something once does not mean she owes that person another favor, another picture, or another chance to hurt her.

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE PHILIPPINE CASES

The Laguna case is serious enough on its own. We do not need to assume that every school shooting that followed was planned by the same people.

After the June 22 shooting at San Jose National High School in Tacloban, authorities looked into possible online grooming and links to 764. In July, the PNP said it would work with law enforcers abroad to find out who was involved and how far the group’s activities reached. Police were investigating a possible connection; that announcement did not prove every part of it.

Researchers Saddiq Basha and Benjamin Mok later studied the Tacloban case for the Global Network on Extremism and Technology. Their September report found signs that the attackers had been influenced by online groups that admire mass shooters. But the researchers said the direct involvement of groups such as 764 had not been confirmed. They also described young people encouraging and drawing other young people into harmful online spaces.

That leaves questions we should not answer by guessing. Seeing violent posts, joining a group that praises killers, and receiving direct orders from someone are different situations. Knowing that a child was part of a group does not, by itself, tell us who told that child what to do.

The researchers also found a troubling conversation in a Discord group that formed after an earlier group was taken down. A user claiming to be fifteen described recruiting vulnerable children. That age was self-reported, but the exchange shows why parents should pay attention to pressure from other young people too. We cannot judge whether a relationship is safe simply by whether the other person appears to be our child’s age.

They also found edited videos and posts turning the Tacloban attackers into figures to admire or copy. This activity after the shooting does not prove who caused it. It does show that harmful material can keep spreading after an attack. As a parent, I would want to know if a group my child follows starts praising people for hurting others.

The Banga case needs the same care. After the September 18 shooting at Banga National High School, South Cotabato Governor Reynaldo Tamayo Jr. said the suspect’s best friend had told officials about the boy’s membership in an online true-crime community. Authorities were still looking into the group and whether it was connected to the shooting. That account does not prove that the same people were behind Laguna, Tacloban, and Banga.

There are also questions about people outside the Philippines being involved. Philippine authorities have already spoken about groups operating across countries and have sought help from law enforcers abroad. Finding out who took part, who gave instructions, and whether any government had a role will require clearer evidence. I will return to that when more reliable information is available. For now, the warning for parents is serious enough without naming anyone we cannot yet connect to these cases.

WHAT I COULD DO AS A FATHER

Being a stay-at-home, work-from-home dad gave me a privilege I know many parents do not have: I could be around while my unica hija played. We gave her a game room because we wanted gaming to be something she could enjoy openly, without feeling she had to hide it from us.

I knew how dark parts of the internet could be, so I made a point of staying aware of her online activities. I wanted to know more than the name of the game. I wanted to understand what she was doing online and who she was spending time with.

That did not mean I could see everything or protect her from every possible danger. A game room and a parent nearby cannot promise that. But being home gave me more chances to pay attention and more chances for us to talk.

I also know that many parents leave early for work and come home exhausted. They love their children just as much. I would not turn the time I had with my daughter into a standard every family must somehow meet.

What I would encourage is taking an interest whenever we can. Let your child explain the game. Ask about the people they enjoy playing with. Make their online life something they can talk about at home, including the parts that become uncomfortable or frightening.

We teach our children how to behave at home, but online they meet people with different habits, beliefs, and ways of treating others. Some will be good friends. Others may make cruelty seem funny, pressure them to keep secrets, or ask them to do things they would never ask in front of a parent.

With a younger child, sitting nearby, watching occasionally, and asking about the people they play with should be part of knowing their day. With older children, we need clear rules and regular conversations that respect their growing privacy while still keeping them safe. We do not have to understand every game to take an interest in the people reaching our children through it.

PAY ATTENTION WHEN SOMETHING CHANGES

The FBI’s advice to parents includes watching for growing secrecy about online activity, pulling away from others, unexplained gifts or gaming money, and signs that a child is hurting themselves. It also urges parents to talk about online relationships and help children feel comfortable reporting threats or unwanted contact.

A child wanting privacy does not automatically mean someone is grooming them. A new online friend is not automatically dangerous. But a clear change in behavior deserves attention, especially when the child seems frightened, upset, or under pressure.

I would want to understand why a child who used to talk freely about a game suddenly refuses to discuss the people in it. I would be concerned if someone demanded secrecy, asked for private pictures, threatened them, or made them prove their friendship by doing something harmful.

The first conversation should give the child room to answer. “Who do you usually play with?” is easier to respond to than an accusation. So are questions about whether they talk outside the game, whether anyone has made them uncomfortable, and whether someone gets angry when they refuse a request.

We should also make something clear before there is trouble: they can come to us even if they broke a rule. Even if they already sent something. Even if they are embarrassed. They do not have to solve a frightening situation alone before asking for help.

MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR YOUR CHILD TO TELL YOU

The larger story still has unanswered questions. Police and researchers need to find out more about the people behind these groups, how children are drawn in, and what happened in each case. Those questions deserve careful work.

At home, though, we can begin with something much closer to us. Do we know who our children keep talking to? Would they tell us if that person started frightening them? What do they think we would do if they admitted something had gone wrong?

I worry about a child sitting a few feet from a parent, carrying a threat the parent knows nothing about. I worry about the child who wants help but keeps putting off the conversation because they cannot bear the thought of our anger or disappointment.

There may need to be new rules. There may need to be help from a counselor, the school, or the police. But the child needs to know that telling us is a way toward help.

I have loved games since that hand-me-down Atari. I wanted my daughter to be able to enjoy them too. What I want alongside that enjoyment is for her to know that she can always tell me when someone makes her uncomfortable, asks too much of her, or frightens her.

If something has already gone wrong, I want her to come to me while there is still time to help. And I want the first thing she hears to make it easier to tell me the rest.

Sources

DAY 27: WHAT THE RECORDS SHOW—AND WHAT THEY DON’T

Gino Borlado — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 14:00:00 GMT

A company can report sales without all that money becoming a shareholder’s income. A company can earn a profit without distributing dividends. And a missing financial statement cannot tell us whether a dividend was paid.

Those points became important on Day 27 of Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial.

The prosecution presented Securities and Exchange Commission official Gerardo Fernando del Rosario to discuss corporate records connected to the Vice President and her husband, Manases Carpio. The questions involved their reported shareholdings, corporate positions, and whether income from these businesses could help explain the growth of their declared wealth.

Some answers strengthened the questions facing the Vice President. Others exposed gaps in the presentation. Several required correction before the hearing could move forward.

These are my notes on the exchanges worth keeping.

WHY THE WITNESS LINEUP CHANGED

The prosecution dispensed with its planned Civil Service Commission witness, Ariel Ronquillo, saying earlier testimony had sufficiently covered the points it intended to raise.

The PhilGEPS witness was also deferred while the requested documents were being assembled.

That left Del Rosario, director of the SEC’s Company Registration and Monitoring Department, to explain the corporate filings under Article II.

His testimony could establish what companies had reported to the SEC. Whether those entries proved the prosecution’s allegations was another question.

THE LABEL ON THE PAGE WAS A PROBLEM

An early dispute concerned a summary headed as the Vice President’s shareholdings even though it also contained company-wide financial information.

The defense objected that viewers could mistake corporate totals for amounts personally belonging to Duterte.

The prosecution answered that the table had separate columns for the company and the individual shareholder. Presiding officer Francis Escudero initially allowed the first page on that basis.

But the defense then pointed to a financial-statement page carrying the same heading.

Senator Francis Pangilinan asked that summaries be furnished ahead of their presentation, giving the court and opposing counsel time to examine them. Escudero directed the parties to do so.

Senator Alan Peter Cayetano raised the public-facing problem: people watching the hearing could see the heading and draw a conclusion that an oral clarification would not necessarily undo.

Escudero ordered the heading removed; he did not rule in that exchange that the figures themselves were false.

For me, this was a necessary intervention. A financial table already asks a lot of an ordinary reader. Its heading should help explain the numbers, not leave the reader assigning a corporation’s money to one person.

THE CORPORATE ROLES DESERVE SCRUTINY

Del Rosario discussed filings listing Duterte as a 20-percent shareholder of Metro City Chow Foods Corporation and as a director and compensation-committee member, including during her vice presidency.

Those entries prompted questions about the constitutional restrictions on the Vice President’s participation in business.

There was an important correction here, too.

When Del Rosario described the restriction in terms of business interests, Escudero pointed out that the provision read into the record referred to participation in business. Del Rosario acknowledged the imprecision in his explanation.

That exchange did not settle whether Duterte’s reported roles violated the Constitution.

Later, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian pursued the issue more directly. Did membership in the compensation committee indicate participation in management?

Del Rosario answered affirmatively, while explaining that he was relying on the position reported by the corporate secretary. He also said the SEC had not investigated the suggested constitutional violation and left that judgment to the Senate.

Both parts of that answer belong in the notes.

The reported role raised a substantive question about participation. The witness’s reliance on corporate filings also defined the limits of his answer.

SOME OWNERSHIP QUESTIONS REMAINED OPEN

The hearing also examined Gencorp Industries.

Del Rosario said Duterte’s name did not appear in the incorporation and shareholder records being discussed. The prosecution explored corporate shareholders, common individuals across companies, and possible nominee or trust arrangements.

It elicited entries placing Jaime T. Cruz in both Gencorp and Metro City Chow. But when counsel pursued the characterization of an interlocking director, the defense objected and Escudero sustained the objection.

That ruling did not erase the corporate entries already discussed. Nor did those entries, by themselves, establish the Vice President’s ultimate ownership.

Senator Joel Villanueva asked how a business interest declared in a SALN could be reconciled with the absence of the person’s name from the corporate records.

Del Rosario discussed possible arrangements, but said he had no document establishing the proposed trust agreement.

Asked about beneficial-ownership information, he said his department did not have access to those forms.

That answer cannot be shortened to “the SEC has no record.” He was explaining what his department could access, not establishing that the information existed nowhere.

CARPIO’S RECORDS AND THE DIRECTION OF THE MONEY

The presentation also covered Cale88 Foods Corporation.

The summary listed Carpio with an initial 40-percent ownership interest, later 47.5 percent, and as chairman and president in earlier entries. The 2025 row stated that he no longer appeared as a director or stockholder.

The disappearance of a name from a filing does not, on its own, explain how an ownership interest was transferred or the terms of that transaction.

The examination then turned to advances from stockholders.

Here, the direction of the money was important. Del Rosario explained that these were funds advanced by shareholders to the company. The company owed the advancing shareholders.

They were not automatically payments from the company to Carpio. Nor did his ownership percentage establish that the entire balance came from him.

NO INFORMATION IS NOT THE SAME AS NO DIVIDENDS

The most consequential correction came during the prosecution’s presentation of dividends across several companies.

For some companies, Del Rosario said the filings examined contained no declaration of dividends.

For others, he said no financial statements had been filed with the SEC and he lacked the information needed to determine whether dividends had been declared.

The defense objected when the presentation treated the second situation as though it established the first.

Escudero sustained that objection and directed counsel to reflect the witness’s actual answer.

The prosecution denied misrepresentation. It said it stopped showing the disputed illustration after the clarification and maintained that its earlier examples were supported by the companies’ filings.

The defense then sought to strike the illustration and related questions. Escudero declined that request, explaining that the illustration had not been submitted in evidence and that his clarification addressed the testimony.

Those were two separate rulings.

The later refusal to strike the illustration did not turn missing information into proof of zero dividends.

HONTIVEROS ASKED ABOUT WEALTH. AQUINO ASKED ABOUT OTHER INCOME.

Senator Risa Hontiveros examined whether the companies’ financial position and the absence of dividends could explain an increase in personal assets.

Del Rosario explained that a company may retain profits rather than distribute them. No dividend does not automatically mean the company lost money.

But Hontiveros also obtained a direct answer: dividends a shareholder had not received could not explain an addition to that shareholder’s assets.

She then asked about divestment. Del Rosario pointed to changes in filings, including one dating to 2019, but said he did not hold the underlying documents transferring ownership.

Those answers did not establish a complete account of divestment during the vice presidency.

Senator Bam Aquino pursued another possible income channel: salaries and other compensation.

Could someone receive money as an employee or officer even if the company did not distribute dividends?

The witness acknowledged that possibility for someone holding an appropriate role.

Aquino then asked for the records that could establish whether Duterte or Carpio actually received such income. The prosecution said it had not found employment information in the SEC records presented that day and would call Bureau of Internal Revenue representatives concerning tax returns.

A possible salary is not a proven salary. But the absence of dividends is also not enough to rule out every other form of income.

THE TULFOS’ QUESTIONS

Senator Raffy Tulfo argued that Duterte should have been advised to divest and questioned the defense about the advice it would have given her.

The defense declined to answer the hypothetical question.

Later, Tulfo asked whether compensation from a prohibited business role would be ill-gotten. Escudero intervened because the question invited a legal conclusion the prosecution needed to establish.

Senator Erwin Tulfo focused on why the SEC did not remind officials about possible restrictions when their names appeared in corporate records.

Del Rosario described the absence of a directive to his office and suggested informational materials within the registration process. He agreed to bring the recommendation to the Commission.

That was a proposed follow-up, not a new policy already in force.

WHAT THE COURT LEFT FOR THE NEXT HEARING

Before adjournment, Escudero also ruled on the defense’s earlier language. He directed changes to references to misrepresentation and conditioning the public’s mind.

That addressed the wording in the record. It did not establish that every challenged presentation was accurate.

The defense’s cross-examination of Del Rosario was left for the next sitting. The PhilGEPS witness was also scheduled for September 22.

Sebastian Duterte’s September 23 subpoena was recalled. The court arranged a September 28–30 witness sequence involving him and representatives from PhilHealth Region XI and the PNP Firearms and Explosives Office.

The trial adjourned until 10 a.m. on September 22.

My takeaway from Day 27 is that there are serious questions in these records, particularly about continuing corporate roles. Those questions deserve answers grounded in documents.

The same care is required when the presentation overreaches. A missing filing cannot become a zero. A hypothetical salary cannot become an actual receipt. A reported committee position cannot simply be left out because the witness qualified his answer.

The notes need to preserve what the testimony supports—and stop where the evidence stops.

HOW DO WE PROTECT OUR CHILDREN?

Gino Borlado — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 06:35:00 GMT

I have been reading too many stories about children getting hurt lately. Maybe that comes with what I do. I read reports, compare versions, check what authorities actually said and try to understand what happened before I write anything.

Usually, there comes a point when the research ends. You understand enough of the story to write it, put the facts in order and eventually move on. Some stories refuse to stay on the screen.

When children are shot inside schools, I stop looking at casualty figures as numbers in a report. I start imagining parents waiting outside a gate, children hiding somewhere inside a building, teachers trying to keep students calm and families waiting for a phone call they never imagined receiving. At that point, I stop reading as a blogger and start reading as a father.

How do we protect our children?

THREE SCHOOLS

In June, three students were killed in a shooting at San Jose National High School in Tacloban City. Twenty others were injured.

In August, another shooting happened at the junior high school campus of Ateneo de Zamboanga University. A student was killed, the student identified by authorities as the shooter also died, another student was wounded and other students were attended to for panic, anxiety and minor injuries.

Then came Banga National High School in South Cotabato in September. Two students were killed, the student identified by authorities as the shooter also died and several others were wounded.

Three fatal school shootings happened in less than three months. I am not saying that three incidents prove the Philippines has a national epidemic of school shootings because I do not have the data to make that claim. But I am a parent, and three schools are already three too many for me to ignore.

There are still things being investigated in the Banga case. Authorities say the firearm belonged to the student’s father and are looking into how he was able to access it. Investigators are also examining the student’s online activity and other circumstances surrounding what happened.

There have already been statements and speculation about what may have influenced him, but an investigation is still an investigation. I do not want to turn something authorities are still trying to understand into a neat explanation simply because people want one immediately. Sometimes we have to be comfortable admitting that we do not know yet.

WHAT DO YOU DO IF IT IS YOUR CHILD?

We spend years teaching our children how to stay safe. Look both ways before crossing the street. Do not go with strangers. Tell me where you are going. Message me when you arrive.

We ask whether they have eaten, whether they got home and whether somebody is with them. We worry when they are late, even if they are only a few minutes late, because that is what parents do. Then we send them to school.

School is supposed to be one of those places where a parent can breathe a little easier. You leave your child there because there are teachers, administrators, guards and other adults whose responsibilities include keeping children safe.

Now imagine receiving a message saying there is a gunman inside your child’s school. I do not know what I would do, and that scares me more than I care to admit.

I would probably want to call immediately, but what if my child’s phone rings while she is hiding? I would probably want to drive straight to the school, but what if hundreds of parents do the same thing and emergency vehicles cannot get through? Maybe I would just sit there staring at my phone, waiting for somebody to tell me whether my child is safe.

Parents like to believe that when something happens to our children, we will know what to do. We imagine ourselves rushing in, making decisions and protecting them somehow. But there are dangers we simply cannot physically stand between our children and, and that is very difficult for a parent to accept.

SCHOOL SECURITY IS ONLY ONE PART OF IT

After every school shooting, people talk about guards, gates, bag inspections and metal detectors. Of course those things matter, but the danger can begin long before someone walks through a school gate with a weapon.

In some cases, it begins at home with access to a firearm. Another child may have seen something disturbing but did not know whom to tell. Different people may have noticed separate warning signs without anybody seeing the whole picture.

Sometimes a child needed help long before anybody realized how serious things had become. There is no perfect checklist that tells us who will become violent, and we should be careful about treating every angry, isolated or troubled child as a future criminal.

Children should know that when they see something frightening, hear a threat or believe somebody may hurt themselves or someone else, there is an adult who will listen and take them seriously. Parents, teachers and schools also need to know what to do with that information when it arrives.

Protection cannot start only after somebody pulls a trigger.

AND THEN WE TURN IT INTO CONTENT

This is the part that makes me angry. Something terrible happens and almost immediately, social media gets to work.

Videos appear before families even understand what happened. Screenshots begin circulating, people repeat rumors because somebody else posted them first and others speculate about motives while investigators are still collecting evidence.

A frightened child running out of a school becomes a video people replay. A grieving family becomes something strangers discuss, while a blurry cellphone recording becomes something somebody uploads because people will click on it. I find that disgusting.

There is obviously a need for information during an emergency. Parents need to know what is happening, communities need accurate updates and journalists need to report. But there is a difference between informing people and feeding them trauma.

After the Zamboanga shooting, the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas reminded journalists, content creators and social media users to protect the dignity and identities of minors. After the Banga shooting, government agencies again asked people not to circulate graphic material and unverified information.

Think about what that means. Children had just experienced something horrifying, families were trying to understand what happened and adults still had to be reminded not to turn their suffering into content.

Maybe part of the problem is that we have built an internet where attention has value. Attention can mean reach, reach can mean followers and followers can eventually mean money. Tragedy attracts attention, and that creates a terrible incentive.

I am not accusing every person who shares a video of trying to earn money from it. Some people share because they are shocked, some believe they are helping spread information and others simply do not stop to think about what they are doing.

But we have to ask what we are contributing when we repost the same frightening footage for the twentieth time. Did people need to see it? Did the public learn anything useful from it? Was a child identifiable, and did the family have any say in how far that image traveled?

We may simply be adding another link to a chain that turns somebody else’s worst day into something people can watch.

There is also research suggesting that we should be careful about the way mass violence is covered. Researchers have examined possible imitation, short-term clustering and the effect of giving perpetrators enormous amounts of attention.

Much of that research comes from the United States, so I am not going to pretend it proves what is happening in the Philippines. It does not. But it gives us another reason to be careful about how we talk about perpetrators and how much attention we give them.

We do not need to make shooters famous to explain what happened. We do not need to repeat every disturbing thing associated with them or replay their images until everyone knows their faces better than the names of the children who died. We can refuse to give them the audience they may have wanted.

WHO IS LOOKING AT THE WHOLE PROBLEM?

The frustrating part is that we already have people and institutions responsible for different parts of child safety. Schools have responsibilities, DepEd has child-protection rules, child-welfare agencies exist, police investigate crimes, professional broadcasters have standards, social media platforms have their own policies and Congress can investigate and write laws.

I cannot honestly say that nobody is watching. What I see is fragmentation.

The school sees what happens inside the campus. Police see the criminal investigation, child-welfare agencies look at the protection of minors and platforms decide what content stays up or gets removed. Journalists have professional standards that an ordinary person running a large Facebook page may not have.

Meanwhile, the child moves through all of these spaces at once. A child can go from a classroom to a group chat, a gaming platform, TikTok and Facebook within the same afternoon. Something seen online can become a conversation in school, while something that happens in school can be uploaded within minutes.

In the sources I reviewed, I did not find one clearly identified national mechanism looking at the entire problem together. We keep having separate conversations about things happening to the same children. We talk about school security in one place, mental health somewhere else, guns in another conversation and social media and misinformation somewhere else again.

The child does not experience these things in separate government departments. To the child, it is one life.

WHY I AM MENTIONING AGAP SOS

I hesitated to include AGAP SOS in this reflection because I do not want a tragedy involving children to become an opportunity to promote something I am building. I am mentioning it because this article is partly about what helplessness does to a parent and how I have tried to respond to that feeling.

AGAP SOS is one small response. It is still being developed, and I am not presenting it as a solution to school violence.

An app cannot stop a bullet.

It cannot replace good parenting, secure somebody else’s gun or take the place of a teacher who notices something wrong. It cannot replace a counselor, the police or a school that has prepared properly for an emergency. It cannot guarantee that somebody will be rescued.

The idea started with a smaller question. If somebody I love is in danger, how quickly can that person tell the people they trust, “I need help. This is where I am”?

The basic idea is one action that can alert trusted people and temporarily share the person’s location during an emergency. Possibilities involving schools, organizations or formal emergency services would have to be built, tested and agreed upon before I would ever claim they work.

I keep imagining a frightened child somewhere inside a building. Maybe the child cannot speak, there is no time to search through contacts or all he or she can manage is one action on a phone. Can we at least make that action useful and make sure somebody who cares knows something is wrong?

AGAP SOS is a very small response to a much larger problem. I am including it here because building it is one of the ways I have tried to do something with the helplessness I feel as a parent, not because I believe I have solved school violence.

WHAT DO WE OWE THEM?

I still do not know the complete answer to the question that started this reflection. Parents have responsibilities, but schools, gun owners, government agencies, technology companies and social media platforms have responsibilities too. So do those of us who post things online.

Maybe protecting children also means learning when not to post something. It can mean refusing to share a video simply because it is shocking, waiting for facts instead of racing to be first and remembering that a frightened child in a video is someone’s son or daughter before that child is content.

I keep thinking about the ordinary things children bring to school: a notebook, a pen, a water bottle, a phone and maybe lunch prepared by somebody at home. They leave in the morning and their parents expect them back later. It is such an ordinary expectation that we barely think about it until one day a parent waits and the child does not come home.

I cannot read these stories anymore without imagining that possibility. I cannot stand outside every classroom, secure every firearm, watch every corner of the internet or know what every troubled child is thinking. I wish I could protect my child from everything, as every parent does, but love does not give us that power.

What we do have is responsibility. Adults decide how guns are stored, run schools, build platforms, create algorithms, write laws, produce news, upload videos and moderate communities. Adults decide whether a child’s tragedy becomes information or entertainment, and children live with the consequences of those decisions.

The question is therefore bigger than how we protect them from the next shooting. What do we owe our children before anything happens, when they tell us something is wrong, when they are frightened and when tragedy has already happened?

But I know we cannot keep asking children to live with the consequences of things adults refuse to fix.

Sources

GHOST INTERNET? I WENT LOOKING FOR THE PROOF

Gino Borlado — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 23:53:13 GMT

I only found out about this because I came across a Facebook post about the Office of the Ombudsman investigating what it called “ghost internet” involving the Department of Information and Communications Technology. The term caught my attention, so I started looking for traces of evidence online from sources I trust, particularly government records, Commission on Audit findings, procurement documents and DICT’s own data.

I expected to find either something concrete or very little at all. Instead, I found years of documented problems involving Free Wi-Fi projects, incomplete delivery by suppliers, hundreds of locations that had not been activated and installed, thousands of sites going offline, recurring implementation problems and questions about how DICT monitors whether the internet services it contracts are actually delivered.

THE 942 LOCATIONS

The Commission on Audit's 2023 report on DICT refers to 18 awarded contracts covering 3,456 locations with a combined contract value of ₱1,679,458,636.03.

As of November 15, 2023, 942 of those locations had not been activated and installed with Free Wi-Fi service. That is roughly 27 percent of all the locations covered by those contracts. The report also calls them unaccepted locations. Some equipment may have been physically installed but still lacked completed testing, documents or formal acceptance.

The same audit finding identified three reasons: 13 suppliers were unable to completely deliver the internet services provided in their contracts, procurement activities had started late, and the Free Wi-Fi project management team lacked sufficient manpower.

Eighteen contracts worth almost ₱1.68 billion. Thirteen suppliers that had not fully delivered. Nine hundred forty-two locations not accepted at the audit cutoff. The ₱1.68 billion is the combined contract value, not a finding that this amount was paid or lost.

THE PROBLEMS DID NOT START IN 2023

When I went further back, the 942 locations started looking less like an isolated implementation problem and more like part of a longer history of difficulty with the government's Free Wi-Fi program.

In its audit of the 2019 program, COA reported that DICT had activated only 3,251 of a targeted 22,034 public Wi-Fi hotspots by the end of that year.

By the end of 2021, DICT reported 11,618 established sites against an accumulated target of 34,442. Of those, 9,248 were subsequently identified as existing and monitored.

By April 23, 2022, the number of monitored sites had fallen to 6,658. COA's figures showed that only 2,890 remained active while another 3,768 were either not operational or under maintenance.

COA also noted that some sites were deactivated when service contracts with private suppliers were terminated. That becomes important when comparing active-site counts across different years.

SO WHAT IS THE OMBUDSMAN NOW LOOKING FOR?

On September 18, Assistant Ombudsman Mico Clavano announced that the Ombudsman had begun fact-finding involving DICT.

The questions he raised went much further than delayed installation. Were the contracted sites actually installed and working? Was government billed for connectivity and services that were never delivered? Were the prices of hardware, software and services reasonable, or were they inflated? Who approved, certified or released payment for projects that were not delivered?

Clavano also described another possible scheme where the proper hardware is delivered and passes inspection, but cheaper, outdated or even fake software is installed while government is charged for the real thing.

The issue is whether any of the documented delivery failures crossed into billing, acceptance or payment for something government did not actually receive.

I have not found a document showing that the Ombudsman has included these same 18 contracts in its inquiry.

On September 20, DICT said it welcomed the Ombudsman's inquiry and stood ready to provide records and system data. It said it had strengthened contract monitoring, audits and performance checks, and that reported inactive sites face technical audits and contractual penalties. DICT did not provide a site-by-site account of the 942 locations or their payment histories in that statement.

AND THAT IS WHERE THE MONEY TRAIL BECOMES IMPORTANT

The ₱1.679 billion connected to the 2023 finding is the combined value of the 18 contracts. I have not found evidence showing that ₱1.679 billion was fully paid, and I have not found evidence showing that DICT paid for all 942 locations despite their non-delivery.

What happened to those 942 locations after November 15, 2023?

Some may have eventually been completed. Others may have remained unfinished. There may have been extensions, penalties, withheld payments, terminated contracts or substituted locations.

COA calculated initial liquidated damages of ₱45,851,863.17 for delays across the 18 contracts as of November 15, 2023. That is an audit calculation, not proof that the amount was ultimately collected. DICT told auditors in January 2024 that final billings for the 2023 procurements had not yet been processed. We still need to know what happened later: were damages collected, payments withheld, contracts terminated, performance bonds called, suppliers blacklisted or extensions granted?

If DICT identified non-delivery and refused to pay for it, then we are dealing with failed contract implementation. If an undelivered site acquired an acceptance report, appeared on an invoice and was paid anyway, the situation becomes much more serious.

THE CONTRACTS WERE SUPPOSED TO LEAVE A PAPER TRAIL

Some of the DICT internet procurement documents I examined contain procedures specifically designed to establish whether a service was actually delivered. They include on-site testing, internet-speed measurements, inspection records, service-level reports and formal acceptance procedures.

The Universal Internet Subscription for Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas procurement, for example, called for testing and formal acceptance as part of the process for paying activated sites. The contract also allowed an advance payment of up to 15 percent after the Notice to Proceed, subject to a special bank guarantee. These are the terms of that procurement, not proof of the payment terms or payment history of all 18 contracts in the 2023 finding.

A contracted internet location should still generate records showing what happened to it. There should be installation records, technical testing, acceptance documents, billing records and payment records where applicable. COA said DICT had reported 2,514 locations accepted by November 15, 2023, but the auditors had not received the service and final acceptance reports needed to validate those claims.

COA also recorded two pieces of equipment under UIS-GIDA Lot A that DICT's central project team had tagged as tested and accepted even though they had not been delivered to the regional office. Auditors recommended an investigation. The report does not establish whether those two pieces of equipment were paid for.

There may also be technical evidence. Routers and network equipment have serial numbers and other identifiers. Service providers may hold circuit or account records, and network monitoring may show uptime, outages and when equipment first appeared online. Investigators would need to establish which records were kept and whether they are still available.

For ordinary site delivery and progress payments, investigators should be able to reconstruct the chain:

Contract.

Installation.

Testing.

Acceptance.

Invoice.

Payment.

Then compare all of that against the actual network.

THERE IS ALSO A REASON TO LOOK AT DICT’S CHANGING SITE NUMBERS

DICT has released a Freedom of Information summary with aggregate counts and site lists for 2022 through 2025. Those lists give names and locations, but they do not identify which entries, if any, correspond to the 942 locations in the 2023 audit finding.

According to a DICT Freedom of Information response covering 2022 to 2025, the agency reported 15,717 operational sites at 8,258 locations in 2024. For 2025, that fell to 9,567 operational sites at 5,057 locations.

At the same time, the number of reported connected users rose from around 4.43 million in 2024 to around 9.71 million in 2025.

Documents reported by The Philippine Star also showed 18,849 activated Free Wi-Fi sites in 9,769 locations as of May 2025.

These figures need to be read carefully because “access point,” “site,” “activated site,” “hotspot,” “operational site” and “location” may not mean the same thing. One location may contain several access points, and contracts can expire during the year.

DICT should be able to explain exactly what each term means and reconcile the numbers.

WE ALREADY KNOW SITES CAN DISAPPEAR FOR REAL REASONS

In 2024, then-DICT Secretary Ivan Uy said around 2,600 Free Wi-Fi sites had gone offline because the government did not have sufficient funding to renew the contracts operating them. Once those contracts expired, DICT would have to go through procurement again.

The Department of Budget and Management later released an additional ₱3.681 billion for the Free Public Internet Access Program. DBM said the money was expected to benefit 13,462 access-point sites nationwide, on top of ₱2.5 billion already allocated that year.

A site can genuinely exist, operate, lose its service contract and then disappear from the operational inventory. That is why aggregate numbers alone cannot establish what happened to a specific site.

THE SOFTWARE ALLEGATION MAY BE ANOTHER PROBLEM ENTIRELY

Clavano also said hardware can be delivered and pass inspection while cheaper, outdated or fake software is installed instead of the software government paid for.

I have not found the specific procurement behind that allegation. I do not know which supplier is involved, which software is being examined, what version was contracted, what version was allegedly delivered, or what government paid for it.

I also have not found anything tying that allegation to the 942 Free Wi-Fi locations from the 2023 audit finding. Until evidence connects them, they should be treated as separate lines of investigation.

WHAT ABOUT THE 13 SUPPLIERS?

The 2023 audit finding tells us there were 13 suppliers that were unable to completely deliver internet services under the 18 contracts. COA's full report identifies at least one joint venture and lists the 18 contract lots in an annex. None of that establishes that any supplier is part of the Ombudsman's current inquiry.

The original COA report and its annex are now available. What we still need are the affected site records, later acceptance documents, invoices, payment histories and any collection of liquidated damages.

Then the 942 locations can be examined contract by contract instead of as one giant number.

THERE ARE THREE SEPARATE QUESTIONS

The first is already documented: DICT had implementation problems, including 942 locations still unaccepted under the 18 contracts as of November 15, 2023.

The second is what the Ombudsman is now investigating: whether government was billed or paid for internet connectivity or services that were never actually delivered.

The third is possible software substitution and possible overpricing of hardware, software and services.

The first is documented. The second and third still need their own evidence.

WHAT I WANT TO SEE NOW

For the 942 locations, I want to know where each one eventually ended up.

Completed?

Still unfinished?

Cancelled?

Substituted?

Terminated?

Penalized?

Paid?

Not paid?

Then I want the corresponding records: what the contract called for, when the contractor claimed installation, who inspected it, what testing was performed, who accepted it, whether it was invoiced and whether government money was released.

There is also a separate Freedom of Information request seeking details beyond the published site lists, including activation and deactivation dates, operational status and technical performance. The public FOI record lists September 21 as DICT's response deadline.

If that dataset is released with enough detail, it could make site-by-site comparison much easier.

SO, DID I FIND GHOST INTERNET?

I did not find a document saying, “Here are 942 ghost sites and here is the money paid for them.”

What I found is a documented trail of problems serious enough to explain why the Ombudsman is investigating: years of missed implementation targets, 18 contracts worth nearly ₱1.68 billion, 942 locations still unaccepted at the November 2023 audit cutoff, and 13 suppliers unable to completely deliver the internet services in their contracts.

Now the acceptance records, invoices and payment documents become crucial.

If those records show that government money was released for services that never existed, then the term “ghost internet” will have documentary weight behind it.

Until then, the records already justify scrutiny. The next step is to follow the money.

Sources

HOW RODRIGO DUTERTE INSPIRED ME

Gino Borlado — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 04:10:00 GMT

Rodrigo Duterte inspired me. I mean that sincerely.

His presidency changed the way I look at government and eventually changed the way I write about politics.

Before Duterte, I followed politics, had opinions and argued about issues like many Filipinos did.

During his years in office, I started asking a question much more often: how do I know this is true?

HE MADE ME PAY ATTENTION

Listen again to what Duterte said when he became President in 2016.

In his inaugural address, he spoke about corruption, criminality, illegal drugs and the erosion of public trust in government. He said he knew the limits of presidential power and described his adherence to due process and the rule of law as “uncompromising.”

He also said he abhorred secrecy and wanted transparency in government contracts, projects and business transactions.

Those were good things to hear from a new president.

A few weeks later, he signed Executive Order No. 2, which operationalized Freedom of Information across offices under the executive branch. It gave the public a formal way to ask government for records that could be released under the order.

I liked the idea behind it.

If government belongs to the people, then citizens should be able to look at what government is doing.

I did not realize then how much that idea would eventually affect me.

HE MADE ME LOOK FOR THE PAPER TRAIL

Duterte talked frequently about corruption.

He built part of his political identity around the idea that corrupt public officials should fear the President and that government should stop tolerating corruption.

So I started paying more attention to corruption.

Eventually, though, I wanted more than accusations and speeches. If someone supposedly stole government money, I wanted to know how much, where it came from, which project was involved, who approved it and what records supported the accusation.

I started looking for contracts.

Then budgets.

Then Commission on Audit reports, court decisions, procurement documents, legislative records and transcripts.

Sometimes I would read a news report and then spend much longer looking for the document the report was based on. I discovered that the original document could be more interesting than the article written about it.

It could also change the story.

A statement that sounded damning in a headline could look different when I read the entire transcript.

An allegation repeated hundreds of times online could become much weaker once I tried to find the document supposedly supporting it.

The opposite happened too.

Sometimes a few dry pages buried inside an audit report told a much more troubling story than anything circulating on Facebook.

That habit became part of Morning Coffee Thoughts.

A politician says something. I check.

Someone throws an accusation. I look for the record.

A government agency publishes a number. I want to know what was counted and how.

HE MADE ME THINK ABOUT POWER

Duterte’s public image was different from the presidents who came before him.

He was blunt, aggressive and often angry. He threatened criminals, insulted critics and projected himself as somebody willing to act while other politicians talked.

I understood why people liked it.

The Philippines had spent decades dealing with corruption, crime, slow government services and politicians who could talk beautifully without fixing much. A leader who appeared impatient with all of that was bound to attract people who were tired of waiting.

Watching Duterte govern made me pay closer attention to something I had not studied seriously enough before: the limits placed on government power.

I started reading more about due process, constitutional rights, the role of courts, congressional oversight and independent institutions. I began paying attention to procedures that can look irritating when people want government to act immediately.

There is a reason power is surrounded by rules.

Government can investigate you. It can arrest you. It can prosecute you. It can take away your liberty and, under certain circumstances, use force against you.

Once I understood government that way, I stopped treating aggression as proof of competence.

A president could dominate the political conversation and still make bad decisions. A leader could frighten opponents without fixing the weaknesses inside the institutions he controlled.

The image of strength became less interesting to me than the work of governing.

THEN CAME THE DRUG WAR

This part changed things much more deeply.

The Duterte government’s final Real Numbers data recorded 6,252 drug suspects killed during anti-drug operations from July 2016 through May 31, 2022.

The United Nations Human Rights Office reported a higher number in 2020 using broader official government data. It said at least 8,663 people had been killed in connection with the anti-drug campaign by that point, while human rights organizations produced still higher estimates.

Those figures do not count exactly the same thing, so I learned not to throw them around as though one number automatically disproved another.

But every credible count led to the same place.

Thousands of people were dead.

Numbers became people once I started asking questions.

Who was killed?

What were they accused of?

What evidence existed?

Were they armed?

Who investigated the killings?

What happened when the police version of events was challenged?

How many deaths resulted in prosecution?

How many families ever received an answer?

Due process became much easier for me to understand after that.

Police officers can be wrong. Witnesses can lie. Evidence can be planted. Informants can have their own motives, and a person accused of a crime can turn out to be innocent.

Death does not give government a chance to correct its mistake afterward.

The legal battle over Duterte’s drug war has now moved far beyond political argument. On April 23, 2026, the International Criminal Court confirmed three counts of crimes against humanity involving murder and attempted murder and committed Duterte to trial after finding substantial grounds to believe he was criminally responsible for the alleged crimes.

He has not been convicted. His trial is scheduled to begin on November 30, 2026.

I can strongly condemn what I saw during the drug war and still write those last two sentences.

If evidence and due process mean anything to me, I cannot throw them away because the accused happens to be Rodrigo Duterte.

HE MADE ME READ PAST THE HEADLINE

Duterte also spent years fighting with journalists and news organizations.

Rappler became one of his most visible targets. In 2018, his administration barred Rappler reporters from covering presidential events inside Malacañang after Duterte had accused the organization of publishing fake news and his spokesperson said the President had lost trust in it.

I did not respond by deciding that Rappler must therefore always be right.

I started checking.

When a news report quoted a court ruling, I tried to find the ruling. When someone cited COA, I looked for the audit report.

When politicians accused journalists of lying, I wanted to see what the journalists actually published.

When journalists accused politicians of wrongdoing, I wanted to see the evidence behind the report.

That eventually became one of the most important habits in the way I work.

I do not want Rodrigo Duterte deciding what I should believe.

I do not want Rappler deciding it either.

Or ABS-CBN.

Or GMA.

Or the Inquirer.

Or the Manila Times.

Or some Facebook page with a million followers.

Give me the information. Give me the document when one exists. I will read as much as I can and make up my own mind.

THEN I HAD TO TURN THE SAME STANDARD AROUND

There was an uncomfortable consequence to all of this.

It became easy for me to investigate Rodrigo Duterte because I increasingly disagreed with him.

The real test came when the person under scrutiny was somebody I liked.

If I demanded proof before accepting an accusation against Duterte, I had to demand proof when someone accused a politician I supported.

If I insisted on due process for someone whose politics I shared, then due process could not disappear when the accused was someone I disliked.

If a document contradicted the argument I wanted to write, the argument had to change.

There are times when research ruins a very good post.

I have learned to live with that.

Political loyalty is dangerous once it begins deciding which facts we accept. The moment I start lowering the standard for someone because I happen to like that person, everything I claim to believe about accountability becomes meaningless.

That realization changed Morning Coffee Thoughts more than my position on any single politician.

I became much less interested in belonging to a political camp.

People I agree with can be wrong.

People I dislike can be right.

A politician I defend today may deserve criticism tomorrow.

And when I make a mistake, the evidence does not become less true simply because correcting myself is embarrassing.

SO YES, RODRIGO DUTERTE INSPIRED ME

Now I can say exactly what I mean.

The Duterte administration’s poor governance inspired me.

Watching that administration pushed me to understand government more seriously because I did not want anger to be the only thing I had.

I wanted to know why things were happening.

I wanted records.

I wanted laws.

I wanted numbers I could trace.

I wanted to understand how public money moved, how government contracts worked, how accusations became cases, what courts actually decided and what happened after politicians stopped talking about an issue.

The Duterte years taught me how easily aggression can be mistaken for leadership and how easily confidence can hide incompetence.

They showed me how political loyalty can make people defend conduct they would condemn immediately if someone from the other side did exactly the same thing.

The drug war showed me what can happen when government begins treating due process as something that gets in the way and when human beings are reduced to statistics in a political argument.

His battles with critics showed me why I should never allow a politician to choose which sources I am permitted to believe.

And his constant talk about corruption made me understand that shouting about corruption and finding it are two completely different jobs.

That is why I research.

That is why I read documents that most people will never bother opening.

That is why an allegation is never enough for me simply because I want it to be true.

That is why I have become suspicious of political heroes.

Rodrigo Duterte inspired me to become a more investigative political writer because I watched what I considered poor governance and realized that simply being angry about it accomplished nothing.

I needed to understand it.

And once I started understanding how government actually works, I also began understanding how easily citizens can be fooled when we stop checking.

That may be the strongest influence Rodrigo Duterte ever had on me.

He made me pay attention.

Then he gave me more than enough reasons to keep looking.

Sources

I THOUGHT PLUNDER WAS JUST ABOUT ₱50 MILLION

Gino Borlado — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 20:51:00 GMT

I went back to the testimony of former Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje-Tang because of something she said about the Plunder Law.

She said prosecuting plunder has become more difficult. She pointed to the Supreme Court doctrine that tells prosecutors to identify a mastermind or what the courts call the “main plunderer.”

That made me curious because, as a non-lawyer, my understanding of plunder was very shallow. I basically knew two things: the amount must reach ₱50 million, and plunder is what we commonly call a non-bailable offense.

As it turns out, even the second one needs correction.

Plunder is punishable by reclusion perpetua. A person charged with plunder can still apply for bail, but the court first has to determine whether the evidence of guilt is strong.

So I started reading Republic Act No. 7080, the Supreme Court decisions around it, and several actual plunder cases. Since I am not a lawyer, there is always a chance that I am reading a legal point incorrectly, so if you are one and you see an error, please let me know.

I am trying to understand this as an ordinary citizen.

WHAT PLUNDER ACTUALLY MEANS

The Plunder Law was passed in 1991. The original threshold was ₱75 million, but Congress lowered it to ₱50 million in 1993.

In simple terms, plunder happens when a public officer, alone or working with other people, amasses or acquires ill-gotten wealth worth at least ₱50 million through a combination or series of acts listed in the law.

Those acts can include taking public money, receiving kickbacks or commissions, taking advantage of government contracts, illegally acquiring government assets, or using public office to obtain wealth.

The money does not have to be sitting in the public official’s own bank account. RA 7080 covers wealth acquired directly or indirectly through other people, including nominees, agents, subordinates and business associates.

So putting money or property under another person’s name does not automatically place it outside the law. The difficult part is proving that the money or property really belongs to, is controlled by, or benefited the accused.

The ₱50-million threshold is also an aggregate amount. Several smaller amounts can be added together if prosecutors can prove that they belong to the same combination or series covered by the law.

Then I encountered something I did not expect.

If a public official illegally gets ₱100 million through only one criminal act, that single act may still not qualify as plunder.

The Supreme Court has explained that plunder needs a “combination or series” of criminal acts. A combination involves at least two acts from different categories listed in the law, while a series involves at least two acts from the same category.

The ₱100-million act may still be another serious crime. The amount alone does not automatically make it plunder.

Congress designed the law for large corruption schemes made up of connected acts. Section 4 even says prosecutors do not have to prove each and every criminal act done in furtherance of the scheme.

They can instead prove a pattern showing the overall unlawful scheme or conspiracy. That deals with what ultimately has to be proved in court.

A different question later reached the Supreme Court: how much detail must prosecutors put in the charge itself so an accused person knows what he or she is supposed to defend against?

HOW THE COURTS CHANGED THE FIGHT

When the Plunder Law reached the Supreme Court in Joseph Estrada’s case in 2001, Justices Santiago M. Kapunan, Consuelo Ynares-Santiago and Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez dissented from the majority that upheld the law. They worried, in different ways, that parts of RA 7080 were too vague or broad and could leave too much discretion to prosecutors and courts.

Ynares-Santiago warned that the law could lead to arbitrary and unequal enforcement. Sandoval-Gutierrez described it as “vague and fuzzy, inexact and sweeping,” while Kapunan also questioned whether its wording gave an accused enough certainty about what conduct could lead to a plunder conviction.

The Supreme Court majority disagreed. It upheld the Plunder Law as constitutional and said its meaning was clear enough when the statute was read as a whole and with the help of its legislative history.

Twenty-five years later, Cabotaje-Tang, Justice Marvic Leonen and Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla are raising a different concern: whether later court rulings have made plunder unusually difficult to prosecute.

The 2015 Enrile ruling was important here.

The Supreme Court said prosecutors had to give greater detail about the alleged acts making up the combination or series. The accused had to be told enough about the projects, transactions, amounts and alleged acts to prepare a proper defense.

That ruling dealt with the constitutional right of an accused person to know the accusation. It did not say prosecutors must prove every single act in the scheme.

Then came the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo plunder case.

The Supreme Court majority said that when several people are accused, prosecutors must identify the public officer who is the “main plunderer.”

Those words do not appear in RA 7080.

The Arroyo majority reasoned that someone must be identified as the principal public officer who amassed the ill-gotten wealth. It also connected this to due process because a person facing possible life imprisonment must be clearly told what role he or she supposedly played.

Former Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin, who wrote the ruling, later defended that interpretation. Several justices disagreed.

Justice Leonen argued that RA 7080 does not call for one mastermind because the law already allows several people acting under a common plan to accumulate ill-gotten wealth. Then Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno also questioned rules she believed were not written in the law.

There was another disputed point in Arroyo.

For the specific form of plunder involving a “raid on the public treasury,” the majority said prosecutors must show personal benefit. Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe and other dissenting justices questioned that interpretation.

This point needs to stay narrow. It does not mean every possible plunder case always needs a separate showing of personal benefit.

Still, if prosecutors build a case around that specific kind of plunder, they may have to show who actually benefited. That becomes harder when money moves through contractors, corporations, intermediaries, nominees or several accounts.

At that point, I began to understand Cabotaje-Tang’s concern.

WHAT THE ACTUAL CASES SHOW

The “main plunderer” doctrine changed how prosecutors handled actual cases.

In the ₱50-million Bureau of Immigration case involving Al Argosino, Michael Robles and Wenceslao Sombero, Ombudsman prosecutors initially argued that RA 7080 did not make them identify a main plunderer. They later amended the charge and named Argosino as the main plunderer.

The Sandiganbayan convicted Argosino, Robles and Sombero of plunder in 2021. The case involved an identifiable amount, identifiable people and separate instances involving the money.

Now compare that with a large procurement or infrastructure scheme involving many projects, different contractors, several public officials and transactions spread over years. The job of proving who acquired what can become much harder.

The Pharmally controversy shows one part of that problem.

Pharmally received about ₱4.165 billion in government pandemic supply contracts. Former Ombudsman Samuel Martires later explained why his office pursued graft instead of plunder.

Martires said the evidence did not establish which public officer had amassed at least ₱50 million in ill-gotten wealth or received commissions from the transactions.

That distinction is easy to miss. A huge government contract does not automatically become an equally huge plunder case, and the value of a contract is not the same thing as the amount of ill-gotten wealth proved against a public officer.

The Enrile case shows another problem.

The plunder charge against Enrile, Jessica “Gigi” Reyes and Janet Lim Napoles alleged around ₱172.8 million in kickbacks. They were acquitted of plunder in 2024 after the Sandiganbayan majority found that guilt had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Five entries in the records totaled about ₱46.39 million, below the ₱50-million threshold. The majority also questioned whether receipt of those payments had been proved with the certainty needed for conviction.

Cabotaje-Tang agreed with the plunder acquittal but disagreed on the lesser offenses. In her separate opinion, she believed the ₱46.39 million in payments to Reyes had been proved and would have convicted Reyes of five counts of direct bribery, with corresponding convictions against Napoles for corruption of public officials.

So the ₱46.39 million was Cabotaje-Tang’s finding, not the finding of the court majority.

The Carlos Garcia case shows another weak point.

The retired major general was accused of plunder involving around ₱300 million. The case eventually resulted in a plea bargain involving lesser offenses, with Garcia offering to surrender about ₱135.4 million in cash and property to the government.

The Supreme Court record shows why the prosecution had a problem. Prosecutors said they could not find contractors or suppliers who could support the allegation that Garcia received gifts, commissions or kickbacks from them, and they could not prove the criminal acts that supposedly produced the wealth beyond reasonable doubt.

This also explains why a plea bargain or a lesser charge does not automatically mean someone escaped accountability. Prosecutors sometimes have to decide what offense their evidence can actually prove.

Then there is the demurrer to evidence.

After prosecutors finish presenting their case, the accused can ask the court to dismiss because the prosecution’s own evidence is insufficient. If the court grants the demurrer and acquits the accused, double jeopardy normally prevents the government from simply repairing the weaknesses and trying the same person again for the same offense.

The first trial is not a rehearsal.

THE LAW IS ONLY PART OF THE PROBLEM

Sandiganbayan’s own historical statistics also caught my attention.

Its published tables show that plunder cases make up a very small part of the court’s historical docket compared with the thousands of cases involving graft and malversation.

There are limits to that comparison. Plunder did not become a crime until 1991, and one criminal case can involve several accused.

Still, the difference is striking.

The record itself is also mixed. Joseph Estrada was convicted of plunder in 2007 and later received executive clemency.

Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. was acquitted of plunder while Richard Cambe and Janet Napoles were convicted in the same case. Enrile, Reyes and Napoles were acquitted in the separate Enrile case.

So I would not say that nobody gets convicted of plunder. The record does not support that.

Cabotaje-Tang has also said that one of the Sandiganbayan’s biggest problems is the quality of the evidence brought before it. A judge cannot convict because a government project looks suspicious or because the public believes corruption happened.

Every element of the offense still has to be proved with admissible evidence beyond reasonable doubt.

Current Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Geraldine Econg has made a related point about delay. Long cases can weaken evidence because witnesses may die, disappear, become unavailable or simply forget details after many years.

Delay can also violate the rights of the accused. Faster and better-prepared cases therefore serve both accountability and due process.

PLUNDER IS NOT THE ONLY PATH TO ACCOUNTABILITY

If prosecutors fail to prove plunder, it does not automatically mean every underlying act was legal.

The same conduct may support graft, malversation, bribery, corruption of public officials, money laundering, administrative cases or civil recovery.

There is also Republic Act No. 1379, which allows the government to seek forfeiture of property that is manifestly out of proportion to a public official’s lawful income. These are civil proceedings, so the standard is preponderance of evidence rather than proof beyond reasonable doubt.

The Supreme Court’s 2025 Ligot ruling also confirmed that putting property in another person’s name does not automatically shield it. If the evidence traces true ownership to the public official, the property can still be covered by forfeiture proceedings.

Plunder is a serious tool, but other legal paths remain available.

THE ARGUMENT IS STILL HAPPENING

Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla has also criticized the difficulty of prosecuting plunder under current Supreme Court decisions.

In 2025, he called the law “full of holes” and said other offenses could sometimes be easier to prove. In 2026, after studying the law and the cases further, he said the Ombudsman could still build successful plunder cases but continued to argue that some court-made rules were not written in RA 7080 and should be revisited.

New plunder cases have also been filed in 2026 against Senator Jinggoy Estrada, Senator Rodante Marcoleta and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez in separate proceedings.

Estrada declined to enter a plea during his September 3 arraignment, so the Sandiganbayan entered a not guilty plea for him. Marcoleta pleaded not guilty earlier and his bail proceedings were still ongoing this week, while Romualdez pleaded not guilty on September 16.

All of those cases are pending.

The charges are allegations, and the courts will decide whether the evidence proves them. Their relevance here is narrower: prosecutors are again working under the same body of law that Cabotaje-Tang, Leonen and Remulla have questioned.

SO WHAT DID CABOTAJE-TANG MAKE ME REALIZE?

I started this reading thinking plunder was basically about a corrupt public official, ₱50 million and a very serious criminal charge.

I now understand why that barely scratches the surface.

The harder questions are about proof. Who actually acquired the wealth, and can prosecutors trace it?

If the money moved through another person or company, can they prove who truly controlled or benefited from it? Were there enough criminal acts to form a combination or series, and can those acts be connected into one overall scheme?

If several people were involved, who was the main plunderer under current Supreme Court doctrine?

If prosecutors rely on a raid on the public treasury, can they show the personal benefit called for by the Arroyo ruling? How much detail should prosecutors have to give while still preserving the original purpose of a law designed for large and complicated corruption schemes?

I do not have a simple answer.

I also do not think it would be fair to blame everything on the Supreme Court. The due process concerns are real, and several failed cases also show problems involving investigation, witnesses, documents and the quality of prosecution.

But I now understand why Cabotaje-Tang raised the issue.

RA 7080 was created to deal with corruption involving many acts and many people. Yet the larger and more complicated an alleged scheme becomes, the harder it may become to trace the money, identify who actually received or benefited from it, connect the participants and prove the whole case beyond reasonable doubt.

That leaves Congress with a difficult question.

After more than three decades of court decisions and actual prosecutions, does the Plunder Law still work the way Congress intended it to work?

I started reading because of one statement from Cabotaje-Tang. Now I understand the question behind it.

Sources

CAN A DETAINED SENATOR STILL DO HIS JOB?

Gino Borlado — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 04:53:00 GMT

While having coffee, I was doing some readings about Senators Rodante Marcoleta and Jinggoy Estrada and their possible participation in the impeachment proceedings. Napunta ako sa isang simple question: kapag nakakulong ang isang elected public official, senator in this case, can he still do his job?

Let me share with you what I found because there are several legal questions involved here, and they are easy to mix together. Detention, remaining in office, participating in Senate proceedings, and preventive suspension are related, but they are not the same thing.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AN ELECTED OFFICIAL IS DETAINED?

Detention does not automatically remove someone from elected office. But remaining a senator does not mean a detained person can continue performing the job as though he were not in jail.

There is already Supreme Court jurisprudence on this. In People v. Jalosjos, Congressman Romeo Jalosjos wanted to leave confinement so he could attend congressional sessions and committee meetings, but the Supreme Court refused.

Then there was Antonio Trillanes IV v. Pimentel. Trillanes had already been elected senator while he remained detained over the Oakwood mutiny case, and he wanted to attend Senate sessions, committee hearings, investigations, caucuses, meetings and other official activities.

The courts refused that request as well, and the Supreme Court upheld the denial. The principle was that being elected does not give a detained official a continuing right to leave lawful custody whenever public duties call.

That distinction is important. An official may still occupy the office, but his liberty remains subject to the conditions of detention and the authority of the court.

THEN THERE WAS LEILA DE LIMA

De Lima adds an important nuance because her case shows that detention does not necessarily mean a senator can do absolutely nothing. While detained, she continued filing bills and resolutions and performing legislative work that could be done from inside the PNP Custodial Center.

But when Senate rules later allowed teleconferencing during the pandemic, De Lima asked the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court to let her participate remotely in Senate sessions. The court denied the request, concluding that allowing her to participate by teleconference would, in practical terms, still allow her to take part in formal Senate proceedings while under detention.

De Lima challenged that reasoning. Her position was that Trillanes and Jalosjos restricted physical liberty, but did not necessarily prohibit work that could be done entirely from inside detention. That was her legal argument, however, and the trial court still denied her request.

This gives us a useful distinction. A detained senator may still be able to perform certain legislative tasks that do not require release from custody or formal participation in a Senate proceeding, but attending a session, voting, or joining formal proceedings remotely is another question.

The Senate itself had debated the issue. Senator Kiko Pangilinan supported allowing De Lima to participate through teleconference, while then Senate President Tito Sotto opposed it and pointed out that detained Senators Bong Revilla, Juan Ponce Enrile and Jinggoy Estrada had not been allowed similar participation during an earlier Congress.

So even Zoom is not automatically a way around detention. The question is not only whether the senator physically leaves the detention facility, but whether the arrangement allows the detained official to formally exercise functions that ordinarily come with the office.

AND THIS IS NO LONGER JUST AN OLD CASE

This brings us to Jinggoy Estrada, because his present situation gives us a much more recent example.

Estrada asked the Sandiganbayan to allow him to attend Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment trial as a senator-judge. The Sandiganbayan denied that request in July.

According to reports on the ruling, Estrada argued that participation in an impeachment trial was a constitutional duty. The Sandiganbayan nevertheless concluded that the importance of that duty did not by itself justify allowing him to repeatedly leave detention to participate in proceedings expected to extend over a considerable period.

That distinction is important because a one-day medical furlough or appearance is very different from an arrangement that effectively allows a detainee to regularly resume a major function of his public office.

The Sandiganbayan relied on the same general line of jurisprudence involving Jalosjos and Trillanes. So in Estrada's case, we no longer have to speculate about whether the court might allow physical participation in the impeachment trial. He asked, and the request was denied.

CAN THE SENATE ASK THE SANDIGANBAYAN?

Yes.

Senator Alan Peter Cayetano has raised the possibility of the impeachment court coordinating with the Sandiganbayan regarding the participation of detained senators. Senate President Win Gatchalian has also said that because Marcoleta and Estrada are under Sandiganbayan jurisdiction, permission to attend Senate proceedings would have to come from the court.

The Senate can therefore express that it wants or needs the participation of a detained member. But that request does not transfer control of the detainee from the court to the Senate.

Senator Ping Lacson has argued that the cleaner procedure would be for the detained senators and their lawyers to make the request themselves rather than have the Senate intervene directly. His concern was that Senate intervention could be perceived as pressure on the Sandiganbayan.

So, yes, the Senate can ask. The Sandiganbayan can also say no.

In Estrada's case, it already did.

WHAT ABOUT ZOOM?

This was another question I had. If the problem is physically leaving jail, why not allow the senator to participate through Zoom?

That can certainly be requested, but I found no rule giving a detained senator an automatic right to participate remotely in Senate proceedings. De Lima's experience is particularly relevant because she specifically asked to participate through teleconferencing without leaving detention, and the trial court still denied her request.

So remote participation does not automatically solve the legal problem. The issue remains whether the detained official can formally exercise Senate functions under the conditions of judicial custody.

JINGGOY HAS ANOTHER PROBLEM

Estrada's situation also has another layer because detention is not his only legal restriction.

The Sandiganbayan ordered him preventively suspended from the Senate for 90 days in connection with a graft case. Preventive suspension and detention are separate legal concepts, and they should not be treated as though they mean the same thing.

A detained official may continue to hold the office but face severe practical and legal restrictions on how its functions can be exercised. A preventively suspended official, however, is subject to a specific court order temporarily barring him from exercising the office during the period of suspension.

Preventive suspension is also not a declaration of guilt. It is an interim legal measure while the criminal case proceeds.

MARCOLETA IS DIFFERENT

Marcoleta is also detained, but his position should not simply be copied from Estrada's.

The public reporting I reviewed shows that the issue of Marcoleta's possible preventive suspension has been raised before the Sandiganbayan. I have not found a subsequent public ruling showing that a comparable 90-day suspension has already been imposed on him.

His immediate obstacle is therefore detention and the Sandiganbayan's control over his custody.

We have also seen that the court is capable of granting limited permission when it considers the request appropriate. Earlier this month, the Sandiganbayan granted Marcoleta a one-day medical furlough, which shows that a detained official may request a specific temporary accommodation and the court may approve it under conditions.

Marcoleta, however, said on September 17 that he would not seek furlough merely to participate in the vote concerning the impeachment conviction threshold. So before we even reach the question of whether the Sandiganbayan would grant such a request, Marcoleta is presently saying he does not intend to make one.

WHAT DID I LEARN FROM ALL THIS?

The easiest mistake here is to treat everything as one question.

"Senator pa rin ba siya?"

Yes. Detention by itself does not necessarily remove him from office.

"Can he still do some work?"

Yes. De Lima's case shows that some legislative work can continue from detention.

"Can he therefore participate normally in formal Senate proceedings?"

There is no automatic right to do so.

"Can the Senate ask the Sandiganbayan to allow participation?"

Yes.

"Does the Sandiganbayan have to agree?"

No.

"Has physical participation actually been tested?"

Yes. Estrada asked to attend the impeachment trial, and the Sandiganbayan denied the request.

"Has remote participation been tested before?"

Yes. De Lima asked to participate in Senate sessions through teleconferencing, and the trial court denied that request too.

That is why the argument that Marcoleta and Estrada remain senators, therefore they must be allowed to vote as senator-judges, is incomplete. Their continued membership in the Senate is only one part of the legal picture.

The law also has to deal with detention, judicial custody, preventive suspension where applicable, and the specific kind of official participation being requested. Those questions do not disappear simply because the detained official still holds the title.

After reading Jalosjos, Trillanes, De Lima and the current Estrada situation, the picture is much clearer to me.

An elected official may remain in office while detained, and some work may still continue from inside detention. Formal participation in legislative proceedings, however, is another matter, and the official's electoral mandate does not by itself override judicial custody.

The title may remain.

Whether the official can fully exercise it is a separate legal question.

Sources

THE NBI IS NOW FOLLOWING THE DAVAO PAPER TRAIL

Gino Borlado — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 02:22:00 GMT

This investigation is long overdue.

I had already been following questions about Davao’s public-works and flood-control spending long before this NBI subpoena came out.

PCIJ had examined Davao DPWH contracting and Genesis88 as far back as 2018, and by August 2025 the House had already said Davao would be included in the wider flood-control investigation.

Antonio Tinio later gave the issue much more detail. In September 2025, he questioned multi-year contractual authority granted to 12 relatively short revetment projects in Davao.

Two months later, his team released a review of 121 flood-control contracts implemented from 2019 to 2022.

Tinio said 80 contracts worth about ₱4.35 billion showed possible problems involving overlapping projects, possible double funding, location discrepancies, reduced project coverage and inadequate project details.

He later asked the Ombudsman to investigate up to ₱4.4 billion worth of projects.

These were allegations that needed investigation, but they gave us actual contracts and specific questions that could be checked.

Now the National Bureau of Investigation has issued a subpoena demanding records from DPWH.

I am glad it has reached this point because somebody finally has the authority to demand the documents needed to test many of those earlier questions.

The subpoena asks for bidding and financial records, exact coordinates, photographs, engineering and as-built plans, inspection reports, completion and acceptance documents, and records identifying the people who inspected and certified the projects.

For me, that puts us one step closer to accountability.

I went through the subpoena and the attached project list. Here is what I found so far.

WHAT THE NBI SAYS IT FOUND

NBI Director Melvin Matibag says investigators reviewed 100 flood-control projects in Paolo Duterte’s district and flagged 47 for further investigation.

He later clarified that around six of those 47 already appeared clearly problematic based on the documents reviewed at that stage.

Matibag also said investigators encountered suspected ghost projects, substandard work and one case involving a single set of coordinates connected to five different budgets carrying different project titles.

These remain matters under investigation, not final findings of wrongdoing.

Now look at what the NBI is demanding from DPWH.

If investigators suspect projects with the same coordinates, they need the exact locations.

Questions about what was actually constructed can be checked against engineering and as-built plans.

Inspection reports and completion certificates can show who examined the work and who certified it.

That is the kind of scrutiny these projects needed.

THE DAVAO MONEY

The ₱51-billion figure connected to Davao City’s 1st District has also been used carelessly, so I want this part stated correctly.

That amount was not all flood-control money.

DPWH Region XI released a project book covering 2020 to 2022 listing 710 infrastructure projects with allocations totaling around ₱49.8 billion.

The projects included the Davao City Coastal Road, Maa Flyover, Ulas Viaduct, Davao City Bypass Road, public buildings and other infrastructure.

DPWH said roughly ₱8 billion during that period was allocated to flood-control projects.

Eight billion pesos is still an enormous amount of public money.

Davao has continued to experience serious flooding, but I am not going to pretend that every flood proves corruption or that a particular flood-control structure failed.

Flooding has many causes, and Davao’s integrated flood-control master plan for the Davao, Matina and Talomo river basins still had no implementation funding as of July 2026.

The question I want answered is much narrower: after billions were spent on flood-control projects, what exactly was built, where was it built, and did government get what it paid for?

GENESIS88

Genesis88 Construction Inc. appears repeatedly as I follow the records.

The NBI says approximately ₱1.9 billion worth of projects in Paolo Duterte’s district were awarded to a contractor owned by someone close to the Duterte family.

Matibag said the contracts were among the records being examined, while also making clear that investigators were still gathering evidence.

PCIJ identifies businessman Glenn Escandor as the owner of Genesis88.

Its analysis of DPWH records found that Genesis88’s government business grew significantly during the Duterte years, with flood-control structures and revetments becoming a large part of its portfolio.

PCIJ reported that the value of Genesis88’s DPWH contracts reached ₱1.9 billion in 2022.

The company also appears in joint ventures with other contractors.

That is not evidence of wrongdoing by itself, and I have found no basis for claiming that the companies involved are fronts for one another.

The ownership and political connections, however, are part of the public record.

THE ESCANDOR CONNECTION

Escandor has a documented relationship with the Duterte family.

Rodrigo Duterte appointed him to assist on sports during his presidency, and PCIJ has also documented the relationship between the businessman and the former president.

There is also a campaign-finance connection that needs careful wording.

Esdevco Realty Corporation, an Escandor-linked company, contributed ₱19.9 million worth of advertisements to Sara Duterte’s 2022 vice-presidential campaign. The contribution came from Esdevco, not Genesis88.

I have found no evidence proving that the contribution resulted in Genesis88 receiving government contracts. I am not going to claim something the records do not establish.

But the relationship exists, and I see no reason to omit it while billions in government contracts are under examination.

TINIO’S QUESTIONS AND THE NBI SUBPOENA

What interests me now is how closely some of Tinio’s earlier questions line up with the records the NBI is demanding.

Tinio’s team alleged total overlaps, possible double funding, discrepancies between budgeted and implemented locations, reduced project coverage and contracts with insufficient location details. Of the 121 contracts reviewed, his team flagged 80.

The NBI is now asking for exact coordinates, as-built plans, engineering records, bidding documents, financial records, photographs and inspection reports.

Those documents can help determine whether an alleged overlap really exists, whether a project was built where the budget said it would be built, and whether the finished work matches what government approved.

The repeated river names in the records do not prove anything by themselves. A single river can legitimately have many projects covering different banks, sections and stations.

The coordinates are what interest me.

Matibag says investigators found one case involving five budgets connected to the same coordinates under different project titles. Before drawing any conclusion, I want to see those contracts and locations.

THE GOVERNMENT’S OWN RATINGS SHOULD ALSO BE CHECKED

There is evidence that complicates any attempt to simply declare Genesis88’s projects problematic.

Some Genesis88 projects received favorable government performance evaluations.

That means the investigation should also examine the inspection trail, especially if any project now being questioned had previously been inspected and rated favorably.

Who inspected it? What did they inspect? What documents supported the certification?

Those questions become especially relevant because the subpoena asks for the inspection and personnel records.

PAOLO DUTERTE’S RESPONSE

Paolo Duterte has denied that the flood-control projects identified by Tinio were ghost projects. He said the structures existed and had been implemented, inspected and validated by DPWH and the Commission on Audit.

He later welcomed an investigation into the projects, saying he had nothing to hide.

Fine.

Then inspect everything.

If the projects exist and were properly built, the records and physical structures should support that. If investigators find something else, then the people responsible should have to explain it.

DAVAO SHOULD HAVE ASKED HARDER QUESTIONS

This is where I have a problem.

Questions about Davao public works did not suddenly appear with the NBI. PCIJ had already examined contracting there years ago. The House put Davao under the broader flood-control inquiry in 2025. Tinio later produced a contract-by-contract review and pushed the issue before Congress, the ICI and the Ombudsman.

Yet I have seen very little sustained pressure from within Davao demanding this level of examination despite the amount of public money involved and the flooding residents continue to experience.

I am not saying nobody in Davao ever questioned these projects. I cannot make that claim, and it would be unfair to the people who did.

But Davao should have demanded much harder scrutiny much earlier.

A political family dominating a city for decades should never result in less examination of government spending.

Billions of pesos in public money should produce more questions, regardless of who happens to be in power.

If local pressure was not enough to produce that level of scrutiny, then I am glad the NBI is finally doing it.

Somebody has to.

NOW WE FOLLOW THE RECORDS

I am not starting this investigation with a conclusion about guilt.

I am starting with the documents.

Tinio gave us a detailed set of allegations that could be checked. The NBI subpoena now gives investigators the authority to demand many of the records needed to check them, while the bureau’s own review has produced another group of projects it says deserve closer examination.

From here, I want to follow the contract IDs, contractors, amounts, coordinates, inspection reports, engineering plans and completion documents as they become available. I also want to know which projects investigators eventually clear, because that is part of the record too.

Davao has received too much public money for scrutiny of these projects to be treated as an attack on the city or its political leaders.

If the projects were properly built, inspected and paid for, the documents should bear that out. If they were not, then Davao has a lot to answer for.

This investigation is long overdue.

And from here, I will be following the paper trail.

Sources

Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
Philippine Daily Inquirer
GMA News
GMA News
GMA News
GMA News
GMA News
GMA News
GMA News
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Philippine Star
Philippine Star
Philippine Information Agency
Philippine Information Agency
Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
Philippine Star
GMA News
Department of Public Works and Highways, February 2023 Post-Contract Award Disclosure
Department of Public Works and Highways, May 2023 Post-Contract Award Disclosure
Department of Public Works and Highways, Constructors’ Performance Evaluation Report
Government Procurement Policy Board, CPES Report 40th Release
National Bureau of Investigation subpoena and attached Davao project list supplied for this post

DAY 26: SIXTEEN IS NOT A MAGIC NUMBER

Gino Borlado — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 08:00:00 GMT

These are my notes from the September 16 impeachment hearing. If I missed anything critical or described anything inaccurately, please let me know. I will be happy to verify and correct it.

Day 26 of Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial did not feature a new witness or another pile of financial records. Instead, the Senate impeachment court confronted a constitutional question that could determine whether the trial can reach a meaningful conclusion. The Constitution requires “two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate” to convict, and with 24 senators, the usual calculation is 16.

But does conviction always require exactly 16 votes?

That question has become harder to answer because some senators are detained, one is in hiding, and another has been abroad on extended medical leave. Others have missed significant portions of the trial. The real issue is whether senators who cannot—or simply do not—participate should still be counted when determining the number required to convict.

WHAT THE LEGAL EXPERTS SAID

The impeachment court invited four retired Supreme Court justices to offer independent legal advice. Retired Chief Justices Artemio Panganiban and Reynato Puno and retired Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna appeared personally, while retired Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. submitted a written memorandum. Their opinions were advisory, and the court did not change the threshold during the hearing, but three of the four said that 16 is not necessarily a fixed number.

Davide argued that the calculation should be based on senators who are legally and physically qualified to vote. Senators who are detained, suspended, seriously incapacitated, in hiding, or otherwise unable to perform their duties should not automatically remain part of the denominator. Panganiban similarly acknowledged that a literal calculation produces 16, but said this is true only “in the abstract.” Reality can change the denominator, and the Constitution should not be interpreted in a way that makes it impossible for the impeachment court to perform its duty.

Puno made the clearest mathematical point. If the framers intended conviction to require exactly 16 votes under every circumstance, they could have written the number 16 into the Constitution. Instead, they used a fraction: two-thirds. A fraction can produce a different result when the valid denominator changes.

Azcuna disagreed with the other three. For him, “all” means all, and every sitting senator must be counted unless that person’s membership permanently ends through death, resignation, removal, or a similar event. His warning deserves consideration because allowing the denominator to change too easily could let a political majority manufacture a conviction by excluding its opponents. But the opposite danger is just as real: a group of senators could prevent a verdict simply by disappearing or refusing to participate.

The court also received a separate memorandum from Rev. Fr. Ranhilio Aquino, dean of the San Beda University Graduate School of Law. Aquino was not one of the four invited former justices, but Presiding Officer Francis Escudero said the court would consider his arguments and provide copies to the senator-judges, prosecution, and defense. Aquino argued that the Constitution assumes the senators being counted actually heard the evidence, participated in the proceedings, and joined the deliberations. His position added another respected legal voice to the argument that two-thirds is a proportion rather than an unchanging number.

HOW THE SENATORS TESTED THE ARGUMENTS

Erwin Tulfo, who challenged the original 16-vote ruling, asked whether the impeachment court had the authority to interpret the threshold. Puno and Panganiban said it did because the Senate’s sole power to try and decide impeachment cases necessarily includes the power to resolve the rules needed to complete a trial. Tulfo also asked whether senator-judges needed to think like Supreme Court justices. Panganiban said they did not: senators were chosen to exercise judgment as elected representatives, not to imitate the technical procedures of regular courts.

Juan Miguel Zubiri introduced an interesting Senate precedent from 2001. The Constitution also requires two-thirds of all senators to concur in treaties, yet the Senate journal showed four treaties being approved with only 13 affirmative votes. Zubiri asked whether those approvals were unconstitutional or whether they demonstrated that the Senate had previously treated two-thirds as something other than a fixed 16. Treaty concurrence and impeachment are different constitutional powers, but the example showed that the Senate itself has not always applied the phrase mechanically.

Joel Villanueva identified the danger on both sides of the argument. He asked how the court could prevent absent senators from creating a veto while also preventing a majority from excluding opponents to make conviction easier. Risa Hontiveros then asked about senators who willfully refuse to attend. Panganiban said they should not be allowed to diminish the votes of those who showed up, heard the witnesses, and studied the evidence, while Puno and Azcuna were more open to allowing absent senators to vote after reviewing transcripts, recordings, and documents.

Panfilo Lacson tested Azcuna’s position with a hypothetical in which nine senators became stranded abroad during a prolonged war, leaving only 15 able to participate. Azcuna maintained that the denominator would remain 24, which would make conviction impossible because 16 votes could never be obtained. Panganiban rejected an interpretation that would require the impossible and eliminate the Senate’s ability to decide the case. Lacson’s example exposed the practical weakness of treating 16 as an immutable number.

Francis Pangilinan raised a separate concern: Would changing the threshold after the trial had begun violate the respondent’s right to due process? The retired justices said reconsidering the threshold would not, by itself, violate due process because the court would be resolving a constitutional question rather than changing the evidence or declaring the respondent guilty. Both sides would also receive an opportunity to argue their positions before the court reached a decision.

THE MOST CRINGE PART OF THE HEARING

While the entire session was educational, Pia Cayetano’s interjection was, for me, the most cringe part. The discussion had been about constitutional language, participation, and protecting the impeachment process from manipulation. Cayetano shifted the focus to the pressure she personally felt, saying she feared for her liberty and her right to speak as members of the Senate minority faced cases and investigations. She also brought up the attention given to her recent trip to Singapore and asked whether she should inhibit because she felt pressured.

Any credible threat against a senator-judge should be investigated, and legal cases should never be manufactured to alter the composition of an impeachment court. Still, the way Cayetano raised her concerns felt self-centered. A discussion about a constitutional rule that could affect every future impeachment suddenly became about her fears, her travel, and her political circumstances. Her interjection did not help answer how the court should distinguish genuine incapacity from voluntary absence or strategic nonparticipation.

If anything, the episode showed why the court needs an objective rule. The threshold cannot depend on which senators feel safe, persecuted, sympathetic to the respondent, or hostile to the prosecution. It must be based on legal capacity, genuine participation, fairness to both sides, and the Senate’s constitutional duty to reach a judgment.

WHAT THE COURT DECIDED

The court did not settle the threshold question during Day 26. Escudero’s original ruling therefore remains in force, meaning conviction still requires 16 votes unless the impeachment court overturns it. The prosecution and defense are scheduled to present oral arguments on September 23, after which the senator-judges are expected to resolve the issue.

Before ending the session, the court also issued subpoenas for Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte and several government, police, legal, and corporate-record witnesses. It issued undisclosed show-cause orders involving two members of the prosecution panel over possible violations of its restrictions on public comments. These were important procedural developments, but the constitutional debate over the denominator remained the defining event of the day.

WHY THIS GIVES ME HOPE

My biggest takeaway is that 16 is not necessarily a hard number. It remains the current threshold, but three former chief justices and the dean of the San Beda University Graduate School of Law explained why the Constitution may require more than blind arithmetic. Their arguments showed that the two-thirds requirement can be interpreted in a way that preserves both fairness and the Senate’s ability to perform its constitutional duty.

That gives me hope for the Philippines because absence, detention, or political maneuvering may not be allowed to paralyze an institution created to demand accountability. It also shows that an earlier interpretation can still be questioned, examined, and corrected through an open constitutional process. No majority should be allowed to manufacture a conviction by excluding opposing senators, but absent senators should not be allowed to manufacture a veto either.

The Constitution says two-thirds. It does not say 16.

MCT IMPEACHMENT TRACKER: DAY 24 | THE LAW CAME BEFORE THE RECORDS

Gino Borlado — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 03:15:00 GMT

These are my notes from the September 14 impeachment hearing. If I missed anything critical or described anything inaccurately, please let me know. I will be happy to verify and correct it.

I went back through the hearing expecting to follow money. Instead, the Senate spent much of Day 24 learning the rules for following it.

That was the prosecution's choice. Before showing the SALNs, bank records, tax documents and corporate filings behind Article II, it called retired Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje-Tang to explain how the law looks at unexplained wealth, hidden ownership, business interests and omissions from a public official's wealth declaration.

It sounded like a lecture at times. The questions eventually exposed why the lecture was necessary, where it was incomplete and how easily a large number can be mistaken for a verdict.

The prosecution brought a legal framework. The documents still have to do the proving.

1. THE DOCUMENTS HAVE NOT DONE THE PROVING YET

Yesterday opened Article II, the part of the impeachment case accusing Vice President Sara Duterte of accumulating wealth that cannot be reconciled with her lawful income, filing incomplete or untruthful Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth from 2022 to 2024, and failing to divest or continuing to participate in business while in office.

Justice Tang did not authenticate a Duterte bank account. She did not identify an undeclared property. She did not compare Sara Duterte's salary with a particular acquisition. She had no personal knowledge of whether Duterte's SALNs were accurate or whether any of her assets were unlawfully acquired.

The Senate allowed her to testify because she could explain the rules that may later be applied to those records. Presiding Officer Francis Escudero made the limit clear: her opinion would not bind the impeachment court and would not be conclusive. The defense could challenge her, and it did.

So the fair description of yesterday is simple. The prosecution supplied its legal map. It has yet to walk the Senate through the transactions, connect them to actual ownership, compare them with lawful income and prove the allegations written in Article II.

That limit protects the fairness of the trial. Duterte's supporters cannot dismiss the inquiry before the records are examined, and her critics cannot treat a legal lecture as evidence of guilt.

2. ₱6.77 BILLION IS A HEADLINE. IT IS NOT YET AN ANSWER.

The number hanging over Article II is approximately ₱6.7 billion to ₱6.77 billion in aggregate transactions linked by the prosecution to accounts involving Duterte and her husband, lawyer Manases Carpio.

Aggregate transactions are the total movements recorded across accounts. They are not automatically the amount somebody earned, owned or kept. The same money can be counted more than once as it moves from one account to another. A deposit can represent income, a loan, a transfer, money held for another person or something unlawful. The number alone cannot tell us which.

This is where both camps will have to do serious work.

The prosecution must show whose money it was, where it came from, when it was acquired, who controlled or benefited from it, and what part cannot be explained by lawful income. If it relies on property or accounts under another person's name, it must prove the connection instead of asking the Senate to assume it.

The prosecution carries the burden of proving its case. If properly authenticated records reveal a serious discrepancy, however, calling the case political will not explain it. The defense can answer with records showing a lawful source, a spouse's separate ownership or the legitimate purpose of money that temporarily passed through an account.

₱6.77 billion commands attention. Evidence must give the number meaning.

3. THE SALN IS A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON DECEMBER 31

One exchange helped me understand why bank records can show far more movement than a SALN.

Senators asked what happens when millions or billions enter a public official's account and are withdrawn before the end of the year. Justice Tang initially had to correct herself on the date. The SALN filed by April 30 reports the official's financial position as of December 31 of the previous year.

If money entered an account in October and left in November, it would no longer be sitting there as a year-end asset. That does not automatically make the transaction unlawful. It also does not erase the transaction from the bank trail or prevent the Anti-Money Laundering Council from examining it.

That answer gave us one of the clearest ways to understand the coming evidence. A SALN is a photograph taken on December 31. Bank records are closer to a moving picture.

The prosecution will be looking for moments in that moving picture that reveal ownership, control, income or benefits not reflected in the official photograph. The defense can show that a transaction had a lawful explanation or that money passing through an account was never the account holder's property.

Neither document should be read alone. A missing year-end balance does not prove concealment. A clean-looking year-end declaration also cannot answer every question about what happened during the rest of the year.

4. ONE OMISSION MAY BE A MISTAKE. REPETITION CHANGES THE QUESTION.

Justice Tang was careful on one point that deserves the same care from the public: an omission from a SALN does not automatically prove unexplained wealth.

The official must be given a chance to explain. A property may have been lawfully acquired. A filer may have made an honest error. A spouse may have owned an asset under a valid property arrangement. An official may even have been genuinely unaware of a spouse's account. The surrounding evidence decides whether an omission was innocent, negligent or deliberate.

The question becomes harder when the same property or financial interest disappears from declaration after declaration. Repetition can support an inference that somebody was trying to conceal it. It still needs proof, but the honest-mistake explanation becomes harder to sustain each year the same omission returns.

This is why the coming comparison must be exact. Which asset was allegedly missing? Who acquired it? When? How much did it cost? What lawful income was available? Was it held jointly, separately or through a company? Did it remain undeclared across several years? What explanation did Duterte provide?

Without those details, "false SALN" is an accusation. With authenticated records and a fair opportunity to answer them, the Senate can decide whether it was a mistake, a reporting violation, intentional concealment or no violation at all.

5. THE BUSINESS QUESTION IS STRICT, BUT YESTERDAY DID NOT SETTLE EVERY EDGE

The Constitution places unusually strict restrictions on the President and Vice President. During their tenure, they may not directly or indirectly participate in business, and they must strictly avoid conflicts of interest.

Justice Tang took a broad view. When Escudero asked whether the prohibition reached ownership of even a sari-sari store, she said yes. The discussion also reached corporate shares and divestment. Yet another exchange acknowledged that an official may receive dividends from shares.

That left an important question unfinished. When is a stockholding a passive investment, and when does ownership, control, influence or benefit become prohibited participation in business? The documents showing corporate positions, voting rights, beneficial ownership and actual conduct may answer more than a general statement can.

There is also a deadline detail that should be reported accurately. Republic Act No. 6713 says that when a conflict of interest arises, an official must resign from a position in a private business enterprise within 30 days of assuming office and divest shareholdings or interests within 60 days. Several reports compressed those separate requirements into a single 30-day divestment rule.

The constitutional restriction may impose a stricter standard on the country's two highest executive officials. The Senate still has to decide how that restriction applies to Duterte's actual interests and conduct. A legal principle cannot identify beneficial ownership by itself. The SEC records, company documents and testimony about who exercised control will have to make that connection.

6. THE DEFENSE FOUND A LIMIT, THEN TURNED TO POLITICAL LABELS

Defense lawyer Mark Vinluan had a legitimate point to establish: Justice Tang did not know the facts of Sara Duterte's finances. She was explaining law, and the senator-judges must decide the law for themselves. The defense also preserved its objection that she was an inadequately disclosed surprise witness and that it had not received enough material to prepare.

Then the cross-examination moved into political territory.

Was Tang disappointed that former president Rodrigo Duterte had not appointed her to the Supreme Court after several applications? Was she anti-Duterte? Did she like Sara Duterte? Was she a Kakampink? Was she close to Chel Diokno? Had she been promised anything for appearing?

Cross-examination is allowed to test bias. A witness's political connection, personal interest or hostility can affect credibility. Asking the question is not improper merely because it sounds uncomfortable.

But the questions have to lead somewhere.

Tang denied being anti-Duterte or politically affiliated. She said she was not close to Diokno and recalled that they had appeared on opposing sides in earlier litigation. When asked whether she was receiving or had been promised anything, she answered, "My testimony is not for sale."

That became the line people remembered. I was left asking whether the defense uncovered bias or simply gave the witness her strongest moment. Calling somebody a Kakampink does not rebut a statute, correct a SALN or explain a bank transfer.

7. THE MOST USEFUL WORDS WERE "I STAND CORRECTED"

"My testimony is not for sale" was the dramatic answer. I underlined a quieter one.

When the relevant SALN date was clarified, Justice Tang said, "I stand corrected."

That did not destroy her expertise. It demonstrated why the defense had to be allowed to question her and why the senator-judges cannot outsource their judgment to an expert witness. A credible proceeding leaves room for correction in public.

The same discipline should apply to everybody watching. A viral clip may omit the qualification that followed an answer. A prosecution statement may describe allegations as strongly as the rules permit. A defense statement may emphasize unfairness while leaving the financial discrepancy unanswered. A headline may turn transaction volume into apparent wealth.

We should be willing to correct our own first impressions when the full record says something more precise.

WHAT COMES NEXT

At the end of yesterday's hearing, the prosecution was preparing to move from legal concepts to documents. The scheduled witnesses included an Ombudsman records officer expected to identify and authenticate Duterte's SALNs and an SEC official expected to authenticate corporate records.

Authentication is only the beginning. It tells the court that a record is what the witness says it is. The next questions are harder: What does the record show? What does it omit? How does it compare with lawful income and other filings? Who owned or controlled the companies and accounts? What explanation does the defense offer? Does the full evidence support an innocent error, lawful wealth, a disclosure violation or deliberate concealment?

WHAT DAY 24 LEFT US WITH

Day 24 did not establish that Sara Duterte had unexplained wealth. It established the legal framework the prosecution wants the Senate to use when the financial records arrive.

Justice Tang explained how lawful income, year-end SALNs, beneficial ownership, repeated omissions and business interests may fit together. The defense established that she had no personal knowledge of Duterte's finances and that her opinions do not bind the senator-judges. The political questions on cross-examination produced the day's most memorable exchange, but they did not resolve a single financial discrepancy.

The large figure also remains only a starting point. The approximately ₱6.77 billion cited by the prosecution refers to aggregate transactions, not a finding that Duterte earned, owned, kept or stole that amount. The prosecution must trace the money, prove ownership or control, compare the assets with lawful income and establish what was omitted. The defense must be allowed to explain every challenged record.

Day 24 gave the prosecution its vocabulary. The records now have to carry the accusation.

Sources

DID VINLUAN REALLY DESTROY JUSTICE TANG?

Gino Borlado — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 16:30:00 GMT

Supporters of Vice President Sara Duterte quickly declared Atty. Mark Vinluan’s cross-examination of retired Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje-Tang a demolition. In pro-Duterte circles, the verdict was that Vinluan had exposed or even “destroyed” the prosecution’s witness.

The short clips were convincing. Vinluan asked Tang whether she had personal knowledge of Duterte’s bank accounts, income, liabilities, properties, business interests and Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth. Tang repeatedly answered that she did not. Viewed without context, it looked devastating. Why would the prosecution present a witness who knew almost nothing about Duterte’s finances?

I watched the complete examination because I wanted to know whether the celebration matched what actually happened.

I am not a lawyer, so I will not pretend to grade Vinluan according to techniques taught in law school. I can only look at what he tried to establish, what Tang admitted and whether those admissions defeated the purpose of her testimony.

What I saw was a cross-examination that accomplished two useful things. Vinluan clearly limited what Tang could prove, and he raised an important warning about confusing the total movement of money with actual wealth. He did not establish that Tang was politically biased, prove that her explanation of the law was wrong or disprove any financial allegation against Duterte.

WHY TANG WAS THERE

The prosecution did not present Tang as Duterte’s banker, accountant, business partner or financial investigator. She had not personally audited Duterte, traced the source of specific deposits or authenticated the SALNs involved in Article II. She was called to explain the legal principles surrounding unexplained wealth, SALN disclosure, conflicts of interest and the restrictions imposed on high government officials. Other witnesses and financial records were expected to provide the facts specific to Duterte.

In ordinary language, Tang was there to explain the rules that could later be applied to the evidence. That purpose was discussed before she testified. Senate President Francis Escudero also made clear that Tang’s opinions would not bind the senator-judges or decide the case.

The defense still had a legitimate reason to challenge her appearance. A former Sandiganbayan presiding justice carries an impressive title, especially when the subject is alleged unexplained wealth. Viewers might assume that she had personally examined Duterte’s finances and already found something suspicious. Vinluan needed to make sure that no one confused Tang’s legal explanation with proof against Duterte.

WHAT VINLUAN ACCOMPLISHED

Vinluan’s clearest achievement was separating Tang’s knowledge of anti-graft law from the actual financial accusations against Duterte. Through a series of direct questions, he established that Tang could not personally tell the impeachment court how much Duterte lawfully earned, what she owned, how much she owed or where particular deposits came from. Tang could not say from firsthand knowledge that Duterte had accumulated unexplained wealth.

That was useful because it placed a clear boundary around her testimony. Her former judicial position could not honestly be presented as direct evidence that Duterte had done anything wrong.

But Tang had not claimed to possess firsthand knowledge of Duterte’s finances. The prosecution had already explained that the financial records would be presented through other witnesses. Vinluan confirmed that the person explaining the rules was not the person presenting the records. Once Tang admitted that, the point was already clear. I understood it early in the cross-examination.

By the time Vinluan had moved through Duterte’s SALNs, income, liabilities, properties, accounts, companies, transactions and her husband’s income, I was no longer learning anything new from the repeated answers. Tang did not know those facts personally. The court understood it too, and Escudero eventually directed Vinluan to move on from that line of questioning.

THE ₱6.7-BILLION QUESTION

The more interesting part of Vinluan’s cross-examination involved the large transaction figure connected to Article II. A reported aggregate of ₱6.7 billion in transactions does not automatically mean that Duterte owned, earned or accumulated ₱6.7 billion. Transaction totals can include deposits, withdrawals and transfers between accounts. The same money can appear several times as it moves.

Vinluan used a hypothetical example involving a deposit, interest and withholding tax to show how one original amount could produce several recorded entries. This exposed the danger of presenting a huge transaction total as though it represented a person’s actual wealth.

This was the part of his cross-examination that I found genuinely useful. Unlike the repeated questions about Tang’s personal knowledge, this challenged how ordinary viewers might understand the financial figures themselves.

But Vinluan demonstrated only how double-counting could happen. He did not prove that the ₱6.7-billion figure was actually calculated that way. That can only be determined by examining the records. The impeachment court will have to know which entries were deposits, withdrawals or transfers, who owned or controlled the accounts, where the money came from and whether the same funds were counted repeatedly.

Until then, the ₱6.7-billion figure should not be treated as self-explanatory. It is a figure that requires examination, not a verdict by itself.

A CROSS-EXAMINATION FOR TWO AUDIENCES

The repeated questions about Tang’s lack of personal knowledge may have added little inside the courtroom, but they worked very well outside it. Every additional “No” created another short exchange that could be clipped and shared without the explanation of why Tang had been called.

Vinluan was questioning a witness before the senator-judges while also speaking to the public. That does not necessarily mean the repetition was accidental or incompetent. An impeachment trial is both a legal proceeding and a national political event watched by millions of Filipinos. As courtroom questioning, the repetition produced less and less new information. As political communication, it was highly effective.

The defense had accused the prosecution of using Tang to condition the public by placing a respected former anti-graft justice on the witness stand before presenting the financial documents. That concern was understandable because her title gave her statements immediate authority.

Vinluan then used the same witness to push the public in the opposite direction. Tang became a sounding board for the defense’s position that Article II may involve misunderstood transaction figures, innocent SALN errors, assumptions and political hostility.

The prosecution used Tang to introduce the language of public accountability. The defense used her answers to create doubt before the financial records were fully examined.

THE ATTACK ON HER EXPERTISE

Vinluan challenged the prosecution’s description of Tang as a legal expert. Tang acknowledged that she did not possess a government certificate or special statutory title declaring her one, and she declined to proclaim herself an expert. That exchange reduced the authority created by the label. Tang’s years in the judiciary did not make every statement she gave automatically correct.

But the absence of a special certificate did not erase her experience. From my readings under the Rules on Evidence, expertise may come from knowledge, education, training, skill or experience. Tang spent years handling cases in the Sandiganbayan. Vinluan reminded the court that she was not infallible, but he did not identify a Supreme Court ruling that clearly disproved the central explanation she had given.

He also brought up Tang’s unsuccessful applications to the Supreme Court. But failing to become a Supreme Court justice does not prove that a lawyer lacks extensive knowledge of anti-graft law.

THE SEARCH FOR POLITICAL BIAS

Vinluan asked whether Tang was anti-Duterte, a Kakampink, affiliated with Akbayan, personally close to prosecutor Chel Diokno or resentful over her unsuccessful Supreme Court applications. He also asked whether she had been promised anything or hoped to receive an ambassadorial appointment.

Looking for possible bias is a legitimate part of cross-examination. Political affiliations, personal relationships and expected rewards could affect how a witness’s testimony should be received.

But the questions produced denials rather than proof. Tang denied the political affiliations and personal motives attributed to her. The defense did not publicly present a document, statement, organizational record or contradictory testimony establishing those suggested connections.

When Vinluan asked whether she had been promised anything in exchange for testifying, Tang gave one of the hearing’s most memorable answers: “My testimony is not for sale.”

Vinluan had every right to investigate possible bias. But asking whether Tang was biased did not prove that she was, and the questioning gave her an opportunity to present herself as independent.

THE MORE USEFUL SALN ADMISSIONS

The cross-examination became more valuable when Vinluan asked how SALN discrepancies should be interpreted. Tang acknowledged that an omission or discrepancy does not automatically establish unexplained wealth. The surrounding circumstances must be examined before deciding whether an inaccurate or missing entry resulted from an honest mistake or intentional concealment. She also agreed that good faith cannot simply be ignored.

Those were useful admissions for Duterte. A missing SALN entry does not automatically prove corruption, and a discrepancy cannot explain itself. The amount involved, the frequency of the errors, the official forms used, the transactions surrounding them and the explanation offered by the official must all be examined. A single honest mistake is not the same as a repeated effort to hide property or money.

This gives the defense an opening if discrepancies are eventually proven. Its value will depend on whether Duterte can provide credible explanations supported by records.

THE PROCEDURAL ARGUMENTS

Vinluan also invoked constitutional protections, the prosecution’s burden and Duterte’s opportunity to confront the information used against her during the House proceedings. These are legitimate concerns because impeachment cannot become an excuse to remove an elected official through unsupported accusations. Duterte must know the charges against her and receive a meaningful opportunity to answer them.

But impeachment is not identical to an ordinary criminal trial. It is a special constitutional proceeding conducted by the Senate, while any criminal liability must still be pursued separately before the courts. The House stage also does not necessarily operate like a completed trial.

Supreme Court decisions recognize due-process protections in impeachment, but the opportunity to respond can occur through pleadings and other procedures instead of live cross-examination of every person consulted during the investigation. The sensible question is whether Duterte received enough information and a genuine opportunity to answer the accusations. Importing every criminal-court procedure into impeachment would oversimplify how the constitutional process works.

DID VINLUAN DESTROY TANG?

No, at least not according to what I understand “destroying a witness” to mean.

He did not expose a lie, force Tang to withdraw her legal explanation or confront her with a controlling decision that proved her interpretation was false. He did not establish that she was politically connected to Duterte’s opponents or had been promised a reward.

What Vinluan did was narrower, but still valuable. He prevented Tang’s title from being mistaken for direct proof against Duterte. He obtained useful admissions about good faith and SALN discrepancies, and he warned the public that a huge aggregate transaction figure is not automatically the same as actual wealth.

He also gave Duterte’s supporters a series of powerful clips. Those clips succeeded because they presented Tang as though she had been called to prove Duterte’s financial misconduct from personal knowledge. She had not.

The questions that could decide Article II remain unanswered. What do the bank and ownership records show? How were the transaction totals calculated? Who owned or controlled the accounts? Where did the money come from? What appeared in the SALNs, and how will Duterte explain any proven discrepancy?

Tang’s lack of personal knowledge cannot answer those questions for the prosecution. Vinluan’s cross-examination cannot answer them for the defense.

Vinluan showed that the witness explaining the map had not personally travelled the route. His supporters celebrated as though he had proven the map was wrong.

He did not.

Sources

WHEN A POWERFUL MAN GETS SICK, WHAT SHOULD WE BELIEVE?

Gino Borlado — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 20:36:00 GMT

I wanted to understand what was happening to Martin Romualdez because the question was never as simple as whether he had an illness.

One doctor described his condition as a non-emergency. Other doctors warned that moving him could expose him to serious medical risks, particularly a possible heart attack. The doctor who handled his admission did not physically examine him, and a clinical abstract was prepared before he entered the hospital.

Once a powerful politician is arrested inside a hospital, the argument usually moves faster than the evidence. May sakit daw. May palusot daw. People pick a side, then treat every new detail as proof that they were right from the beginning.

The suspicion is understandable. But what do the available facts actually support?

THE LIST OF ILLNESSES DOES NOT ANSWER EVERYTHING

Romualdez’s camp reported a medical history that included coronary artery disease, unstable angina, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, cerebrovascular ischemic disease, dyslipidemia and primary hypothyroidism. It also said he had previously undergone a procedure to open a narrowed or blocked coronary artery.

Those are not minor conditions. Some describe problems that millions of families already know, even if they use simpler words for them: high blood pressure, high blood sugar, abnormal cholesterol and narrowed blood vessels supplying the heart.

Hindi naman kailangang doktor ka para maintindihan na puwedeng magsabay-sabay ang mga iyan. But a list of illnesses still leaves an important question unanswered: what care does he need right now?

A person may have several genuine medical conditions without requiring continuous confinement in one particular hospital. The issue before the court was not whether Romualdez had ever been sick. It was whether his condition required him to remain at Cardinal Santos Medical Center while under arrest.

That was where I wanted the explanation to become more concrete. What were his current findings? What treatment could not be interrupted? Could another properly equipped hospital provide the same care? What exactly made the transfer dangerous?

THE DOCTOR WHO DID NOT EXAMINE HIM

The detail that made me stop was the testimony of Dr. Kurt Allen Sibayan.

At the September 10 hearing, Sibayan said he had been advised that he could not enter Romualdez’s room and did not physically examine him. Romualdez had also gone directly to a hospital room instead of passing through the emergency room.

Sandali. Siya ang nag-asikaso ng admission, pero hindi niya nasuri ang pasyente?

Sibayan later explained that Romualdez’s attending doctors were already there, so he did not need to conduct the examination himself. He also said the clinical abstract he prepared was checked by those doctors.

But another detail remained unusual. Sibayan said the abstract had been prepared a few hours before Romualdez was admitted, after a member of Romualdez’s staff requested it through another doctor.

He told the court that a clinical abstract is usually issued when a patient is discharged.

None of this proves that no doctor examined Romualdez. It does not prove that his illnesses were invented, either. What it gives the court is a trail that can be checked: who examined him, when the examination happened, what the doctors found and how those findings appeared in a document prepared before his admission.

Those details matter because the request was not simply for medical treatment. Romualdez was asking the court to allow him to remain confined in a private hospital instead of being transferred to a detention facility.

WHY THE ACCOUNTS STILL NEED MORE EXPLANATION

Then there is unstable angina. Medical authorities generally treat it as an emergency because reduced blood flow to the heart can precede a heart attack.

That does not tell us whether Romualdez met the diagnostic criteria for unstable angina at every point of his confinement. It does make the doctors’ apparently different descriptions more important to resolve.

Sibayan described Romualdez’s condition at the time as a non-emergency, although he acknowledged the risk of a possible heart attack. Dr. Rosalio Torres cited unstable angina with underlying coronary disease in explaining why Romualdez should remain confined.

Romualdez’s cardiologist, Dr. Rody Sy, testified that his blood pressure had reached 170 over 110 on September 10, prompting an adjustment in his medication. Sy recommended waiting four to six weeks before transferring him so he could recover from conditions aggravated by stress.

Dr. Torres also told the court that Romualdez had no scheduled surgery or invasive procedure at that time. He nevertheless disagreed with the suggestion that there was no serious threat requiring medical attention, based on the evaluations of the specialists handling Romualdez.

The absence of a scheduled procedure does not mean hospital care is unnecessary. Monitoring and medication can also be medically necessary. But it sharpens the question before the court: what exact danger required Romualdez to stay at Cardinal Santos, and could PGH or another properly equipped facility manage it?

Were the doctors describing different moments in his confinement? Were they relying on different observations or test results? Did his condition change after Sibayan described it as a non-emergency?

News reports cannot answer those questions. Neither can a photograph of Romualdez lying in a hospital bed.

Hindi sapat ang “delikado” kung walang malinaw na paliwanag. Hindi rin sapat ang “drama lang” dahil galit tayo sa pasyente. The medical findings have to carry the argument.

THE TRANSFER HAPPENED. THE NEXT ANSWER COMES FROM PGH

On September 12, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology brought Romualdez from Cardinal Santos Medical Center to the Philippine General Hospital. He arrived at PGH shortly before 9 a.m.

The Sandiganbayan ordered PGH doctors to examine him without the direct or indirect participation or influence of his doctors from Cardinal Santos. The purpose was to verify the earlier medical findings and determine whether continued hospital confinement was necessary.

The transfer was ordered to take place in an ambulance equipped to respond to his heart, brain and other medical conditions. This showed that the court did not simply dismiss the health risks raised by his doctors.

PGH was directed to submit its report and recommendation by September 13 and explain its findings in court on September 14. Romualdez was ordered to remain at PGH until the court ruled otherwise, while his arraignment was moved to September 16.

Early on September 13, PGH’s conclusions had not yet been publicly reported.

The completed transfer does not prove that Romualdez’s doctors were wrong about the risks. It confirms only that the court-ordered transfer was carried out under medical precautions.

The next useful answer must come from PGH. Its doctors should explain what care Romualdez needs, where that care can be provided and whether continued hospital confinement is medically necessary.

WHAT I KEEP COMING BACK TO

Romualdez should receive whatever treatment his condition requires. Medical care should not become punishment before judgment, and he remains presumed innocent while the prosecution tries to prove the plunder charge against him.

His wealth, name and political influence should not answer medical questions that require evidence.

If a detainee without those advantages made the same request, what documents would that person have to submit? How closely would the records be examined? Would several doctors appear in court? Would the government arrange an independent assessment at PGH before deciding where that detainee should stay?

That is the standard I want applied here.

Being under arrest does not cancel a person’s right to treatment. At the same time, a medical history should not decide where a powerful accused stays without a clear explanation of his present condition.

I started reading because I wanted to understand what was happening to Romualdez. The testimony left me asking for something more specific than either suspicion or reassurance.

Show the findings. Explain the medical need. Explain why the arrangement follows from it. Then apply the same standard to someone who has neither his name nor his influence.

Doon natin makikita kung patas.

Sources

THE DUTERTE PLAN B AND THE ROBIN PADILLA TRAP

Gino Borlado — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 13:23:00 GMT

While watching one of Richard Heydarian’s programs, I heard Sir Ronald Llamas, retired Justice Antonio Carpio and Prof. Richard discuss a question that bothered me long after the episode ended. What happens to the Duterte movement if Sara Duterte is convicted and the Senate judgment disqualifies her from holding future public office, and who becomes their Plan B?

Prof. Richard has devoted an episode to Baste Duterte as a possible replacement for Sara, while discussions involving Sir Ronald Llamas, retired Justice Antonio Carpio and Prof. Richard have also touched on Bong Go, Robin Padilla and the changing loyalties inside the Senate.

Sara has not been convicted, the Senate has not delivered its verdict, and no one can say how every senator-judge will vote. But the possibility of a Duterte succession fight is no longer something I can dismiss as idle speculation.

There was a time when the Dutertes treated impeachment like another annoyance. They laughed, taunted critics and acted as though accountability itself was proof that powerful enemies were out to get them. That swagger is still there, but it no longer looks as effortless.

The impeachment trial is underway. Witnesses have appeared, documents have been presented, and the Senate has heard allegations involving confidential funds and unexplained wealth. Sara continues to hold substantial political support, including strong numbers in recent national surveys, but the family now has to face a possibility it once seemed too confident to take seriously: its strongest presidential prospect could be removed from office and disqualified from holding public office. Once that happens, the choices behind her are not reassuring.

PLAN A IS STILL SARA

The Duterte camp’s real Plan A remains preventing Sara’s conviction. The Constitution requires the concurrence of two-thirds of all members of the Senate for conviction. The impeachment court is now considering arguments over how that requirement should operate when some senators may not be able to participate in the final vote.

Sara does not have to convince every senator-judge that she is innocent. Her defense only needs enough votes to stop the prosecution from reaching whatever number the impeachment court ultimately determines is constitutionally required for conviction. That is why every rally, every claim of persecution and every display of continued support has political value.

The message to senators is obvious enough: the Duterte base is still here, it is still angry, and it will remember who voted against her.

That is the real firewall.

If Sara survives, she can claim vindication and continue toward 2028. If she does not, the family suddenly has a problem it cannot solve with one surname alone.

THE SUCCESSION PROBLEM

Baste Duterte is the obvious family substitute because he carries the surname. He is now Davao City mayor and has moved further into national party politics through his leadership roles in PDP and the RAGE Coalition.

The family logic is easy to see. Sara falls, Baste steps forward, and voters are expected to transfer their loyalty from one Duterte sibling to another. That sounds neat on paper. Politics rarely behaves that neatly.

Baste has yet to show that he can build Sara’s national political identity or match the political force Rodrigo Duterte brought into the 2016 race. Rodrigo spent more than two decades as Davao City mayor before seeking the presidency and arrived nationally with a persona millions of voters could understand immediately: the provincial strongman who promised punishment, order and a government willing to do what conventional politicians supposedly could not.

What followed was brutal and destructive in ways that should never be romanticized. But as political packaging, Rodrigo knew exactly what he was selling.

Baste seems to have copied the easiest parts: the aggression, profanity, swagger and constant confrontation. What he has not shown is whether he possesses his father’s timing, political instincts or national command. He has also not shown Sara’s ability to build an electoral identity that can stand on its own.

My less polite description is that Baste sometimes looks like the Temu version of Rodrigo Duterte: familiar packaging, familiar branding, and no guarantee that the product inside carries the same political force.

He may meet the constitutional qualifications for the presidency in 2028. That tells us very little about whether he is ready to govern a country.

Bong Go presents a different problem. He has now won two Senate elections and has performed strongly in early vice-presidential polling. But his political roots run overwhelmingly through Rodrigo Duterte.

Go's association with Rodrigo goes back to 1998. He served for years as his executive assistant, later became his special assistant in Malacañang, and has repeatedly described Rodrigo as his mentor and political inspiration.

The relationship between Go and Sara is more complicated than simply calling them enemies or allies. Sara publicly denied holding a grudge against Go in 2021, and she later supported his 2025 reelection. Yet Baste publicly attacked Go in 2024, prompting Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa to acknowledge an internal disagreement that needed to be resolved inside the Duterte camp.

That record does not establish that Sara and Go are political enemies. It does show that the Duterte camp has contained real internal tensions despite their ability to cooperate when their interests coincide.

A conviction could therefore create space for Go to become a separate center of Duterte-aligned power while Sara and Baste protect the family line. That is a possibility, not an established split. Then there is Robin Padilla, who brings something neither Baste nor Go can easily reproduce: a mass audience that already knows how to listen to him.

Robin topped the 2022 Senate election with 26,612,434 votes. Celebrity recognition, Rodrigo Duterte’s endorsement and his populist appeal all helped put him at the top of a national ballot. Anyone still treating him as political comic relief is ignoring the election result in front of them.

The July 2026 Pulse Asia survey placed Bong Go at 27 percent and Robin at 21 percent in a hypothetical vice-presidential race. These are early numbers and they can change dramatically before 2028, but they are already enough to kill the comforting idea that Robin Padilla can simply be laughed out of national politics.

He has said he would be willing to become Sara’s running mate if Rodrigo asked him, although he later said he had no plan to seek the vice presidency. Even that answer says something about where he places his political loyalty.

Robin’s value to the family may lie less in succession than in his ability to carry Duterte grievance outside the Senate to people who already know him from popular culture. That becomes clearer once you stop listening only to what he says inside the chamber and start asking who else he is talking to.

ROBIN IS TALKING PAST THE SENATE

I think many of Robin’s critics are missing something because they are too busy laughing at him.

When Robin uses the Senate floor to remind people that he is not a lawyer, that he has spent time answering cases and that he is an ex-convict, those lines can sound ridiculous to a professional audience listening for legal reasoning. But I do not think the senators sitting in front of him are always his most important audience.

In 2025, during the dispute over convening the impeachment court, Robin said: “Hindi po ako abogado, ako po ay madalas akusado. Ako po ay ex-convict kaya ako po ay sanay sa korte.” During the trial this year, he joked that he had studied criminology at “UP,” meaning “University of Prison.” On September 8, while the impeachment court debated the voting threshold, he again described himself as an ex-convict and someone without a high level of formal education before saying he would defend the Constitution.

It is easy to laugh at that. I think that is exactly where his critics, me being one of them, become careless.

Political communication researchers describe this kind of ordinary-people-versus-elite appeal as populist identity framing. The politician places ordinary people inside one group while portraying an elite group as distant, arrogant, corrupt or hostile. Robin adds self-deprecation by saying the damaging thing first.

He tells you he is the ex-convict. He tells you he is not the lawyer. He tells you he did not come from the world of polished professionals.

Once he has said those things himself, ridicule does not necessarily weaken him. It can reinforce the identity he is presenting.

Whether this is planned by advisers or simply political instinct, the effect can be the same. Robin turns weaknesses into identification points. He places himself outside the world of lawyers, elite schools and polished professionals, then speaks from that position as someone who knows what it feels like to be judged by people with more education, more status and better English.

To an educated Filipino, this may sound absurd. To someone who has spent years being told that people like him do not belong in rooms where decisions are made, it can sound very different.

The Senate microphone gives Robin far more than speaking time. A speech can be clipped for Facebook, replayed on television, uploaded to YouTube and repeated by supporters. Every appearance becomes another chance to send a message far beyond the Senate floor.

I am one of you.

That is the message I hear underneath much of this performance.

Robin has already publicly lashed out at people attacking his credentials and level of education. He asked where the supposed arrogance of highly educated people had brought the Philippines and blamed people he described as arrogant and their oligarch masters for poverty, debt, flooding and dirty politics.

Once he frames the argument that way, ridicule over his grammar, education, acting career or prison record becomes useful material. He can turn a criticism of Robin Padilla into an accusation against the people making the criticism.

They look down on me because I am not one of them. Maybe they look down on you too.

That is far more dangerous than the joke his critics think they are making.

THE ROBIN PADILLA TRAP

I understand why people get angry with Robin. Some of his statements during the impeachment trial raise serious questions about his grasp of constitutional duties and the standard expected from a senator-judge. What bothers me is how easily justified anger turns into the exact kind of contempt he can use.

Call him “bobo” and you have given him an easier argument than defending his reasoning. Mock his accent and the debate moves away from competence. Attack his education and he gets another opportunity to portray expertise itself as arrogance.

Robin does not need to win an argument about constitutional law if he can turn the argument into a fight over who gets to look down on whom.

That is the trap.

A voter does not have to believe Robin is highly qualified. Electing him can become a rebuke to people who have spent years treating voters like them as ignorant. That is the political middle-finger vote, where the satisfaction comes from upsetting the people who did the sneering.

This is also why I reject the lazy idea that Filipinos simply love incompetence. That argument insults the same voters Robin is trying to claim.

Everyday work requires intelligence in forms that formal credentials do not capture. Farmers calculate weather, debt and market risk. Drivers make constant decisions about safety and money. Market vendors live inside changing prices, inventory and cash flow. Overseas workers adapt to foreign systems while supporting families across borders.

Intelligence does not belong to elite universities, and competence is not measured by polished English.

Robin’s acting background is irrelevant to the real question. His accent is irrelevant. His grammar is irrelevant.

The question is whether his public record shows the independence, judgment and institutional understanding expected from someone who could become president without warning.

That is where his critics should stay.

Ask what he believes the constitutional duty of the vice president requires. Ask whether he can make decisions independently of Rodrigo Duterte. Ask what his Senate record says about judgment under pressure. Ask whether he can defend his constitutional positions without turning criticism into a fight over education and social class.

Those are hard questions. They also respect the voter.

The greatest gift Robin Padilla’s critics can give him is their contempt.

If the family chooses Baste as its presidential candidate, Robin could bring national celebrity, an existing mass audience and the emotional language of Duterte grievance. I do not find that combination amusing.

There is an even stranger possibility. Robin could prove more nationally attractive than the presidential candidate beside him, leaving Baste to carry the surname while the supposed supporting candidate carries much of the emotional energy of the campaign.

A DYNASTY WITHOUT A SUCCESSOR

Sara Duterte’s impeachment has exposed a weakness in the Duterte succession plan. The family built its immediate national future around one expected successor, and nobody behind her has shown the same combination of surname, national following and presidential viability.

If Sara survives the trial and remains eligible, she remains the movement’s strongest apparent presidential prospect. Behind her, the choices get weaker and more unpredictable.

Baste has the name but has not yet demonstrated comparable national appeal. Go has organization and a proven national electoral base, but his deepest political ties run through Rodrigo and could put him in competition with Sara’s family faction. Robin has celebrity, mass recognition and militant loyalty, but serious questions remain about whether he is prepared for executive power.

A conviction and disqualification could therefore produce more than a replacement search. It could fracture the Duterte bloc.

Sara and Baste may try to keep the political inheritance inside the family. Rodrigo’s old network has Go. Robin has enough personal popularity to possess bargaining power of his own.

What looks like one solid bloc from the outside could become several groups fighting over the same angry electorate.

The Baste-Robin possibility is especially troubling because it combines two assets the family may badly need: the Duterte surname and Robin’s proven ability to command mass attention. Dismissing it because the pairing sounds ridiculous would be exactly the kind of mistake I am warning about.

THE WARNING

The discussion that started this piece bothered me because the Duterte Plan B question is not just about who replaces Sara. It exposed how easily Robin Padilla could become more politically useful every time his critics humiliate him.

They may believe every viral mistake weakens him. Some will laugh, call him ignorant and circulate clips meant to embarrass him. Robin can take those attacks and fold them into the identity he keeps presenting: the ex-convict who never went to law school, came from acting and does not speak like the professionals correcting him.

If enough voters see themselves in that position, an insult aimed at Robin can feel like an insult aimed at them.

That is where this stops being funny.

A politician who successfully presents himself as the ordinary person being attacked by elites can turn resentment into political identification. Research on populist communication has found that anti-elite and people-centered appeals can activate precisely that kind of division between an in-group of ordinary citizens and an out-group portrayed as distant or hostile.

Criticism therefore has to stay on competence, record, judgment and readiness for office. Challenge his constitutional arguments. Examine his Senate record. Ask whether his declared willingness to follow Rodrigo Duterte’s political instructions fits the independence expected from a national leader.

The vice presidency places its holder one constitutional step from the presidency. Anyone asking for that office should be able to show Filipinos that he or she can carry that responsibility from the first day.

Robin’s critics can demand that without attacking his grammar, accent, profession or background. If they turn the choice into one between dignity and the approval of people who look down on them, they may discover too late how powerful resentment can become at the ballot box.

And millions of voters may answer with the political equivalent of: “Fine. Then he is our vice president now.”

That possibility is what bothered me when the discussion ended.

It still does.

Sources

SARA DUTERTE DOES NOT HAVE THE ASCENDANCY TO DEMAND MARCOS’ RESIGNATION

Gino Borlado — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 04:57:00 GMT

Let me preamble this piece by saying I have never been a Marcos supporter. As such, nothing in this piece should be mistaken for a defense of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. My view of Marcos has not softened just because Sara Duterte now wants him out of Malacañang.

The Marcos name still comes with dictatorship, corruption and historical revisionism. I have not forgotten any of that, and I still reject Sara Duterte’s attempt to speak as though her call for Marcos to resign already speaks for the country.

That is where I have a problem with what happened in Quezon City recently.

SARA’S DEMAND AND THE CROWD AROUND HER

Sara Duterte stood outside Quezon City Hall after her arraignment in the grave-threats case was deferred and called on Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to resign.

She accused him of lying, abuse, corruption and ingratitude, then urged her supporters to keep calling for him to leave office.

As usual, the speech was made for clips, and the clips came quickly. A speech going viral is still very different from a country deciding that its president should go.

The gathering was tied to Sara’s scheduled court appearance, and the Inday Sara Na Movement Philippines had said around 300 members from different parts of the country were expected to show up and support her. Those people had every right to be there, defend her and demand Marcos’ resignation.

But they were already Sara Duterte supporters, so their presence tells us something about the loyalty of her base, not what Filipinos outside that base have decided. A few hundred people can also look much bigger once vloggers, livestreams, partisan pages and supporters keep reposting the same clips.

That still does not turn them into “the country.”

POLITICAL POWER IS NOT POLITICAL ASCENDANCY

Sure, Sara Duterte has political power. She has the Duterte surname, a national office, loyal supporters, political machinery and an online following that can make almost anything she says spread fast.

Political ascendancy is different. It shows when a politician can reach people outside the loyal base and convince Filipinos who have no reason to defend her in the first place.

Sara has never shown that kind of reach. She has people who will rally for her, defend her online and see many of the cases against her as political attacks, but I have not seen the wider support needed to claim that the country wants Marcos out so she can take over.

A vice president cannot point to a friendly crowd outside a courthouse and act as though the Filipino people have already spoken. She still has to convince people who were never Duterte supporters, including Filipinos who distrust Marcos but have serious doubts about her too.

THE VLOGGER MACHINE

Almost every confrontation around Sara becomes lucrative content.

A court appearance becomes a livestream, an insult becomes a clip, an accusation becomes a reaction video, and the same words travel through page after page until they look much bigger than the event that produced them.

Some of these people are commentators. Others have built an audience around keeping supporters angry enough to stay, react, share and come back tomorrow.

A phone points at Sara, somebody cuts the clip, somebody adds a dramatic title and another page reposts it. After enough repetition, the people who helped create the noise start using that same noise as proof that the country agrees with them.

I do not buy that garbage.

Public opinion is bigger than one political feed. Filipinos who never watch Duterte vloggers, never attend Duterte rallies and do not follow partisan pages are part of this country too.

If Sara wants people outside her own camp to believe her, then give them something stronger than livestreams and angry clips. Documents, witnesses, policies and facts will always tell me more than another video with thousands of reactions.

HER PLASTIC NATIONALISM

Sara Duterte talks a lot about sovereignty, independence and foreign interference, but the way she uses those ideas has become hard to take seriously. Too often, her nationalism becomes loudest when a Duterte needs defending.

When Rodrigo Duterte faced international legal proceedings, Sara turned his situation into a question of Philippine sovereignty. Defending her father’s rights is understandable, but wrapping the family’s legal problems in the Philippine flag is something else.

The Duterte family is not the Philippines. Their legal problems are not automatically national emergencies, and sovereignty should mean more than protecting a powerful surname.

It should include Filipino territory, fishermen, workers, public institutions and public money. The same concern should be there when Filipinos themselves are the ones being pushed around.

Sara has been very willing to attack the Philippines’ ties with the United States and warn against dependence on Washington. That criticism can be fair because the Philippines should never behave like an American extension in Asia.

Filipinos have also watched Chinese ships block and harass Philippine vessels while Beijing keeps challenging our rights in the West Philippine Sea. A politician who repeatedly lectures the country about sovereignty should have the same fire when Filipino interests are being challenged there.

Sara’s nationalism often looks selective and convenient. The principle seems to change depending on who is involved and whether the issue helps the Duterte camp politically.

That is what makes it look fake to me.

Patriotism should not be something politicians pull out when they need protection, sympathy or another weapon against an opponent.

When sovereignty suddenly becomes urgent whenever the Duterte family needs it, the speeches start sounding self-serving.

ACCOUNTABILITY ALSO APPLIES TO SARA

Sara attacks Marcos over corruption, and she is free to do that. The problem is that once she starts using corruption against another politician, Filipinos are also entitled to ask about public money handled by offices she led.

The impeachment allegations against her have included misuse of confidential funds, unexplained wealth, bribery and grave threats. Sara has denied wrongdoing and has every right to challenge the accusations, question the evidence and defend herself.

That right does not make the questions disappear. The Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education handled confidential funds that have been examined by state auditors and lawmakers, and Filipinos who paid that money have every right to ask where it went and whether the rules were followed.

This is where the “PROTECT VP SARA” movement becomes especially irritating.

One banner places “PROTECT VP SARA” beside “PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION” and “PROTECT THE FILIPINOS,” and I find that pairing almost offensive because it puts protecting one politician beside protecting the country itself.

Sara Duterte is not the Constitution, and she is not the Filipino people.

Evidence that was fabricated should be exposed, while any violation of her rights should be challenged in court and answered by the people responsible.

But do not tell Filipinos that protecting Sara means protecting the Constitution while questions about taxpayers’ money are still being asked.

When hundreds of millions of pesos in public funds are being questioned, my first concern is finding out what happened to the money, not protecting the politician.

Think about where the opposite idea takes us.

A mayor faces audit findings and supporters demand protection, then a governor is questioned over spending and supporters call the investigation persecution.

Keep going and pretty soon every powerful politician gets a personal protection movement while the taxpayer is expected to shut up and wait. That is exactly the kind of political culture we should be trying to get rid of.

Sara’s supporters are free to believe she is innocent, but they should still want the questions answered.

Innocence is stronger when the evidence holds up than when supporters try to shut down the questioning itself.

Evidence that clears her should clear her, and accusations that cannot be proven should fail. If wrongdoing is proven through the proper process, political popularity should not erase the consequences.

SARA WOULD BECOME PRESIDENT

There is another fact that cannot be separated from her demand for Marcos to resign. If Marcos resigns, Sara Duterte becomes president.

Article VII, Section 8 of the 1987 Constitution says the vice president becomes president when the presidency becomes vacant because of death, permanent disability, removal or resignation.

Sara is the constitutional successor, so the outcome she is asking for would immediately put her in Malacañang without another presidential election.

Her criticism of Marcos may still be valid, and she may have real reasons to attack his government. But she is not watching this fight from the sidelines because the office goes to her if Marcos leaves.

That should make Filipinos ask for stronger evidence before treating her resignation call as anything close to a national demand.

Anger, insults and a friendly crowd outside a courthouse are nowhere near enough.

If Sara believes Marcos committed crimes, she should show the evidence. If she believes he committed impeachable offenses, then identify them and back them with documents, witnesses and facts that Filipinos can examine beyond speeches and viral clips.

HER 32.2 MILLION VOTES

The contradiction becomes harder to ignore when Sara talks about her own mandate.

In July, she said she would never resign because leaving office would betray the 32.2 million Filipinos who voted for her, arguing that voters placed her in office and she has a duty to stay.

Marcos was elected too. Sara won the vice-presidential race with more votes, but Marcos won a separate presidential election, and her larger total does not place the vice-presidential mandate above the presidency.

Winning an election does not protect any official forever. Presidents can be impeached, officials can face legal cases, and enough public anger can push a leader to resign.

But Sara cannot point to her voters whenever people talk about removing her, then act as though Marcos’ own voters suddenly count for very little when she wants him gone. The presidency is not some prize waiting for the vice president after an alliance between two families falls apart.

If Sara wants Marcos removed through constitutional means, she can organize an opposition, convince Filipinos and present evidence. She can also run for president in 2028 and ask Filipinos directly to give her the job.

What she cannot do is treat a loyal base, a courthouse crowd and a flood of online content as proof that the country has already handed her that authority.

ONE DYNASTY IS NOT THE ANSWER TO ANOTHER

The Philippines does not need Marcos loyalists pretending the Marcos name has somehow been cleaned of its history. Duterte loyalists do not get to turn Sara into the automatic answer to everything wrong with Marcos either.

Both families have benefited from famous surnames, political machinery and voters being asked to trust bloodline as though it were a qualification. They even sold themselves together in 2022 under UniTeam.

UniTeam promised unity, and four years later the alliance has become open warfare between the same two families that asked Filipinos to trust them together. That alone should make people more careful about being dragged into their feud.

Disappointment with Marcos does not automatically make Sara the answer. Filipinos are allowed to look at both families, examine their records and decide neither one deserves blind loyalty.

Marcos should answer for his failures and for accusations properly tied to his government. Sara should answer for her own record, including the serious questions involving money handled by offices she led.

Neither family should get a free pass because of its surname.

Sara can oppose Marcos, criticize him and try to convince Filipinos that he should leave office. She can build a national movement if enough people believe her, but she has not built one simply because a few hundred supporters gathered outside a courthouse or because vloggers can make the same clip appear everywhere.

That is political noise from a loyal base, not proof that the country has decided Marcos should resign and Sara should replace him.

Until Sara can convince Filipinos far beyond her own camp and present a case strong enough to hold up under questioning, her call for Marcos to resign belongs to her and the people already behind her.

It is not a national mandate.

Sources

A SCHOOL RULE SHOULD NEVER COST A STUDENT HER DIGNITY

Gino Borlado — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 00:44:00 GMT

This story reached Morning Coffee Thoughts through an email from a student connected to Batangas State University and the LGBTQIA+ community. I am withholding his name and identifying details for his safety and security.

He was asking MCT to look into what happened to Jamie Alday, a transgender student at Batangas State University, The National Engineering University Lipa Campus.

According to Jamie’s account, she was entering the campus on September 8 when security personnel stopped her over the university’s dress rules. She says she was first told to remove her earrings.

Then she says she was told to remove her bra.

This was allegedly happening right at the school gate, with other students present or within hearing distance. Jamie refused to remove it.

That was the part that made me look deeper.

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE GATE

Jamie’s account was reported by The APEX, a student publication, and later by Radar. The reporting says she was entering the Lipa Campus in her PE uniform when she was questioned over compliance with the university’s dress code.

Jamie says she removed her earrings when instructed. The conversation then turned to the bra she was wearing underneath her uniform.

She says she was told to remove it there at the gate.

The APEX also reported that a classmate was standing behind Jamie during the encounter and was shocked by the instruction. Jamie says she refused to remove her bra.

That last detail is important because some retellings of the story can leave the impression that Jamie actually removed her undergarment in public. According to her account, she did not.

Batangas State University’s own Office of Student Discipline has also entered the story.

Radar, citing The APEX, reported that Asst. Prof. Rey Anthony N. Abing, head of the Office of Student Discipline, said the student manual contains no protocol requiring a student to immediately remove an undergarment because of a dress-code violation.

There are other ways to enforce the rules. A student can be denied entry or dealt with through the university’s disciplinary process.

That makes the alleged instruction difficult to dismiss as simply “following school policy.”

If the rule did not require Jamie to remove her bra, why did her bra become the subject of an instruction at a public school gate?

That question belongs to BatStateU.

THE POLICY BEHIND THE INCIDENT

This controversy did not begin with Jamie.

Batangas State University has already spent years dealing with questions involving appearance, gender expression and inclusivity. An older university handbook contained explicitly sex-specific rules, including restrictions involving makeup and earrings for male students and a prohibition on cross-dressing.

The university revised portions of its dress policy in 2024 after discussions involving school officials and student representatives. BatStateU’s own Chronicle reported that the discussions included concerns about student development and inclusivity.

Representatives of PAPAGAYO, the university’s Pride Council, participated in those discussions.

Some restrictions were relaxed. Rules involving hair and certain clothing requirements changed.

But the prohibition on cross-dressing remained.

That becomes complicated the moment the rule is applied to a transgender student.

How does BatStateU define cross-dressing for a transgender woman? Is clothing classified according to sex assigned at birth, legal sex, gender identity or another standard created by the university?

Those are not small technical questions.

They determine how a transgender student is expected to dress every time she enters the campus.

A policy can look simple on paper when it assumes that every student fits neatly into two categories. The real world is more complicated than that, and universities already have transgender students studying inside their classrooms.

If a transgender woman dresses according to her gender identity, does the university consider that cross-dressing?

If the answer is yes, the rule itself creates a conflict for transgender students before any security guard begins enforcing it.

That is why the conversation should not stop with whether Jamie violated a dress code.

The university also has to examine the dress code.

SCHOOL RULES AND HUMAN DIGNITY

I understand the argument that students are expected to follow school policies.

Schools have the authority to set reasonable standards for uniforms, appearance, discipline and conduct. Students cannot simply decide that every rule they dislike no longer applies to them.

But enforcement still has limits.

If Jamie violated a legitimate rule, tell her what she violated. Deny entry if the policy authorizes it. Refer her to the proper university office and apply the appropriate sanction.

There is a disciplinary process for a reason.

A student’s underwear should not casually become part of a conversation at a public gate.

That principle does not require anyone to agree with every position taken by LGBTQ organizations. It does not require abolishing dress codes or surrendering a university’s authority over student conduct.

It simply requires discipline to be carried out without unnecessary humiliation.

And that standard should protect every student, regardless of gender identity.

The law provides additional context.

Republic Act No. 11313, the Safe Spaces Act, expressly recognizes gender identity and expression. Its definition includes transgender people whose gender identity differs from the sex assigned to them at birth.

The law also imposes responsibilities on educational and training institutions. Schools are expected to have mechanisms for complaints covered by the law, provide gender-sensitive processes, protect complainants from retaliation and observe due process.

Whether Jamie’s experience legally falls under the Safe Spaces Act will depend on facts and the application of the law. But the broader expectation is already clear: educational institutions are not operating in a legal environment where gender identity and gender expression can simply be ignored.

BatStateU’s own public materials also describe institutional commitments involving gender equality, non-discrimination and implementation of the Safe Spaces Act.

Its charter under Republic Act No. 11694 also says that no student shall be denied admission solely because of age, gender, nationality, religious belief, economic status, ethnicity, physical disability or political opinion or affiliation.

Admission and dress-code enforcement are different questions. But together, these policies and laws show that gender is already part of the university’s institutional responsibility.

MCT AND THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY

The student who emailed MCT was asking for help because student organizations had already been speaking about the incident and wanted people outside the university to listen.

So I listened.

Morning Coffee Thoughts is a friend of the LGBTQ community.

For me, that does not mean accepting every allegation without checking it. It means taking people seriously enough to do the homework when they say something happened to them.

It means recognizing that LGBTQ students should not have to prove that they deserve the same basic dignity we expect for everyone else.

Jamie’s account deserves to be heard.

The security personnel involved should also be heard. BatStateU should establish exactly what happened and tell its students what it found.

As of this writing, I have not found a public apology from Batangas State University concerning what Jamie says happened to her.

The Office of Student Discipline has reportedly engaged with the case, and its clarification about the absence of any protocol requiring immediate removal of an undergarment is significant. But I have not found a publicly available final university finding explaining exactly what happened at the gate.

BatStateU can answer that.

Was Jamie instructed to remove her bra?

Why was that instruction allegedly given?

Was it consistent with university policy or with the instructions given to security personnel?

If it was not, what action followed?

And beyond the individual encounter, how exactly does the university’s continuing prohibition on cross-dressing apply to transgender students?

Those answers would help far more than silence.

THE RULE DESERVES ANOTHER LOOK

BatStateU has already shown that its dress code can change.

It revised parts of the policy in 2024 after discussions that included questions of inclusivity. That means the university has already acknowledged that rules written years ago sometimes need to be reconsidered as society and the student population change.

The prohibition on cross-dressing deserves the same examination.

A transgender woman should not have to arrive at a university gate wondering whether the clothes she considers normal for herself will suddenly be treated as a violation because somebody else classifies her differently.

That uncertainty is bad policy.

It also places security personnel in a difficult position if the university has not given them clear, thoughtful and humane guidance.

The answer cannot simply be “rules are rules” when the rule itself leaves a basic question unanswered.

Which rule applies to a transgender woman?

BatStateU should answer that clearly, and transgender students should be part of the conversation.

Jamie has described the bra involved in this incident as connected to her comfort, dignity and identity as a transgender woman. You do not have to understand every part of that experience to understand why being told to remove it at a school gate could be humiliating.

Privacy is not an LGBTQ privilege.

Dignity is not an LGBTQ privilege.

They belong to students.

Batangas State University should establish what happened on September 8, hear everyone involved and review whatever security records, reports or available footage exist.

If the investigation establishes that Jamie was instructed to remove her bra even though university protocol did not require it, BatStateU should explain how that happened and what accountability follows. An apology may also be appropriate depending on what the investigation establishes.

But even after this particular case is resolved, the bigger question will remain.

How does a modern state university apply gendered dress rules to transgender students without creating confusion, humiliation or arbitrary enforcement?

Batangas State University calls itself The National Engineering University.

Engineering starts by understanding the problem well enough to build a solution that actually works.

This is a human problem worth solving.

A school rule should never cost a student her dignity.

Sources

WHY HASN’T GIBO TEODORO BECOME PRESIDENT?

Gino Borlado — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 08:00:00 GMT

I have long been impressed by Gibo Teodoro. Yesterday, watching him respond to a note passed to him while he was speaking at the Seoul Defense Dialogue, I found myself impressed all over again.

The note challenged the arbitration ruling on the South China Sea, and Teodoro answered it openly before the audience. According to forum organizers quoted by Yonhap, it came from a Chinese military attaché and was delivered through a staff member. (Yonhap, Inquirer)

What made me go “wow” was his composure. To me, he looked cool, calm and collected even as he delivered a sharp rebuke.

I will be honest: I have never voted for the man. That admission belongs here, because I am also asking myself why someone I have long found impressive never became my choice on the ballot.

Watching him yesterday made me curious enough to look deeper. Why did his presidential bid fall short, and why has someone with his sharpness struggled to attract enough support from Filipino voters?

I wanted to understand what I might have overlooked. So I went back to his campaign, his political decisions and the record beyond the moments that made me admire him.

THE QUALIFICATIONS WERE THERE

Teodoro topped the 1989 Bar examinations, studied law at the University of the Philippines and earned a master’s degree in law at Harvard. He also served in Congress and as defense secretary under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. (PCIJ, official biography)

There is a reasonable basis for taking him seriously. His legal education and experience in government give a supporter something concrete to point to.

My own voting history, however, makes me pause before assuming those qualifications should have been enough. I could admire him and still choose someone else, so I cannot pretend the reasons behind other people’s votes must be simple.

An election puts a candidate’s decisions and political relationships before the public, too. That is where the picture of Teodoro becomes more complicated.

THE ADMINISTRATION HE REPRESENTED

Teodoro received 4,095,839 votes in the 2010 presidential election. He finished fourth behind Benigno Aquino III, Joseph Estrada and Manny Villar.

Aquino received 15,208,678 votes. Teodoro had millions of supporters, but the distance between their totals shows how much more support his campaign needed. (Final canvass report)

One obstacle was his association with Arroyo. He ran as the candidate of the governing Lakas-Kampi-CMD coalition while her presidency was receiving deeply unfavorable public assessments. (GMA News)

Pulse Asia’s March 2010 survey recorded 14 percent approval of Arroyo’s performance and 59 percent disapproval. Those numbers describe public opinion of her presidency, so they cannot tell us exactly how many votes that association cost Teodoro. (Pulse Asia)

Contemporary reporting does help explain the difficulty. Analysts interviewed by GMA connected Arroyo’s unpopularity and Teodoro’s weak survey standing with politicians leaving the governing party. (GMA News)

I can understand why an unhappy voter would hesitate over the administration’s candidate. Teodoro’s ability would not automatically settle questions about whose policies he would continue or how independent he would be.

That was a political burden his campaign had to address. A degree from Harvard could tell voters something about his education, but it could not answer those questions for him.

Aquino, meanwhile, campaigned on anti-corruption and transparency. Reporting from the period also described the public response to Corazon Aquino’s death as part of the circumstances that brought her son into the race. (Reuters, The Philippine Star)

A voter looking for a break from Arroyo had another candidate making that appeal. Whether Aquino later fulfilled the expectations placed on him is a separate assessment from understanding why someone might have chosen him in 2010.

Estrada and Villar also attracted more votes than Teodoro. His difficulty was broader than losing to Aquino, and an explanation based only on the eventual winner would leave part of the election unanswered. (Final canvass report)

THE PARTY WAS DIVIDED

It would be inaccurate to describe Teodoro as an outsider campaigning without powerful backing. He had a major political organization behind him, although keeping it together proved difficult.

Reuters reported senior party resignations and allies moving their support elsewhere. GMA’s examination of his campaign also described disputes with politicians who had previously backed him. (Reuters, GMA News)

Among them was House Speaker Prospero Nograles, who objected to Teodoro leaving the party chairmanship during the campaign. Teodoro maintained that he still had support and could win. (GMA News)

Those disagreements prevent me from seeing him simply as a candidate whose only problem was being attached to an unpopular president. His handling of the organization was also being questioned.

I would be careful about assigning blame from those accounts alone. A struggling campaign can lose allies, and losing allies can make the campaign weaker.

What is clear is that a party endorsement did not keep everyone working toward the same presidential result. Teodoro had to deal with doubts about the outgoing administration while facing disagreements inside the organization supporting him.

HIS OWN DECISIONS DESERVE A LOOK

There is another reason I cannot stop at his qualifications. His political record includes decisions people could object to even while acknowledging his intelligence.

In October 2003, Teodoro and Felix William Fuentebella filed an impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. The Supreme Court ruled that the second complaint was barred by the Constitution’s prohibition against initiating impeachment proceedings against the same official more than once within a year. (Supreme Court decision, via Lawphil, contemporary reporting)

The ruling concerned the constitutional limit on the proceedings. It should not be described as a judicial finding that Teodoro fabricated the allegations.

GMA returned to that controversy during the 2010 campaign. Teodoro defended his participation as having a basis, while Davide strongly criticized the move. (GMA News)

I cannot say how much that episode influenced the election result. It does show why a voter’s hesitation could come from a disagreement with Teodoro’s judgment, rather than a failure to recognize his ability.

That is a distinction I need to apply to my own admiration. Being impressed by an answer at a public forum should make me interested in how he has exercised power, including the decisions that are less flattering to him.

THE SENATE BID RAISES ANOTHER QUESTION

His return to electoral politics took a different route. In June 2021, Teodoro expressed willingness to become Sara Duterte’s running mate if she sought the presidency, and he filed to run for senator that October. (Inquirer, OneNews)

He was included in the Marcos–Duterte UniTeam Senate slate. The candidacy therefore had backing from national political figures with whom he had chosen to associate. (GMA News, The Philippine Star)

Teodoro received more than 12 million votes in the 2022 Senate election but finished fifteenth and did not win a seat. Again, he had considerable support that fell short of election. (COMELEC, The Freeman)

This is difficult to reconcile with an explanation built mainly around the absence of powerful allies. Endorsements were there, yet they did not produce enough votes for him.

We should still be careful about what an endorsement means. Inclusion in a slate does not tell us how much effort every member of that coalition put into electing each candidate.

Nor can his Senate total be treated as a presidential vote waiting to happen. People choosing several senators can support candidates whose political backgrounds differ, while the presidency asks them to select one person.

His willingness to run with Sara deserves attention in its own right. A voter assessing him is entitled to ask what that choice says about the people and policies he was prepared to support.

I can respect his sharpness and still ask that question. It would be unfair to judge other candidates by their alliances while treating his as an incidental detail.

WHAT HAS HE SAID ABOUT RUNNING AGAIN?

The question of a presidential push today also needs an answer from Teodoro himself. It is easy to discuss who should run without checking whether that person is prepared to pursue the office.

In a May 30, 2026 Reuters interview, Teodoro said he had no plans to run in 2028 and indicated that he should continue his existing work. ABS-CBN and Manila Bulletin reporting dated July 13 likewise described his stated focus on defense rather than political plans. (Reuters, ABS-CBN, Manila Bulletin)

Those were his positions at those times. They should not be turned into a permanent promise about what he will do in the future.

They do, however, belong near the center of this discussion. The years since 2010 cannot simply be described as one continuing presidential campaign that Filipinos have repeatedly declined to support.

His defense work gives people a reason to examine him again. Recent reporting documents his positions on China and military cooperation, although agreement with those positions does not establish willingness to elect him president. (Reuters)

A presidential campaign would have to explain how he would approach the wider responsibilities of the office. I would want to hear his plans for the problems people face at home, along with how he would pay for those plans and get them carried out.

Supporters could begin organizing before he makes a decision. But the difference between wanting someone to run and building an effective campaign would eventually require his participation.

THE LIMITS OF WHAT WE KNOW

Pulse Asia’s July 2026 report did not include Teodoro among the six named choices in its main presidential preference question. The table also recorded unaided mentions of other people without showing a Teodoro entry. (Pulse Asia, Table 2)

That leaves us without a preference score for a contest in which respondents were explicitly offered his name. His absence does not prove that nobody would vote for him, and it gives us no basis for claiming a large, hidden movement either.

I cannot turn my reaction to yesterday’s exchange into a national estimate. We would need surveys that test his candidacy and reliable information about the people willing to organize a campaign.

His previous election results help explain what happened then. The size of his support today remains a question that those old totals cannot answer.

WHAT I TAKE FROM ALL THIS

When I was in my twenties, I courted an Atenean. She was a combination of beauty, brains and guts, and we dated for a while, pero hindi naging kami.

I remember what she told me: “I find you very interesting. But interesting is not enough.”

Those words became a lifelong lesson. Years later, they help me explain how I feel about voting for Gibo Teodoro.

I find him very interesting, and I admire the sharpness and composure I saw yesterday. But choosing a president asks more of me than recognizing someone’s intelligence or enjoying the way he handles a difficult exchange.

I would need to be persuaded by his decisions, the people he chooses to work with, and what he intends to do with the power he is asking voters to give him. His record deserves the same attention I gave that moment in Seoul.

I have never voted for Gibo Teodoro. Whether that changes would depend on what I learn about him beyond the qualities that have long impressed me.

He is very interesting. But interesting, to me, is never enough.

Sources

I SUPPORT CADENA. HERE’S WHY I LOOKED DEEPER.

Gino Borlado — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:27:53 GMT

WHY THE COLD RECEPTION MADE ME CURIOUS

While reading the comments under someone else’s post about CADENA, I noticed that the reception was lukewarm to cold. Some readers seemed unsure what the proposal was or why it deserved attention.

Others had questions that had not been answered, while some were plainly unconvinced by what they had heard. Their reactions made me curious about why people were not engaging with a possible response to corruption.

My own reading had already brought me to support CADENA’s basic idea. Filipinos should be able to follow public money from the budget to the people who receive, spend and account for it.

Still, before asking other people to pay attention, I wanted to go deeper. I wanted to examine what CADENA could realistically do, what it could not do, and which criticisms deserved to be taken seriously.

I kept thinking about how we react whenever another corruption scandal breaks. We become angry, demand investigations and ask how public money disappeared.

That anger is justified. But it led me to the question behind my own Facebook post: We are very loud when another corruption scandal appears, so why are we so quiet when a possible solution is being offered?

That post opened a discussion that could not be completed in a few short paragraphs. This article is the longer, bigger and deeper version of that conversation.

WHAT MADE THE BASIC IDEA ATTRACTIVE

Suppose Congress approves ₱100 million for a flood-control project in your province. You should be able to follow that money from the national budget to the agency that received it, the contractor who won the project, the payments made, the engineer who inspected the work, and the audit that came afterward.

Try doing that today and you will probably end up opening several government websites, reading differently named documents and guessing whether two records refer to the same project. The information may be public, yet the story of the ₱100 million remains difficult to see.

That was the public problem I saw CADENA trying to answer. Officially, CADENA stands for the Citizen Access and Disclosure of Expenditures for National Accountability Act, while cadena also means “chain” in Spanish.

The proposal is simple at its core: Connect the records so Filipinos can follow public money from approval to actual result. CADENA has not become law, but I support the reform it is trying to create.

WHAT ARE WE BEING ASKED TO SUPPORT?

CADENA is often introduced as “blockchain the budget.” That phrase catches attention, but it can also make us think the blockchain itself is the reform.

What CADENA is really trying to create is a public trail. Blockchain is one possible tool for protecting that trail from hidden changes.

Under the Senate committee version, the records would begin with agency budget requests and the President’s proposed national budget. They would continue through the versions debated in Congress, amendments, the final budget, fund releases, bidding, contracts, payments, inspections, audit findings and reported results.

Return to our ₱100 million project. Suppose it began at ₱60 million in the President’s proposal and became ₱100 million during congressional deliberations.

The old amount should remain visible. The public should be able to see where the change happened and which part of government approved it.

After the budget becomes law, the project should keep the same identifying information as money moves into bidding and payment. When the contractor asks for a ₱30 million progress payment, we should be able to find the inspection report, the approving officer, the payment record and any later finding from the Commission on Audit.

Once I understood this, CADENA became easier to judge. I was looking at a proposed public history of government spending, with records that would be harder to separate, replace or quietly remove.

HERE IS WHAT I LIKED

The Senate committee text generally gives agencies seven working days to publish covered records. That is important because information released after the contractor has been fully paid is far less useful.

It would also keep old versions. If an agency corrects a price, contractor entry or inspection report, the earlier version would remain visible instead of quietly disappearing.

The records would use common government codes so the same project could be followed across agencies. In ordinary language, the project would keep something like a tracking number from the budget to the contractor, payment and audit.

The proposed public portal would allow people to search and download the information. Journalists, researchers and civic groups could also use an API, a way for computers to collect and analyze many public records without opening each document manually.

Citizens could report missing or suspicious entries and follow the government’s response. Named officers would be responsible for publishing the required records, reducing the familiar excuse that nobody knows who failed to upload them.

The committee version also includes administrative and criminal penalties for deliberate obstruction, destruction, concealment and knowingly false submissions meant to create the appearance of compliance. Some willful violations could lead to imprisonment and fines reaching ₱3 million.

These were the parts that moved me toward support because they deal with behavior, not merely software. Deadlines, visible corrections, named officers and consequences can still be useful even if Congress later chooses a different technology.

The proposal covers national agencies and government-owned or controlled corporations. It also reaches national public money used in public-private partnerships and foreign-assisted projects, although local governments would not be required to join.

Privacy and national security exceptions are included. Those exceptions must stay narrow because one sensitive field should not become an excuse to hide an entire contract or payment.

WHAT BLOCKCHAIN CAN ACTUALLY DO

In working through the proposal, I had to separate the useful promise of blockchain from the exaggerated version.

Imagine several people holding identical copies of a numbered notebook. Every new entry is copied into all the notebooks, so a person who secretly changes an old entry can be caught when the copies no longer agree.

That is the useful part of blockchain. It can make later alteration easier to detect and show which digital signing credential approved a record at a certain time.

Now imagine that the first entry in every notebook falsely says a bridge was completed. Ten permanent copies of that statement still do not produce a bridge.

Blockchain can preserve the record that was submitted. It cannot make a false inspection report true, prove that an engineer visited the site, or show that bidders did not secretly agree among themselves.

This is where the supporters’ language needs discipline. A record can be authentic in the sense that it came from a particular government account and remained unchanged, while its contents can still be false.

WHAT THE NAYSAYERS GET RIGHT

After looking at what I liked, I wanted to know whether the critics were simply resistant to transparency. The strongest arguments showed that the answer was no.

Some critics want the same public trail but question whether blockchain is the safest or most affordable way to build it. They argue that government could use a normal secure database with common project numbers, permanent change logs, digital signatures, public backups and downloadable data.

The critics have a point. Congress should be able to explain what blockchain adds that a well-designed database cannot deliver more simply.

Their second argument is called garbage-in, garbage-out. If an official enters a padded price, fabricated inspection or false completion report, the system can preserve that lie perfectly.

This leads to the bigger weakness. Transparency can help people discover suspicious records, but somebody still has to visit the site, check the quantities, identify the real owners of contractors and investigate possible collusion.

Digital signing credentials also create risk. They work like official electronic seals, but they can be stolen, shared, misused or operated through an infected agency computer.

Privacy can fail in the same surrounding system. Contracts and prices should be visible, while bank details, personal identification numbers and security-sensitive information should stay protected.

Then there is the supplier question. If one private company controls the software, maintenance, data format or signing keys, government could become dependent on that company long after the original contract ends.

The committee text favors open-source and technology-neutral choices, which is encouraging. I still want government to control its own data and keys, retain the ability to change suppliers, and tell the public what the system will cost over several years.

Public access must also mean usable access. A portal can technically be open while hiding information behind confusing labels, incomplete downloads, approval requirements or limits that make serious analysis nearly impossible.

These were valid criticisms, and they changed how I understood the proposal before I decided to support it. They did not give me a reason to dismiss CADENA; they showed me which claims to reject and which protections Congress must preserve.

WHAT GOVERNMENT ALREADY HAS

Government already publishes parts of the money trail. The Department of Budget and Management has a portal for budget releases and spending data, PhilGEPS carries bidding information, and existing blockchain tools verify selected budget documents or show portions of the national budget. The missing piece is a clear, required connection from the original appropriation through payment, inspection, audit and result.

That is where CADENA could add something useful. Its real contribution would be requiring agencies to connect the records, publish them on time, preserve earlier versions and answer for missing information. The value comes from those duties and consequences, with blockchain serving as one way to protect the record.

CADENA.PH must be read separately from these official systems. It is the project’s own advocacy website, and its pages include unfinished technical plans alongside claims about real-time tracking, preventing ghost projects and stopping corruption. Those claims describe what supporters hope CADENA will achieve; they do not prove that the proposed system can deliver those results, and language such as “mathematically guaranteed” goes beyond what blockchain can honestly promise.

WHERE THE BILL STANDS

The Senate passed Senate Bill No. 1506 on third and final reading in December 2025, with 17 senators voting yes and nobody voting no or abstaining. The detailed provisions discussed here come from the official November committee report, and I have not confirmed line by line whether anything changed before the Senate’s final vote.

The House has several CADENA-related bills but has not passed a final counterpart on the floor. Until that happens, we do not know the exact House proposal or which Senate provisions will survive when the two chambers reconcile their versions.

CADENA was placed on the priority list of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council, or LEDAC, in February 2026. LEDAC is where the President, Cabinet officials and congressional leaders agree on which bills should receive faster attention, but CADENA was moved out of that fast lane in August.

No public explanation specific to CADENA was found. That raises a fair question about why its priority changed, but it does not prove that LEDAC or any named official opposes the bill, and it certainly does not prove a conspiracy to hide corruption.

WHY I SUPPORT CADENA

My support came from reading the proposal and testing its promises against the criticisms. Its basic idea answers a real public problem: Filipinos should not need inside contacts or specialized training to discover who changed a budget item, who received the contract, who approved the payment, who inspected the work and what auditors eventually found.

I support the seven-day publication rule, the survival of old versions, the common project trail, named responsible officers, citizen reporting and penalties for deliberate concealment. I also support making the records downloadable so journalists and citizens can examine thousands of transactions, not just the projects government chooses to feature on a dashboard.

My support does not require me to accept every claim made in CADENA’s name. Blockchain will not prevent ghost projects or corruption by itself because the technology cannot detect every lie entered at the beginning.

Congress should still show us the final wording and the real cost. Government should control the data and signing keys, retain the freedom to replace a supplier, protect private information, and publish records in a form ordinary people and independent researchers can actually use.

The digital trail must also lead back to the physical world. Inspectors must visit projects, the Commission on Audit must remain independent, hidden contractor ownership must be examined, and citizen reports must receive real answers.

Congress should be honest about the limits too. Local governments are outside mandatory coverage, and the committee text does not clearly require a complete reconstruction of old transactions.

I support CADENA with my eyes open. The criticisms helped me see what it can accomplish, where it can fail, and what Congress must protect in the final law.

We should continue getting angry when public money is stolen. We should also be willing to examine possible solutions before dismissing them, especially one that could make every peso easier for the public to follow.

That is why I support CADENA. I see a serious attempt to give citizens a clearer trail from the budget to the contractor, payment, inspection and result, while leaving us with the responsibility to verify whether the records tell the truth.

Sources

THE RECORD SHOULD DECIDE THE NEXT CHIEF JUSTICE

Gino Borlado — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 08:12:00 GMT

The public discussion over the next Chief Justice is becoming too shallow. Much of it begins and ends with a political label: Aquino appointee or Duterte appointee.

Who appointed a justice belongs in the record. It can reveal personal ties, political context, and a possible source of pressure. It cannot tell us, by itself, how that justice used judicial power.

Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70 on November 6, 2026. An August 31 report said the Judicial and Bar Council had invited Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen and Associate Justices Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, Ramon Paul Hernando, Henri Jean Paul Inting, and Rodil Zalameda to apply as its preferred candidates. At that stage, they were invitees. The official shortlist from which President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. must choose had not been released.

The Constitution requires the JBC to send the President at least three names. The vacancy must be filled within 90 days, and the appointment does not require confirmation from Congress.

This is Marcos's first opportunity to appoint a Chief Justice. It is also a test of whether the Court's leadership will be judged through performance, independence, judgment, and a serious plan for the judiciary.

THE APPOINTMENT HISTORY

President Benigno Aquino III appointed Leonen and Caguioa to the Supreme Court. President Rodrigo Duterte appointed Hernando, Inting, and Zalameda. Caguioa also served Aquino as Chief Presidential Legal Counsel and Secretary of Justice, and their long personal association deserves scrutiny.

The same scrutiny belongs on every candidate's record. Presidential influence over judges is a legitimate concern, especially when a justice is new to the Court or the appointing president still holds office.

A peer-reviewed study examined 70 major political cases decided by the Philippine Supreme Court from 1987 to 2020. It estimated that justices appointed by the sitting president were about 15 percent more likely to cast a pro-government vote. First-year justices were about 20 percent more likely to do so, while the estimated effect involving Duterte appointees was about 25 percent higher than the comparable probability for predecessor-appointed justices.

The authors warned that the sample was small. Their findings show a group pattern, not the motive behind any individual vote. The study strengthens the case for examining each justice's decisions instead of treating the appointing president as a complete answer.

The Court's May 2026 vote on Senator Ronald dela Rosa's request for a temporary restraining order shows why individual records matter. The Court denied the request, 9-5-1. Among the five reported invitees for Chief Justice, Leonen, Caguioa, and Zalameda voted to deny it, while Hernando and Inting dissented.

That vote concerned temporary relief and did not settle the entire case. It crossed appointment labels because Zalameda, a Duterte appointee, joined Leonen and Caguioa in denying the request.

THE OFFICE THEY SEEK

The Constitution calls for proven competence, integrity, probity, and independence. The Chief Justice leads a Court that supervises all courts and judicial personnel, writes procedural rules, and chairs the JBC.

I would judge the candidates through five questions. Has the justice resisted political pressure when the law required it? Can the justice write persuasively enough to carry colleagues? Has the justice led reforms that improved access, speed, or fairness? Can the justice run a national court system? Is there enough time before retirement to carry a serious program through?

Seniority deserves respect, and lower-court experience has real value. Neither should settle the choice automatically.

THE DAMAGE THAT OUTLASTED DUTERTE

My call for a tabula rasa comes from the damage left by Rodrigo Duterte's presidency. This is my judgment about the condition of public institutions, grounded in documented attacks on judicial independence and the legal profession.

In April 2018, Duterte publicly declared himself the enemy of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and called for her removal. The International Commission of Jurists described the attack as intimidation and an assault on the rule of law. One month later, the Supreme Court removed Sereno through a quo warranto case challenging her eligibility to hold office while impeachment proceedings were pending.

Leonen and Caguioa dissented. Leonen warned that the ruling diminished judicial independence and made the Court vulnerable to political pressure.

The danger extended beyond the Court's conference room. Amnesty International reported in March 2021 that at least 61 lawyers, prosecutors, and judges had been killed since Duterte took office. Freedom House also reported a decline in judicial independence during his administration.

These facts do not make every Duterte appointee unfit. They explain why deference to executive power, personal loyalty, judicial safety, and institutional courage must receive serious attention in this appointment.

My use of tabula rasa does not call for erased precedent or a purge. I mean a reset in institutional instinct: less fear of the executive, less gratitude toward political patrons, and no presumption that any president owns the judges he appointed.

TIME AND SUCCESSION

The five reported invitees have sharply different periods left before mandatory retirement. Leonen reaches 70 in December 2032, Caguioa in September 2029, Hernando in August 2036, Inting in September 2027, and Zalameda in August 2033.

Longer tenure can support sustained reform, although it can also extend a poor choice. A short tenure can limit what a Chief Justice completes, although it can be politically attractive to a President who values additional appointment decisions.

A reader raised the strongest version of that counterargument in Inting's favor. If Marcos elevates Inting after Gesmundo retires, Marcos can appoint a Chief Justice and then fill the Associate Justice seat opened by Inting's elevation. When Inting retires on September 4, 2027, Marcos can appoint another Chief Justice before his own term ends in June 2028. If he elevates another sitting Associate Justice, he can then fill that newly opened Associate Justice seat as well.

The number of mandatory retirements does not change. Gesmundo and Inting still create two retirement vacancies. The sequence could give Marcos as many as four appointment decisions tied to those events: two choices for Chief Justice and two possible appointments to Associate Justice seats created by elevations.

Choosing a longer-serving sitting justice as Chief Justice would usually produce three decisions during the same period: the first Chief Justice appointment, one replacement Associate Justice, and a replacement for Inting when Inting retires from his existing seat. This arithmetic establishes a possible political incentive. It is not evidence that Marcos or the JBC has adopted such a plan.

MARVIC LEONEN

Leonen is my present choice because his record combines demonstrated resistance to political power, experience building legal institutions, persuasive work within the Court, and enough remaining time to lead. Aquino's appointment of him is part of his history. It is not my reason for supporting him.

Before joining the Court, Leonen served as dean of the University of the Philippines College of Law. He helped establish the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, whose work included legal support for Indigenous peoples and rural communities, and he led the government's peace negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

His Court record includes dissents from the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani and the removal of Sereno. In the Anti-Terrorism Act cases, all five reported invitees voted to strike down the qualification attached to protected advocacy, protest, dissent, and similar activity. Leonen also voted to invalidate several other challenged provisions that some of the other candidates would have upheld.

His administrative record is substantial. He chaired the first digitalized and regionalized Bar examinations and has publicly promoted court technology and artificial intelligence reforms that keep human judgment and access to justice at the center.

Leonen also has weaknesses that deserve direct questions. He never served as a trial judge or Court of Appeals justice. Hernando, Inting, and Zalameda therefore have deeper experience in the daily operation of lower courts.

An impeachment complaint filed against Leonen accused him of delay and defects in his asset declarations. In May 2021, the House justice committee dismissed it, 44-0, after finding the complaint insufficient in form and dependent on hearsay and unauthenticated material. Those accusations did not become established findings, while the public concern about delay remains a fair subject for JBC examination.

THE SARA DUTERTE RULING

The 2025 Sara Duterte impeachment ruling is the hardest part of Leonen's record for his supporters. Leonen was the ponente, the justice assigned to write the Court's decision. The decision declared unconstitutional the Articles of Impeachment arising from the fourth complaint, held that the Senate acquired no jurisdiction to try them, and stopped the Senate trial.

The first three complaints were treated separately. They had been filed through a different constitutional route, were not referred to the House justice committee, and were later archived. The Court treated their termination or loss of viability as the event that triggered the one-year bar against another impeachment proceeding.

The ruling did not decide whether the allegations against Duterte were true. It expressly said she had not been absolved and that another complaint could proceed after the constitutional period.

Critics have strong grounds for questioning the decision. Former justices and other lawyers disputed its reading of the one-year bar and its application of due process during impeachment. ABS-CBN also said two of its reports were cited inaccurately in connection with the statement that the Articles had been transmitted without a plenary vote, even though its coverage reported and carried the House action live.

That sourcing problem is a real defect in a decision of enormous public consequence. Leonen should explain how it entered the ruling, whether it affected the Court's reasoning, and what editorial checks he would require as Chief Justice.

Leonen did not decide the case alone. Thirteen participating justices agreed with the July 2025 result. Caguioa took no part, while Maria Filomena Singh was on leave. The participating members later denied the motions for reconsideration in January 2026.

Leonen bears added responsibility for the text as ponente, including its factual accuracy. The constitutional holding and the order stopping the trial were judgments of the Court, joined by the other participating justices, including Hernando, Inting, and Zalameda.

My support survives that ruling, although the ruling lowers my confidence. I can disagree with its reasoning, demand an answer about the inaccurate citation, and still assess Leonen's full record. Treating one disputed judgment as an automatic disqualification would repeat the shallow decision-making I object to when it is based only on the appointing president.

THE OTHER CANDIDATES

Caguioa is my strongest alternative. His dissents in the Marcos burial and Sereno cases, his votes in the Anti-Terrorism Act litigation, and his leadership of the Unified Legal Aid Service give him a serious record on rights and access to justice. His long relationship with Aquino requires honest examination, and his retirement in September 2029 would leave him under three years to lead.

Hernando offers the strongest combination of conventional judicial experience and time. He worked as a prosecutor, trial judge, and Court of Appeals justice, chaired the 2023 Bar examinations, and could remain Chief Justice until August 2036. His more government-deferential positions on several disputed Anti-Terrorism Act provisions and his dissent from the denial of Dela Rosa's request are fair evidence for assessing his philosophy. They do not prove personal loyalty to Duterte.

Inting brings long service as a prosecutor, trial judge, and Court of Appeals justice. His leadership of the 2026 Shari'ah Special Bar Examinations showed attention to legal access outside the usual Manila-centered track. His September 2027 retirement date would give him less than a year after Gesmundo's retirement to direct the judiciary, which is a poor fit for the sustained reset I want.

Zalameda served as a prosecutor and spent about 11 years on the Court of Appeals. He can remain on the Court until August 2033 and has participated in legal-aid and court-reform work. His votes resist an easy political label, so the JBC interview should press him on executive power, case delay, legal access, and judicial independence.

MY CHOICE

Leonen has confronted executive power in defining cases, led national reforms, worked across deep political divisions, and has six years available to pursue an administrative program. He should still answer for the factual defect in the Sara Duterte ruling, explain how he would attack case delay, and give measurable commitments on judicial safety, legal aid, digital access, and lower-court working conditions.

One Chief Justice cannot repair the courts alone. I am rooting for Marvic Leonen because his performance, viewed as a whole, gives me the strongest case for independence and reform. The same standard requires me to keep testing that preference against facts.

UNRESOLVED FACTUAL LIMITATION

As of August 31, 2026, the formal applicant pool, interviews, shortlist, and each candidate's program were still unavailable. Publicly searchable signed decisions and official biographies also do not provide a complete, comparable measure of docket performance or internal administrative ability. This ranking is an informed opinion and cannot serve as a full performance audit.

Sources

WHAT PUBLIC SERVICE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE

Gino Borlado — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 07:30:00 GMT

There is one piece of advice I heard years ago that made me reflect. Galing ito kay Diosdado Macapagal, para sa anak niyang si Gloria: respect the bureaucracy, respect the civil service. Nakalimutan ko na ito, actually. I only remembered it recently, and hearing it again made me think about what respecting the bureaucracy really means.

THE LINE I REMEMBERED

I finally found the interview I had been trying to remember. Tina Monzon-Palma interviewed Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for the ANC Independence Series in 2019. When Arroyo was asked about her leadership style, she said, “I respect the bureaucracy. My father always told me to respect the civil service.” The advice also appears in an official record. Career Executive Service Board Resolution No. 619 quotes Arroyo recalling her father’s words: “respect the bureaucracy, respect the civil service.”

My memory had compressed the two ideas into one. I remembered Diosdado telling Gloria to respect the bureaucracy. I also remembered the advice as something he gave her when she was about to enter government service. The record supports the words, although it does not establish the precise moment when Diosdado gave the advice. I want to be honest about that because the reflection is mine, while the wording and sequence belong to history.

Gloria moved from academe into government in the late 1980s. She became an assistant secretary at the Department of Trade and Industry during the Aquino administration. That was why the advice initially troubled me. The bureaucracy she entered carried the damage of political control, patronage, and corruption, while honest career employees kept government running through changes in leadership.

When I first heard “respect the bureaucracy,” I understood it as an instruction to adjust to the machine: learn how things are done and avoid disturbing the people who have become comfortable with the institution’s failures. Perhaps that reading was unfair to Diosdado. We have Gloria’s account of his words, without his full explanation.

THE DISTINCTION I MISSED

Looking for the interview forced me to hear the complete thought. Arroyo spoke about respecting the bureaucracy, then recalled her father telling her to respect the civil service. The bureaucracy is the machinery of government: offices, procedures, records, rules, chains of command, institutional habits, and the people working within them. The civil service is also a constitutional system designed to protect merit, fitness, professionalism, continuity, and political neutrality.

The Constitution says civil-service appointments should be based on merit and fitness. It protects employees from removal or suspension without a cause provided by law and prohibits civil servants from engaging in partisan election activity. Republic Act No. 6713 requires public officials and employees to place public interest above personal interest and loyalty to country above loyalty to any person or political party. A government employee’s duty is owed to the public and the law.

A career civil servant may serve under several presidents, secretaries, mayors, or agency heads. Political officials come and go, while career employees preserve records, technical knowledge, and the memory of what happened the last time somebody arrived promising to reinvent everything. There is wisdom in respecting those people because government did not begin on the day a new boss took an oath. An honest career employee may know which program works, which shortcut violates the law, which supplier keeps appearing after elections, and which impressive announcement will collapse before it reaches the barangay. Ignoring that knowledge can destroy a reform before it begins.

Contempt can also be lazy. It is easy to curse “the bureaucracy” as though it were one corrupt person. That lets us avoid distinguishing among the clerk enforcing a law she did not write, the official who designed a senseless process, the fixer selling access, and the civil servant quietly refusing an illegal order. The distinction helps us locate the failure without excusing it.

Respect can mean listening before acting, protecting honest career workers from political retaliation, and learning why a rule exists before tearing it down for being inconvenient. Respect also has a limit. Institutional memory can preserve competence, concealment, cowardice, and excuses polished by years of repetition.

“Ganyan talaga dito” is also institutional memory.

IF I WORKED IN GOVERNMENT

I have always wondered what would happen if I worked in government. I imagine seeing corruption, small and big. I imagine knowing who asks for favors, who manipulates documents, and who closes their eyes because they need the salary or because ilang taon na lang, retirement na. I understand why some people stay quiet. It is easy to demand courage when our pension, health benefits, children, and monthly bills are not on the line.

I also know myself. I probably would not survive government employment because I would make it my mission to expose every single one of those corrupt motherfuckers. Maybe they would get rid of me before I even learned where the forms were kept. This is why I admire people who would rather quit and keep their integrity than participate in the corruption game everyone expects them to play once they become part of the team. The harder question is what happens to the clean person who decides to stay.

A person can enter government determined never to steal, lie, or sign anything illegal. Once corruption surrounds that employee from above, beside, and below, honesty can make the person the odd one out. The pressure may begin quietly: invitations stop, information is withheld, and performance evaluations change. Co-workers tell the boss that the honest employee is difficult, disloyal, arrogant, or impossible to work with. After enough repetition, integrity begins to appear in the office record as a personality problem.

The employee may be transferred, denied promotion, left without meaningful work, or surrounded until resignation feels like the only escape. Some stay and resist. Some learn to look away. Some accept one small compromise to survive, then discover that the first compromise can be used to demand the second. This is one way corruption recruits people: the group changes what is considered normal until the person objecting to wrongdoing appears to be the problem.

We know that whistleblowers can pay a high price. In a 2021 decision, the Supreme Court recognized that whistleblowers may suffer retaliation and ostracism. The Court also explained why their testimony can be essential: they may be the people who understand the inner workings of a corrupt operation.

The law offers protection to qualifying witnesses, yet legal protection does not erase every practical risk. The people exposed may still control assignments, records, money, promotions, and access to decision-makers. They may have allies willing to attack the whistleblower before anyone answers the evidence.

I feel sad when someone with the ability to reform an office quits because honest work has become impossible. Government loses whatever that person might have changed, and everyone left behind receives another warning about the price of refusing to cooperate. When an honest government employee resigns, I do not immediately ask why that person failed to stay and fight. I want to know what the institution did to the person who tried.

THE PROMISE WAS TESTED

The most uncomfortable part of the story came after Arroyo became president. On March 20, 2006, the Career Executive Service Board issued Resolution No. 619. The resolution recalled Arroyo’s promise to respect the bureaucracy and the civil service, then expressed grave concern over personnel actions that the board said violated civil-service laws, rules, and regulations. The board cited the transfer or reassignment of career executive officials without the required consent or consultation, qualified officers left floating, appointees occupying executive posts without the required eligibility, and political appointees placed in career positions.

These were the board’s formal findings and accusations in the resolution. They should be described accurately as such because the resolution was not a court judgment deciding the legality of every personnel action it discussed. Still, the document presents a test that every administration should face. A promise to respect professional civil servants has meaning only when they invoke rules that inconvenience people in power.

A leader may praise merit in a speech and later make decisions that career officials believe weaken it. An institution may celebrate professionalism while rewarding proximity to political authority. The board responsible for the Career Executive Service used Arroyo’s own remembered words when it accused her administration of disrespecting the system she had promised to honor. I cannot read the promise without reading that complaint.

WHAT I HEAR NOW

I understand the advice differently today, although I remain wary of it. Respect for the civil service can require defending professional standards against political officials who control appointments, budgets, assignments, and promotions. It can mean respecting the clerk enough to avoid asking for a shortcut, respecting the career officer enough to avoid demanding personal loyalty, and respecting the citizen enough to avoid hiding incompetence behind procedure. The public is owed respect first. Every seal, title, plantilla item, and presidential appointment comes after that.

Someone entering government should learn the institution, listen to the people who keep it running, and protect those who have survived without selling their judgment. That person should also examine every habit defended only by seniority, fear, or the sentence, “That is how we have always done it.” Respect should never require silence. It should never turn hierarchy into morality or longevity into innocence.

Perhaps Diosdado understood that distinction. I will not invent an explanation he did not leave us. The advice I would carry is narrower and clearer: respect the honest civil servants, their experience, and the rules that protect merit, neutrality, records, and lawful process. When bureaucracy protects corruption, humiliates citizens, rewards patrons, or punishes the employee who speaks, it is no longer owed polite silence. Sometimes fighting the bureaucracy is the only way left to respect what public service was supposed to be.

Sources

FROM FLOOD CONTROL TO RECLAMATION: THE TAGUIG CASE LACSON IS BUILDING

Gino Borlado — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 13:07:55 GMT

Senator Ping Lacson started with ghost flood-control projects in Taguig. I expected the argument to stay on one question: were the projects really there?

The disclosures soon grew into something wider. Lacson alleged duplicate appropriations, repeated billing photographs, overlapping construction, kickbacks, reclamation inside Laguna de Bay, and titles over property that may have been created from the lake.

Before I could make sense of it, I had to separate the records from the accusations. Government files confirm budget and procurement records, regulators have raised permit and reclamation concerns, Lacson's accusations of kickbacks and political control remain unresolved, and Alan Peter Cayetano denies wrongdoing.

THE PROJECTS EXIST ON PAPER

Lacson attributes around P6.795 billion in Taguig infrastructure items in the 2025 national budget to Alan Cayetano. He said 68 of 70 projects were implemented and around P6.715 billion had been spent, while two smaller items remained unreleased or unobligated.

Those figures describe the group of projects Lacson is questioning. They do not calculate how much money, if any, was lost to fraud.

The later P14.4 billion figure covers the approximate value of Taguig infrastructure projects from 2020 to 2025 examined by Lacson's team. The available evidence does not support reporting P14.4 billion as money already found missing or stolen.

I checked the 2025 General Appropriations Act, a PhilGEPS procurement notice, and several DPWH award and notice-to-proceed records. Together, they confirm that a number of the questioned projects were appropriated or entered the procurement process.

One DPWH notice covers a flood-mitigation structure along Laguna Lakeshore in Lower Bicutan for P94,047,204.22. Another covers the rehabilitation of flood-mitigation structures in Taguig, Phase 5, for P141,854,617.45.

PhilGEPS also published Taguig projects with approved budgets close to P96.5 million each. They included Laguna Lakeshore Package 9, Taguig River Lakeshore Area Phases 2 and 3, the C6 Open Channel in Napindan, and Conga Creek Phase 3.

Paper existence answers the first question. It shows that public money was budgeted and contracts were awarded, while the billing records and engineering files must show whether each appropriation bought separate work at the stated place and length.

That is the practical concern for taxpayers. If two contracts cover the same stretch, the public may have paid again for protection it was supposed to receive the first time, leaving less money for other flood-prone communities.

WHAT LACSON SAYS HAPPENED TO THE BILLINGS

Lacson first described two cases. One involved projects with different appropriations, descriptions, locations, and contractors that allegedly used the same photograph to support billing.

The other involved one slope-protection project with the same location and description that allegedly received two appropriations. Lacson says both were billed and paid.

More examples followed in early August. He said four completed and fully paid slope-protection projects handled by four contractors used the same geotagged photographs.

GMA reported his claim that two progress-billing reports contained identical images even though one was dated March 31, 2025, and the other June 16, 2025. Lacson also alleged that photographs from previously completed contracts were recycled after dates or project details were changed.

Lacson submitted the allegations to the Office of the Ombudsman. The complete billing packets and original image files have not been released for public examination.

On August 7, he said his count had reached 32 projects he considered grossly anomalous. That is Lacson's count of questioned projects, and the public record does not establish 32 ghost projects.

Using one photograph for separate billings would mean at least one record was unreliable, and it would show that inspection and payment controls failed to catch it. The original photographs, billings, and payment documents are needed to decide whether taxpayers paid for the work honestly.

Lacson also says slope-protection projects along the Taguig River overlap. Several carry budgets close to P100 million, although similar amounts alone do not establish that the same span was funded twice.

The programs of work, engineering plans, exact station limits, quantity calculations, inspection records, and as-built surveys can settle that question. Without them, residents cannot tell whether a later contract extended an earlier wall or charged them again for the same work.

Lacson's most explosive accusation is an alleged kickback system reaching 33 percent of a project's cost. His public breakdown was 10 percent for a principal, 2 percent for the principal's "boys," 6 percent connected to the Bids and Awards Committee system, and 15 percent that he linked to earlier testimony involving former DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan.

Those components came from different allegations and sources. They have not been audited as deductions from every Taguig project.

Lacson further alleges that favored contractors were selected in advance, some contracts were transferred to another builder for a royalty, and local intermediaries acted as bagmen. He says district engineers could be pressured, replaced, or intimidated if they refused to cooperate.

The contract records identify the formal winners. Proof of contract trading or political control would require bank records, messages, sworn testimony, disbursement documents, and a connection between each person and a transaction.

If the kickback claim is established, less of every affected budget reached the work meant to keep water away from homes. For now, it remains Lacson's accusation against identifiable people and businesses.

WHEN FLOOD CONTROL BECAME A RECLAMATION QUESTION

This part has support beyond Lacson's files. In July 2025, the Philippine Reclamation Authority issued a formal directive stating that no reclamation project within Laguna de Bay had been approved and ordered all unauthorized reclamation activities in and around the lake to stop.

At a Senate budget hearing in October 2025, DENR Undersecretary Carlos Primo David said satellite images showed a project along C6 labeled as flood control that appeared to be reclamation inside Laguna de Bay. He warned that poorly placed projects could worsen flooding instead of reducing it.

In August 2026, Laguna Lake Development Authority General Manager Leopoldo Parumog said the Taguig city government had not coordinated with LLDA on the projects under examination. He said public consultation and the necessary certificates were required before construction in the area.

PRA General Manager Joseph Literal said his agency had sought documents from Taguig since the last quarter of 2025. According to Literal, PRA began its own inquiry before Lacson's latest disclosures after receiving complaints involving reclamation and garbage.

Those statements turn the issue into a direct concern for people who live with floods. Construction presented as protection could add to the danger if it fills part of the lake and reduces space for water, which is the risk David raised.

The project trail includes a P94-million flood-mitigation structure in Lower Bicutan, a lakeshore-improvement project reported at about P94.07 million, a P49.9-million multipurpose building at the Lakeshore Complex, and two flood-mitigation rehabilitation phases costing around P141.85 million each. Their project records do not establish that every structure illegally filled part of the lake, though they identify where boundaries, approvals, and completed work need to be matched.

Executive Order No. 74 places reclamation projects initiated by local governments under the PRA approval process. LLDA has a separate clearance system for development within the Laguna de Bay region.

Public ownership does not remove those approval processes. Without the required clearances, residents have no official assurance that the effect on flooding and the authority to occupy part of the lake were reviewed before public money was spent.

The size of the area remains unsettled. Lacson first discussed roughly 84 hectares and later cited findings of at least 85 hectares under scrutiny, while Literal described more than 40 hectares flagged at an earlier point in PRA's inquiry.

Those figures may reflect different inspection dates or portions of a growing area. Lacson says the work covers eight sites, one completed and seven ongoing, with some activity dating as far back as 2007.

If flood-control spending helped create usable property from the lake, another question follows: who owns that property, and who receives the benefit?

THE TITLES NOW BEING TRACED

On August 28 and 29, Lacson said the Land Registration Authority was tracing the origin and history of titles covering about 38.83 hectares within the flagged areas. He described four parcels totaling 388,308 square meters, or 38.8308 hectares.

One parcel covers 9,204 square meters under an original certificate of title arising from an administrative patent. Another covers 5,000 square meters under an original certificate of title processed through judicial or ordinary registration.

A third covers 181,077 square meters under a transfer certificate of title that allegedly originated from a homestead patent. The fourth covers 193,027 square meters under another transfer certificate of title.

Lacson also said at least four other parcels had no corresponding plotted titled lots in the LRA's digital records. He withheld the owners' names and title numbers while the inquiry continued.

Lacson called the four titles fraudulent. No public finding from the LRA or a court has established that description.

As of August 29, no title history, patent record, survey plan, registration decree, named owner, cancellation case, or final fraud finding had been released. The 38.83 hectares connected to the title review must also be kept separate from the broader estimate of at least 85 hectares of reclaimed area under scrutiny.

A title can decide who claims ownership, use, or transfer of property formed at the lake's edge. If an area created with public money later appears under a private name, taxpayers need the paper trail that explains it, and the withheld names leave that question unanswered.

WHAT CAYETANO DISPUTES

Alan Cayetano denies wrongdoing. He says that, to the best of his knowledge, there are no ghost flood-control projects in Taguig, and he has invited Lacson and the public to inspect them.

Cayetano says the lakeshore areas are government-owned and were developed into public parks and facilities rather than reclaimed for private use. He says the development crossed the Aquino, Duterte, and Marcos administrations and was intended to protect the lake and the public.

He has called the accusations hearsay, partisan retaliation, and a smear connected to political ambition. He argues that any inquiry should be fair and should examine similar projects elsewhere in the country.

His invitation to inspect can show whether structures are physically present. A visible structure still leaves the billing, project-boundary, permit, and ownership questions unresolved.

Lacson also alleges that PRA officials were pressured or harassed during the Office of the President's budget deliberations in November 2025 and that field investigators encountered intimidation along C6. Literal gave The Philippine Star a materially different account, saying no senator ordered PRA to stop and its inquiry was independent.

Literal's statement directly disputes the idea that a senator successfully halted PRA's work. It does not resolve every detail of Lacson's pressure allegation.

Pia Cayetano belongs in a separate part of the record. Lacson attributed around P4.7 billion in 2025 budget insertions to her, then said there was no indication at that point that she was involved in anomalous flood-control projects and that his team had not examined her projects in detail.

Her P4.7 billion figure cannot be folded into the allegations against Alan without records directly connecting her projects to the conduct under investigation.

WHERE THE INVESTIGATIONS STAND

The National Bureau of Investigation confirmed in July that it was investigating alleged ghost flood-control projects in Taguig. The Department of Justice clarified that it had not ordered the inquiry, and the NBI later said it would seek Lacson's evidence.

On July 28, Lacson submitted documentary and testimonial material, including at least five case studies, to the Office of the Ombudsman. The submission can support fact-finding, and the act of turning over documents did not file criminal charges.

Lacson said on August 19 that the Ombudsman had issued subpoenas to the DPWH, PRA, LRA, and the Taguig Registry of Deeds. The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that it sought confirmation from the Ombudsman and had not received a response by the time its report was published.

Lacson had said DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon committed to issuing cease-and-desist orders once PRA sent an official request. On August 30, Dizon said DPWH had issued an order on August 20 covering projects connected to the alleged illegal reclamation in Taguig, following a directive from the Office of the President through PRA.

As of August 30, the reports carrying Dizon's statement did not reproduce the order or identify every project it covers. No final PRA forfeiture resolution or public final ruling had established criminal liability against Alan Cayetano, Pia Cayetano, the Taguig city government, or the contractors discussed in Lacson's disclosures.

THE GOVERNMENT HAS THE FILES

I do not want taxpayers reduced to choosing between Lacson's accusations and Cayetano's Facebook broadcasts.

What troubles me most is that it apparently took a political quarrel for these records to receive sustained national attention. The dispute may explain why Lacson started looking into Taguig, but it does not determine whether his allegations are true. PRA and DENR had already raised concerns, and the relevant files were already inside government. Accountability should not depend on which politician happens to be angry at another.

DPWH has the programs of work, plans, station limits, quantity calculations, inspection reports, as-built surveys, progress billings, disbursement vouchers, and original geotagged photographs. PRA, LLDA, and DENR hold the permit, clearance, and environmental records, while the LRA and Registry of Deeds can produce the title histories, patents, surveys, registration decrees, transfers, and owners' names.

The burden now belongs to government: reconcile project boundaries, billing evidence, permits, environmental impact, and title provenance in one public record. Taxpayers paid for the projects, and they should be able to follow the money from appropriation to construction and see who gained control of any property created from the lake.

That work must continue even if Lacson and Cayetano eventually reconcile.

Sources

GUTEZA RECANTED. THAT DID NOT CLEAR ROMUALDEZ.

Gino Borlado — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 08:23:05 GMT

Orlando “Orly” Guteza withdrew the story he told the Senate about delivering suitcases of cash to Martin Romualdez. His recantation damages his credibility, weakens his original accusation, and gives Romualdez a serious defense.

It did not clear Romualdez. The broader flood-control investigation remains open, and the Office of the Ombudsman says it has witnesses beyond Guteza whose accounts have yet to be publicly tested.

Romualdez’s lawyers have asked the Ombudsman to dismiss the complaints against him. That request must be weighed against Guteza’s two sworn accounts, the problems surrounding his first affidavit, the competing claims of pressure and payment, and whatever independent evidence investigators can produce.

WHAT GUTEZA FIRST SAID

Guteza appeared before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee on September 25, 2025. He identified himself as a former Marine who had worked as a security aide or consultant for then Ako Bicol representative Elizaldy “Zaldy” Co.

He claimed that he helped transport suitcases filled with cash. Inside Co’s circle, he said, the money was called “basura.”

Guteza described 46 suitcases containing roughly ₱48 million each. He claimed that 35 were delivered to a property associated with Romualdez at 42 McKinley Street, while 11 remained with Co.

The 35 suitcases would amount to approximately ₱1.68 billion. Guteza also said he personally joined deliveries to the Romualdez property around three times, placing him inside the alleged operation as a first-hand witness.

Romualdez denied the accusation and described Guteza’s testimony as fabricated and coached. He said the McKinley property had been under renovation since January 2024 and was unoccupied except for construction workers.

THE FIRST VERSION ALREADY HAD HOLES

Guteza’s original account had a serious problem before he recanted.

Lawyer Petchie Rose Espera, whose name appeared as the notary on Guteza’s first affidavit, denied preparing, signing, or notarizing the document. She said the signature and notarial details attributed to her were falsified and unauthorized, while reports said the document was not recorded in her notarial register.

That raised immediate questions about who prepared the affidavit and how it reached the Senate. It did not settle whether every claim inside it was false, but it made independent support even more important.

There was another warning sign elsewhere in the flood-control hearings. Contractor Pacifico “Curlee” Discaya, who had earlier mentioned Romualdez and Co in connection with alleged kickbacks, later said he had no direct transaction with either man and that their names had been used by other people.

These weaknesses gave Romualdez valid grounds to challenge the accusations long before Guteza changed his account.

WHAT GUTEZA SAYS NOW

In a new sworn affidavit dated August 13, 2026, Guteza said he had no personal knowledge of the suitcase deliveries he previously described. He withdrew his claim that he joined three deliveries to Romualdez’s property and said he had never personally met, seen, or directly communicated with Romualdez.

Guteza then accused former representative Mike Defensor and Senator Rodante Marcoleta of arranging his original Senate appearance and shaping the story he presented.

According to Guteza, he met Defensor and Marcoleta at a Japanese restaurant in Pasay on September 24, 2025, one day before the Senate hearing. He alleged that an affidavit was prepared on a laptop and that Marcoleta edited portions of the Tagalog text.

Guteza also alleged that he was offered money, protection, and educational support for his children in exchange for his testimony. These are allegations in his new affidavit and have not been independently proven.

Marcoleta denied conspiring with Defensor and called Guteza’s recantation implausible. He argued that a detailed account involving numerous people and cash deliveries could not have been created and rehearsed during a brief restaurant meeting.

Marcoleta also alleged that Guteza’s family had been threatened and that the recantation was forced. That accusation remains unproven.

Senator Panfilo Lacson said Guteza had appeared to be coached during the Senate hearing. Lacson also cited Senate security footage showing Guteza entering Marcoleta’s office and staying there for around half an hour before appearing before the committee.

That visit is relevant, but it does not reveal what was discussed inside the office. Investigators still need testimony or records showing what happened before Guteza took his seat at the hearing.

The public now has two incompatible sworn accounts from the same person. Investigators must compare both versions with information from people who did not help prepare either affidavit, along with phone records, messages, locations, payments, and security footage.

WHAT ROMUALDEZ SUBMITTED

Romualdez’s lawyers filed a supplemental counter-affidavit asking the Ombudsman to dismiss complaints involving alleged plunder, bribery, graft, and money laundering. They argued that Guteza had been presented as an important link to Romualdez and that his recantation broke that connection.

The filing also included 25 affidavits from current and former Co employees. GMA News reported that 13 of them alleged that lawyer Levito Baligod and other people had offered money for statements implicating Romualdez.

The remaining 12 reportedly denied seeing the alleged cash deliveries but did not claim they had been offered money.

All 25 affidavits deserve examination. If any person was offered money, investigators should look for names, dates, messages, calls, meetings, prepared documents, and any record of payment.

A statement from an employee who never saw a delivery can help Romualdez, depending on that person’s assignment and access. Someone positioned at the property or involved in transportation may be able to dispute a specific claim, while someone assigned elsewhere may have no way of knowing what happened.

The same level of checking should be applied to claims that money was offered for affidavits. Repeating an accusation across several sworn statements does not replace the need for proof.

THE OTHER RECANTATIONS

Guteza was not the only former Co aide to withdraw accusations.

In February 2026, a group of 18 men described as former Co security personnel surfaced with allegations about cash deliveries involving Co, Romualdez, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and other people.

Several later withdrew their statements and alleged that financial help and protection had been offered in exchange for the original accusations. Their withdrawals added another serious credibility problem to the investigation.

Reports have not always grouped Guteza and the other former Co aides consistently. The Ombudsman’s latest public count on August 28 was more useful: 14 remaining witnesses from an original group of 18, plus 28 new witnesses.

The competing claims follow the same pattern. Some witnesses allege that they were offered something to accuse Romualdez, while Guteza alleges that he was pressured into making his first accusation and Marcoleta alleges that he was pressured into withdrawing it.

None of those claims can be settled through press conferences. Investigators need to identify who approached each witness, who prepared the affidavits, where the meetings occurred, and whether communications or payments support either version.

WHAT REMAINS OUTSIDE GUTEZA

As of August 28, the Ombudsman said it had identified 42 witnesses. That figure consisted of 14 from the original group of 18 and 28 additional witnesses.

The public does not yet know the identities, access, or complete accounts of most of those people. Calling them witnesses does not tell us whether they personally handled money, saw deliveries, reviewed records, or heard the allegations from somebody else.

Forty-two weak witnesses can still produce a weak case. One solid bank record can carry more weight than a room full of people repeating the same unsupported accusation.

The Ombudsman has also said that the quality of the testimony is more important than the number of witnesses. That quality can be judged only after the witnesses explain what they know and how they know it.

The complaints under preliminary investigation allege that Romualdez and Co participated in a scheme that collected approximately ₱56 billion in illegal proceeds connected to flood-control projects between 2022 and 2025.

That figure remains an allegation. Investigators still have to show where the money came from, how it moved, who controlled it, and whether any part reached Romualdez.

There are also court orders connected to the investigation. The Court of Appeals issued a freeze order covering bank accounts and insurance policies belonging to an unnamed prominent legislator, whom Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla publicly identified as Romualdez.

The Sandiganbayan issued a precautionary hold departure order against Romualdez and later rejected his request to lift it. These are temporary steps connected to the investigation and are not findings that he received stolen money.

WHERE THE CASE STANDS

Romualdez is a respondent in complaints undergoing preliminary investigation at the Office of the Ombudsman. The complaints involve alleged plunder, direct and indirect bribery, graft, and money laundering.

No formal court charges have been filed against him, and he remains presumed innocent. The Ombudsman still has to decide whether the evidence is strong enough to bring the complaints to court.

The accusations need proof. Romualdez’s defense, including the 25 affidavits and the allegations that witnesses were recruited or paid, also needs to be checked against records and people with direct knowledge.

WHAT THE RECANTATION CHANGES

The firm conclusion from the public record is that Guteza gave two incompatible sworn versions. His reliability has been badly damaged, and his new accusations against Defensor and Marcoleta now need independent support.

Questions about whether the first account was manufactured, whether the second account was voluntary, and whether any money reached Romualdez remain unanswered. Guteza’s reversal provides no answer about what the other witnesses know or whether investigators possess documents and financial records that support their allegations.

His recantation should be examined, not brushed aside. It should also be treated as one part of the evidence instead of being allowed to settle every other part of the investigation.

Investigators need bank records, contractor payments, phone locations, security logs, property entries, messages, and the movement of funds. They must also check the claims of coaching, offers, threats, and pressure surrounding both versions of Guteza’s story.

If the Ombudsman cannot produce independent evidence connecting Romualdez to the alleged money, it should dismiss the complaints. A large witness count cannot rescue accusations that have no reliable support.

If that independent evidence exists, investigators should present it and let a court decide what it proves.

Guteza recanted. That did not clear Romualdez.

Sources

GIVE JONVIC CREDIT. THEN KEEP WATCHING THE BFP.

Gino Borlado — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 06:52:00 GMT

Jonvic Remulla has spent much of 2026 pushing a broad cleanup of the Bureau of Fire Protection. Under his watch, the DILG has announced administrative and criminal complaints, ordered body cameras for inspections, moved recruitment toward an electronic system, and suspended or reassigned personnel. Police also conducted an entrapment operation against alleged slot-selling.

I have criticized Remulla many times. On this, I think he deserves credit because those are concrete actions. He is confronting the problem. He has not solved it.

The next part will decide how much that credit is worth. We still need to see what the Ombudsman and the courts conclude, whether public money is recovered, whether complainants are protected, and whether the reforms remain after Remulla leaves office.

WHY THE BFP HAS SO MUCH POWER

The BFP does far more than respond when a building is already burning. It enforces the Fire Code, inspects buildings, recruits firefighters, buys emergency vehicles, and issues the Fire Safety Inspection Certificate that businesses need before an occupancy permit, business permit, or permit to operate can be issued.

That gives BFP personnel influence over safety, livelihoods, government careers, and public spending. A dishonest official can exploit an applicant who wants a stable job, a business owner waiting for a certificate, or a procurement process that most citizens will never see.

THE RECRUITMENT CASES

The clearest recent example came from Pampanga. Police said a BFP Senior Fire Officer 1 met an applicant in Pasay City on August 23, 2026 and allegedly offered to secure a place in the recruitment process for P500,000. After the applicant negotiated an initial payment of P300,000, CIDG officers arrested the fire officer at about 7:15 p.m. on August 24 in San Fernando City after she allegedly accepted marked money.

Investigators also alleged that the officer used a dummy Facebook Messenger account to contact applicants whose names the BFP had posted online. The arrest does not prove the officer's guilt or establish anyone else's involvement. The case must still go through the proper process.

The numbers show why applicants can be vulnerable. BFP data released in August said 23,344 people had been pre-screened for 2,504 available positions in the 2026 recruitment quota. That competition does not prove corruption. It does show how scarce the openings were.

The February announcement has to be kept straight. The DILG said administrative charges had been filed against 12 officials, but those 12 did not belong to one slot-selling case. They were spread across three sets of allegations.

Four former senior officials in Region VIII faced allegations involving demands of P400,000 to P800,000 during the 2025 Fire Officer 1 recruitment. Six Region X officials faced separate allegations involving applicants who lacked required medical, physical, and dental clearances and the failure to properly release examination results. Two Region IV-A officials faced inspection-related charges.

The Region I proceeding was separate. The DILG said a fire officer had been formally charged and preventively suspended for allegedly demanding P90,000 to facilitate a recruitment slot. That officer was in addition to the 12, not part of the same count.

On August 28, Remulla said the wider inquiry covered more than 200 BFP personnel, including all 18 regional directors. He also said an investigation would not automatically mean relief from duty, and the BFP and police had not yet finalized the number of slot-selling cases. More than 200 describes the scope of the inquiry. Each person's responsibility still depends on evidence.

THE FIRE INSPECTION RACKET

Business owners have little room to ignore a fire inspector because the certificate can determine whether they open or remain in operation. Remulla and the DILG have accused some inspectors of using that leverage to pressure owners into buying extinguishers, sprinklers, or other equipment from favored sellers. Existing BFP policy prohibits personnel from selling or endorsing particular brands, dealers, or suppliers.

The DILG responded by making body-worn cameras mandatory during fire safety inspections nationwide. Its January 21 policy says recording begins when the camera is issued at the station and continues through travel, the inspection, the explanation of findings, and formal turnover to the station custodian. An establishment owner may record the inspection and may request a copy of the video in writing from the city or municipal fire marshal within seven working days from the inspection date.

The policy also requires the footage to be uploaded to a secured system within 24 hours and treats unjustified recording gaps or tampering as misconduct. In March, however, the DILG said some inspectors had allegedly tried to get around the cameras by sending another team ahead of the recorded inspection to offer equipment.

That allegation also shows what cameras cannot solve by themselves. They can document the official inspection, but supervisors still have to examine what happened before and after it, act on complaints, and impose sanctions when the evidence supports them.

THE AMBULANCE AND FIRE-TRUCK COMPLAINTS

On March 5, the DILG announced that it had filed administrative and criminal complaints at the Office of the Ombudsman against then BFP chief Jesus Fernandez and a private supplier. The complaint alleged a P14.752 million payoff connected to the 2024 procurement of 132 Type 1 Basic Life Support ambulances.

According to the DILG, Fernandez allegedly received P6 million and P4.752 million in November 2024, followed by P4 million in September 2025. The complaint included alleged graft, direct bribery, malversation, and conspiracy, together with administrative accusations. GMA News reported that it was seeking comment from Fernandez and the supplier at the time.

The fire-truck case requires a careful chronology because the public count changed. On March 19, the DILG said it was set to file a complaint-affidavit against 45 current and former BFP officials over procurements from 2018 to 2024. On May 8, Remulla said complaints involving about 49 officials had already been filed with the Ombudsman and that those officials had been suspended.

The public reports reviewed for this article do not explain why the count rose by four. They also provide no Ombudsman docket number or separate confirmation of receipt, so what can be verified from the public record is Remulla's statement that the complaints were filed.

The DILG alleged that technical requirements had been tailored to favor two suppliers, that required deliberations or records were missing, and that price increases lacked a documented market study. It cited the price of a 1,000-gallon fire truck rising from P5.975 million in 2014 to P14.94 million in 2024. They remain allegations in a government complaint unless an independent body finds otherwise.

The sources reviewed through August 30, 2026 reported complaints and investigations in the major ambulance and fire-truck cases. I found no publicly announced final Ombudsman resolution, court disposition, or recovery of money in either case.

WHY REMULLA DESERVES CREDIT

The credit comes from actions we can verify. The DILG announced complaints, Fernandez was suspended and replaced by an officer-in-charge, police conducted an entrapment operation, body cameras became mandatory, and the BFP introduced electronic recruitment measures. The allegations remain for independent review, while the new records and procedures can be tested.

The personnel actions were also sweeping. At the end of March, the new BFP officer-in-charge ordered the relief of all fire safety inspectors in Metro Manila, a group Remulla later placed at 902. On May 8, Remulla said he had reassigned roughly 650 Metro Manila inspectors whom he accused of corruption to Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, and other distant posts.

The relationship between the two numbers was not explained in the reports I reviewed. Moving personnel changes where they work. It cannot replace an evidence-based case, a fair decision, or exoneration when evidence is lacking. Communities outside Metro Manila should not be used as holding areas while personnel cases remain unresolved.

WHERE CREDIT STOPS

Remulla has described corruption in the BFP as a P15-billion-a-year enterprise. That figure is his estimate. The records reviewed for this article contain no Commission on Audit finding that calculates or validates P15 billion, so the number should never be presented as an audited loss.

Remulla also has to answer for his role in elevating Fernandez. He designated Fernandez as BFP officer-in-charge in December 2024 after the previous chief's retirement, and President Marcos appointed Fernandez as bureau chief effective April 11, 2025. The reporting reviewed provides no evidence that Remulla knew of the alleged conduct when he made the designation. His role still makes the quality of the vetting and any warning signs available at the time fair subjects for scrutiny.

The Office of the Ombudsman receiving the complaints is headed by Jesus Crispin "Boying" Remulla, Jonvic's brother. That family relationship alone proves nothing about interference. Republic Act 6770 directs Ombudsman officials to strictly avoid conflicts of interest and allows the Ombudsman to delegate authority. The statutory text reviewed for this article does not state an automatic case-specific recusal rule triggered by this sibling relationship.

I recommend a written recusal or documented delegation for these cases as a transparency step. I am not claiming that the law requires it. A public record of who supervises the review would reduce avoidable doubts about the process.

WHY THE PUBLIC RESPONSE FEELS QUIET

Major news organizations have covered the BFP campaign, and calling Filipinos indifferent to corruption would overstate the evidence. Pulse Asia's July 2026 survey of 2,400 adults found that 43 percent placed fighting graft and corruption in government, including holding corrupt officials accountable, among the country's three most urgent concerns. Inflation ranked first at 57 percent, while 68 percent disapproved of the national administration's performance in fighting corruption.

There is no survey in the sources I reviewed that asks why people followed or ignored the BFP story. What follows is my reading of the available evidence, not a measured explanation of public behavior.

The story arrived in separate pieces about recruitment, inspections, extinguishers, ambulances, body cameras, and fire trucks. They appeared at different times, involved different people, and reached different stages of investigation. That makes the scandal harder to follow as one continuing story.

Its direct effects can also be hard to see until something goes wrong. A flood-control failure can be photographed while a neighborhood is underwater. Weak fire prevention may stay out of view until a certificate is withheld, an emergency vehicle is missing, or a fire exposes the cost.

People closest to an alleged abuse may also hesitate because they still need something from the bureau. A business owner needs a certificate, an applicant wants the job, and an employee who reports colleagues may risk a career. Those are possible pressures. They are not proof that any particular person stayed silent out of fear.

The wider news environment may add to the problem. The Reuters Institute's 2026 Philippines study, based on an online survey, found that 51 percent of respondents sometimes or often avoided news and that overall trust in news was 28 percent. Those figures describe general news habits and do not measure attention to the BFP campaign.

WHY ATTENTION STILL COUNTS

Public attention cannot decide guilt, and public pressure must never replace due process. It can still demand case numbers, filing dates, status updates, explanations for delays, and evidence that announced reforms are working.

I cannot show that weak public attention delayed any of these BFP cases. My point is narrower. When people stop asking, officials face fewer questions about case numbers, filing dates, delays, rulings, and promised reforms.

Slot-selling is damaging without making predictions about the people who paid. It puts a price on entry into public service and disadvantages qualified applicants who follow the rules. A payer may be a victim, a participant, a witness, or some combination of those roles. The evidence must determine individual responsibility.

In my view, this is the perfect petri dish for corruption: a complicated scandal, people who may be afraid to complain, an exhausted public, and cases that disappear from attention before anyone learns how they ended. Public silence did not cause the alleged BFP schemes. It can still make accountability easier to postpone.

WHAT SUCCESS SHOULD LOOK LIKE

Success should produce public case numbers and status updates where legally allowed, final Ombudsman and court outcomes, recovery of money when ordered, protection for complainants, documented compliance with body-camera rules, and recruitment results that can be audited. The government should also explain whether reassigned personnel were charged, cleared, or left in administrative limbo.

If evidence supports prosecution, pursue the cases. If it does not, clear the respondents. The lasting test is whether recruitment, inspections, and procurement remain cleaner after Remulla leaves.

So yes, Jonvic Remulla deserves credit for the action already taken. I will also keep watching every complaint, ruling, recovery, and reform. Appreciation should never mean that we stop watching.

Sources

MAY SOURCES. PERO MISLEADING PA RIN.

Gino Borlado — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:49:30 GMT

May mga dumadaan sa feed ko na mahahabang political articles. Detailed. Confident ang tono. May numbered sources sa dulo. Familiar ang presentation sa mga regular na nagbabasa ng MCT. Ang problema ay kapag ginamit ang sources para magmukhang researched ang isang conclusion na hindi naman sinuportahan ng mga source.

Walang problema sa format. MCT does not own long-form writing or source lists. Mas mabuti kung mas maraming tao ang naglalagay ng sources at nag-uusap tungkol sa public issues using documented information.

For instance, there’s this Facebook post from the account Memeng Malupet. Its headline begins, “EXPOSED! THE ‘ADVANCE SCRIPT’ AGAINST ROMUALDEZ,” then asks, “IS THIS OMBUDSMAN REMULLA’S OWN AMBITION, OR A RESCUE MISSION FOR HIS BROTHER?”

The cover image above shows the post as it appeared when I reviewed it. Here is what it told its readers. It argued that recantations from what it described as three separate groups had gutted the case against former Speaker Martin Romualdez.

It said Orly Guteza had been offered ₱150 million to testify against Romualdez and declared that nothing remained of the case after the recantations. It then connected the continuing investigation to the political problems of DILG Secretary Jonvic Remulla and suggested that Ombudsman Boying Remulla could be using the case to protect his brother or advance the family’s political plans for 2028.

For the record, I do not give a rat’s ass about any of the political personalities involved. I am not defending Romualdez, the Remullas, or anyone else named in the article.

I track news, aggregate reports, and write about public issues every day, so I know what to look for when information is being stretched to prove a point that the sources do not actually support. That is what caught my attention here.

It was long, confident, and supported by a numbered list of sources. The problem appeared when I opened those sources.

Several central claims went beyond what the cited reports established. Overlapping groups were counted as separate groups. “Some” became “all.” Allegations were written as settled facts.

Separate political events were connected without evidence showing coordination. That is how an article can contain real sources and still mislead its readers.

HINDI SILA TATLONG MAGKAKAHIWALAY NA GRUPO

The article presented Orly Guteza, four members of the group called the “Maleta Boys,” and 25 former security aides of Zaldy Co as three separate groups that had supposedly destroyed the case against Romualdez. That description inflated what the reports actually established. The reports describe overlapping sets:
The 25 already included Guteza. Their affidavits were submitted by Romualdez’s lawyers to dispute the allegations against him. They were not 25 witnesses who had all previously accused Romualdez and then recanted.
Four people from a wider group of 18 publicly recanted.
Eight members of that wider group had affidavits submitted to the Ombudsman. Only three of the four public recanters were among those eight. The fourth was outside that group of eight.
Guteza’s later recantation was a separate development.
The same report said some members of the 25 claimed they had been offered financial rewards to join the group of 18. Romualdez’s lawyer later described the number as substantial. The report did not say that all 25 made that allegation. The article mixed overlapping groups and different denominators, making the collapse appear larger than the available reports showed.

HINDI SI GUTEZA ANG INALOK NG ₱150 MILLION

The article also said Guteza had been offered ₱150 million to testify against Romualdez. That is not what the cited report said. Guteza alleged that he overheard Mike Defensor and Senator Rodante Marcoleta discussing how ₱150 million would make certain people “happy.” He separately alleged that Defensor promised him cash and educational assistance for his children.

Those are serious allegations. They deserve investigation, and Defensor and Marcoleta must be allowed to answer them. The reported conversation about ₱150 million and the alleged promises made to Guteza are two different claims. Combining them changed the accusation.

MAY NATITIRA PANG EBIDENSIYANG HINDI NATIN NAKIKITA

The article then declared that once the witnesses recanted, nothing remained to support the case. We cannot honestly make that conclusion from the public record.

The Ombudsman says 28 other witnesses can provide direct and material information. It has not publicly identified them or disclosed what each person supposedly witnessed, so the claim remains untested in public.

Readers are free to question whether those witnesses are credible and whether their information is enough to establish probable cause. The Ombudsman should eventually show its evidence through the proper proceedings. Still, the existence of undisclosed evidence and unresolved testimony prevents anyone outside the investigation from declaring that absolutely nothing remains.

THEN THE ARTICLE SUPPLIED A POLITICAL MOTIVE

The article eventually connected the Romualdez investigation to the problems facing DILG Secretary Jonvic Remulla. It suggested that Ombudsman Boying Remulla could be using the case to protect his brother or advance the family’s political plans for 2028.

The article presented no communication between the brothers about the case. It showed no instruction from Jonvic, no coordinated plan and no evidence that the investigation was created as a distraction from the DILG secretary’s problems.

There is also a chronology problem. Guteza alleged that the supposed preparation of his statement happened on September 24, 2025. Boying Remulla was appointed Ombudsman on October 7, 2025.

That does not settle who was telling the truth about Guteza’s original statement or his recantation. It does show why the article needed evidence before placing the Ombudsman inside a September scheme that allegedly happened before he held the office.

Political motives are legitimate subjects for investigation. Timing, family relationships and political ambition can justify questions. They cannot supply the missing proof by themselves.

SOURCES ARE NOT DECORATION

The difficult part is knowing where the evidence ends. If a source supports only a question, I should present a question. If a statement is an allegation, I should identify the person making it.

If two groups overlap, I should not count the same person twice. If a source says “some,” I cannot rewrite it as “all.” If a lawyer calls a complaint a “non-case,” that establishes the lawyer’s position. It does not independently establish that the complaint is baseless.

Several real events happening within the same period do not automatically prove coordination. Connecting dots without a documented connection can mislead readers just as effectively as an invented fact.

WHERE AI CAN MAKE THE PROBLEM WORSE

I cannot say whether generative AI was used to produce the post. But the errors in it are exactly the kind that generative AI can amplify when nobody checks whether the sources support the finished conclusion.

Generative AI can summarize several reports and turn separate pieces of information into smooth, coherent prose. It can also produce a conclusion that sounds logical even when none of the sources establishes it.

The person publishing the article must check the names, dates, quotations, denominators, overlapping groups, legal conclusions and competing accounts. Sometimes that checking destroys the strongest angle. Sometimes the dramatic headline no longer works. That is part of responsible research. Evidence should correct the writer’s assumptions.

READ THE SOURCE, EVEN WHEN YOU AGREE

This is why I keep asking readers to remain critical, especially when an article confirms what they already believe. Open the source and ask:
Did it actually say what the writer claimed?
Was the statement a verified finding or someone’s allegation?
Did “some” become “all”?
Was the same person counted twice?
Does the timeline support the theory?
Was an opinion presented like a verified report?
Did the evidence establish the motive, or did the writer supply it?
This applies to MCT too. Do not accept a claim simply because I wrote it. If one of my sources does not support what I said, question me. If I get a date, number or name wrong, point it out. If I connect events without enough evidence, call my attention.
I do not know whether the misleading presentation in the article was deliberate. I do know what it can do to a reader. A long post with 22 sources can create the feeling of being well informed while quietly pushing a conclusion that the evidence did not earn.
A source list can make an article look credible, but the claims still have to survive the sources. The six reports below are the ones needed to verify the specific claims examined here.

Sources

PROJECT NOAH IS USEFUL. HERE’S HOW IT CAN HELP YOU

Gino Borlado — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 14:40:00 GMT

The government has just released ₱1 billion for Project NOAH. That caught my attention because NOAH is one of those public projects we remember whenever floodwater begins to rise, but many of us may not know what it can actually do today.

So I opened the website and tried to use it as a homeowner, a parent, a commuter, and a person looking at property. I wanted to answer a simple question: Can Project NOAH help me make a safer decision?

It can. The website is still in beta, so the current version should be understood as a useful platform that remains under development.

WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH PROJECT NOAH TODAY

The easiest place to begin is Know Your Hazards at noah.up.edu.ph. Search for an address or move the pin to a location. The page checks that point for three hazards:
flood
landslide
storm surge
The results use simple labels such as little to none, low, medium, and high. The page also identifies nearby hospitals, health centers, police and fire stations, and schools.
I searched for Marikina City Hall. NOAH classified that point as a high flood hazard, with little to no indicated landslide or storm-surge hazard. The page also warned that the result applies only to the selected point and that the platform remains in beta.

Project NOAH's point assessment for Marikina City Hall. The page classifies the selected point as a high flood hazard and warns users to examine the surrounding map.

Do not look only at your house. Check the road outside it, the bridge you use, the route to school or work, and the place where your family plans to evacuate. A house may sit outside a high-risk zone while its only exit road passes through one. A school listed as a nearby facility is not automatically an operating evacuation center. Confirm the official shelter and evacuation route with the local government.

Project NOAH also has a more detailed workspace called NOAH Studio. It can display flood, landslide, storm-surge, rainfall, typhoon, wind, temperature, satellite, volcano, critical-facility, and sensor layers over a wider area. This is more useful when comparing a barangay, road network, proposed site, or entire community.

Know Your Hazards answers, “What does the map indicate at this point?” NOAH Studio helps answer, “What is happening around it?”

NOAH Studio provides a wider map and controls for weather, flood, landslide, storm-surge, temperature, facility, and sensor information.

The extra controls in Studio can overwhelm a first-time visitor. Start with the simple checker. Open Studio only when you need the wider picture.

Before a typhoon, check your home, your children’s school, your workplace, the home of an older relative, and the roads connecting them. Coastal families can compare the house, the road out, and the planned shelter against the storm-surge layer. People living near slopes can inspect the property and the route they would use to leave.

During heavy rain, NOAH’s rainfall and other weather layers can add context. But the site should not be treated as the sole authority during an emergency. PAGASA issues the official weather bulletins and warnings. Local governments decide when and where people should evacuate.

A hazard map is a model. It cannot see a drainage canal that was blocked this morning, a wall that has just collapsed, a damaged bridge, or water already rising outside your door. If local officials order an evacuation, do not wait for a map color to change.

USE IT BEFORE BUYING OR RENTING PROPERTY

Project NOAH can also help before you buy land, rent a house, or choose a place for a business.

Check the exact lot, then move the pin around it. Look at the entrance road, nearby waterways, slopes, bridges, coastline, and possible escape routes. Compare the map with what nearby residents and the local disaster office know about past flooding.

This is an additional check, not a safety certificate. The map may not reflect recent construction, altered drainage, land filling, or a newly blocked waterway. It does not replace a property inspection, technical assessment, or official government records, but it may reveal a risk worth investigating before anything is signed.

WHAT THE BETA VERSION CAN AND CANNOT DO

When I tested the public pages on August 25, the platform described its features as beta. The simple hazard checker said the site was still being stabilized and that some maps remained incomplete.

Most of the core hazard maps worked. Some other parts were still unavailable. In NOAH Studio, the flood and rain-gauge sensor feeds returned an “Unable to fetch data” message.

The flood and rain-gauge feeds were disabled during the review. The page said the data could not be fetched and that sensor calibration and validation were still in progress.

These limitations should not be treated as Project NOAH's final condition. The platform is still being stabilized. Clearer controls, visible update times, and working feeds should make the full version easier to understand and use, especially on a phone.

WHAT HAPPENED TO GOVERNMENT SUPPORT?

Project NOAH began under the Department of Science and Technology in 2012 after the devastation caused by Tropical Storm Sendong. It brought together research projects on floods, landslides, storm surges, weather, mapping, sensors, and public communication.

The DOST phase ended on February 28, 2017. DOST said the program had delivered its targets, received extensions, and reached its scheduled end. Its outputs were transferred to PAGASA, PHIVOLCS, NAMRIA, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, and other agencies. That administrative explanation does not tell the whole story.

In January 2017, Project NOAH head Mahar Lagmay said 40 of its 80 personnel had lost their jobs because of budget cuts. A November 2016 follow-on proposal remained unanswered. DOST had also declined the continuation of Project ISAIAH and additional funding for other components. The record shows that DOST ended support for NOAH as the same integrated program, transferred its outputs, and said future research could be considered through new proposals.

A March 2016 DOST letter had already rejected an ISAIAH extension, although ₱24.5 million was later provided for some activities through February 2017. UP adopted Project NOAH before the DOST phase formally ended and established the NOAH Center under the UP Resilience Institute. PAGASA integrated NOAH maps, sensors, and risk tools into its systems, while the 2018 budget included ₱150 million for the institute.

The work survived, but the team lost trained people during the transition. Calling the original research program “completed” did not answer how its maps would be updated, how its systems would be maintained, or how its specialists would be retained.

WHAT THE NEW ₱1 BILLION IS SUPPOSED TO BUY

On August 24, 2026, the Department of Budget and Management announced the release of ₱1 billion to the UP System for Project NOAH. Of that amount, ₱935 million is for research services and ₱65 million is for general management and supervision.

UP says the money will support high-resolution mapping of major river basins, LiDAR drone surveys, the search for hidden waterways, hazard assessments, flood-management simulations, and nature-based solutions. It will also fund land-use planning work, technical personnel, equipment, artificial intelligence, and analytics.

Many people encounter artificial intelligence through chatbots, generated pictures, and other consumer tools. Project NOAH demonstrates how AI can also serve a critical public purpose. It can help researchers compare rainfall, terrain, rivers, drainage, land use, satellite observations, and historical flooding across many communities. It can run possible flood scenarios and help test whether a proposed flood-control project will reduce flooding or move the problem somewhere else.

This is where AI becomes practical. Disaster planning depends on time. A forecast or simulation has greater value when officials and families receive it early enough to move people, protect equipment, change a route, or reconsider a construction project. AI can shorten parts of the analysis, while scientists and engineers remain responsible for checking whether the results make sense.

The latest spending plan also includes mapping buried, altered, or undocumented waterways. A neighborhood may flood beside a channel that no longer appears clearly on the surface or in existing plans.

AI cannot repair weak or outdated data by itself. Lagmay has warned that the quality of the result depends on the quality of the information fed into the system. Scientists, engineers, local knowledge, field checks, and regularly updated maps remain essential.

WHAT THE PUBLIC SHOULD EXPECT IN RETURN

One billion pesos is substantial. The public should be able to see what improves because of it.

We should expect working and clearly dated data feeds, better mobile use, updated hazard maps, more detailed local forecasts, public explanations of uncertainty, and evidence that local governments are using the system. We should also expect transparency on the research, equipment, personnel, and projects funded by the allocation.

If NOAH will help assess flood-control proposals, the results should be understandable enough for citizens to see why a project is recommended, rejected, or redesigned. If hidden waterways are mapped, local governments should use that information in zoning, drainage, road, housing, and emergency plans.

Project NOAH already gives the public a way to look at danger before it reaches the doorstep. Bookmark the site and learn how to use it while the weather is calm. Check your home, the routes around it, and a property before buying. Bring questions from the map to your barangay and local disaster office.

I am looking forward to the full rollout of Project NOAH. The beta version already shows what the platform can offer. The new funding and AI-supported expansion could make its information faster, more detailed, and more useful to communities across the country.

Sources

MCT IMPEACHMENT TRACKER: DAY 19 | THE QUESTIONS NOW LEAD TO LACHICA

Gino Borlado — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

These are my notes from the hearing. If I missed anything critical, please let me know. I will be happy to verify and correct it.

Day 19 did not answer the central question in the confidential-funds case: where did the money actually go?

It did, however, make the chain of responsibility clearer. Gina Acosta said she handed the cash to Col. Raymund Dante Lachica. Lemuel Ortonio said he helped answer the Commission on Audit, but did not inspect the supporting documents and had no personal knowledge of the payments. Both witnesses pointed toward Lachica when asked who knew how the operations were carried out.

At the same time, Ortonio identified Vice President Sara Duterte, as head of the agency, as the official with the greatest responsibility for the funds.

THE COURT DRAWS A LINE ON PUBLIC STATEMENTS

The hearing opened with Presiding Officer Francis Escudero ruling on statements made outside the impeachment court.
The issue arose from a complaint by defense lead counsel Sheila Sison about a Facebook post by prosecution lawyer Amando Ligutan. Ligutan said he was explaining a legal principle in his capacity as a law professor, not attacking the defense.
Escudero said Ligutan could continue teaching law, but must separate that role from his work as a prosecutor. He then announced that Rule 18 would be strictly enforced.
The rule bars public comments about the merits of the pending case by the presiding officer, senator-judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, Vice President Duterte and witnesses.
Previous statements would not be punished. For future violations, the court set the following procedure and penalties:
An alleged offender will be ordered to explain within 24 hours why they should not be cited for contempt.
A first offense may bring a public reprimand and stern warning in open court.
A second or succeeding offense may bring a fine of up to ₱30,000 for each violation.
The court may restrict an offending lawyer from speaking, objecting or questioning witnesses.
Lawyers may also be referred to the Office of the Bar Confidant, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines or the Supreme Court.
Escudero reminded the senator-judges that they may continue asking questions, but must do so with what he called "cold neutrality."
While the ruling was being announced, Duterte released a statement accusing the prosecution of relying on insults, speculation and political theatrics. Lead prosecutor Gerville Luistro brought it to the court's attention.
Escudero imposed no sanction because the statement was issued while he was still announcing that the rule would apply only to future conduct. He instructed Duterte's lawyers to remind their client that Rule 18 applies to her as well.

THE INITIAL REQUEST HAD NO SUPPORTING PLAN

Ortonio returned to the witness stand for his second day of testimony. He had already been declared a hostile witness after the prosecution argued that his position and answers were adverse to its case.

During cross-examination, Ortonio confirmed that the Office of the Vice President's August 2022 request for confidential funds did not include a Physical and Financial Plan. He said his understanding was that the rules did not require the plan to be attached to the initial request. Supporting documents were submitted later, in September.

That distinction matters. The testimony established that the plan was not submitted with the request. It did not conclusively establish when the plan itself was prepared.

Ortonio also emphasized that the Department of Budget and Management recommended the request and the Office of the President approved the release. But approval to release funds is different from proof that the money was later spent and liquidated according to the rules.

The Joint Circular on confidential and intelligence funds requires a Physical and Financial Plan approved by the agency head. The plan should state the estimated amount for each program, activity or project.

THE DEFENSE POINTS TO PRELIMINARY AUDIT FINDINGS

The defense asked Ortonio about the Audit Observation Memoranda and Notices of Suspension issued by COA. He agreed that these were not final audit decisions and said he could not remember them expressly using the word "misused."

An Audit Observation Memorandum flags a concern and asks an agency to explain or correct it. A Notice of Suspension temporarily holds an expense in question while documents or explanations are being evaluated. Neither one is a final ruling, but neither one clears the expense.

COA later issued formal Notices of Disallowance, which are decisions that certain expenditures should not be allowed and may have to be returned.

The ₱73.287 million disallowance covering the OVP's confidential spending in late 2022 is already final within COA, although it may still be challenged before the Supreme Court. A separate ₱375 million disallowance covering the first three quarters of 2023 remains under appeal within COA.

The two disallowances therefore do not have the same procedural status. Neither one, by itself, is an impeachment conviction. The Senate must still decide whether the evidence proves an impeachable offense.

ORTONIO LIMITS WHAT HE PERSONALLY KNEW

Ortonio repeatedly described a limited role. He said he did not personally withdraw or disburse the cash, implement the confidential activities, prepare the liquidation reports, record the individual expenses or witness payments to informants.

His involvement was mainly in preparing the OVP's replies to COA and serving as liaison with the auditors.

Under questioning, he acknowledged that he did not personally know how the money was spent and could not independently determine whether the claimed operations were legitimate. When asked who knew how the activities were carried out on the ground, he pointed to Lachica.

Ortonio also testified that Duterte knew about and authorized the confidential-fund process. He confirmed that the OVP's replies to COA were submitted to her for review and final approval.

THE DOCUMENTS STAYED INSIDE A SEALED BOX

Senator-Judge Sherwin Gatchalian asked Ortonio about the documents submitted to COA.

Ortonio said former OVP special disbursing officer Gina Acosta gave him the documentary evidence of payment inside a sealed box. He did not open it, inspect the acknowledgment receipts, or verify the names, signatures and amounts. He attached the sealed documents to the OVP's reply and submitted them to the auditors.

He said he acted only as a liaison and did not believe he was authorized to open confidential records. He also said he trusted Lachica because Duterte trusted Lachica to handle the operations.

This left a troubling gap. Ortonio helped prepare an official answer to COA, but could not personally vouch for the records used to support that answer.

LACHICA RECEIVED THE CASH BUT WAS NOT THE OVP'S DISBURSING OFFICER

Ortonio confirmed that Lachica was not an OVP employee. He was an Armed Forces officer assigned to lead the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group.

He was also not the OVP's designated and bonded special disbursing officer. That position belonged to Acosta.

Acosta testified earlier that, on Duterte's instructions, she handed Lachica four tranches of ₱125 million, totaling ₱500 million from late 2022 through the third quarter of 2023. She could confirm handing him the cash, but could not personally say what happened to it afterward.

Ortonio initially distinguished Acosta's role in "disbursing" the funds from Lachica's role in "implementing" the confidential activities. After repeated questioning, he acknowledged that Lachica spent the money while carrying out those activities.

This is a key compliance question because the rules assign actual disbursement to the agency head or a designated and bonded special disbursing officer. Lachica was neither. COA's 2023 Notice of Disallowance named him among those liable because he received the cash despite not holding that designation.

THE MISSING RECEIPT

Escudero returned to Acosta's earlier testimony that Lachica initially signed a receipt acknowledging that he received the money. According to Acosta, that receipt was later taken back and was not among the records submitted to COA.

Ortonio said he did not know why it was taken back and did not ask for a copy.

If it still exists, that receipt could provide a direct documentary link between the special disbursing officer and the person who physically received the cash.

THE ALLEGED PAYMENTS TO INFORMANTS

Ortonio said his understanding was that Lachica released the funds to informants or agents involved in confidential activities. He did not witness those payments. Acosta also did not witness Lachica handing money to the people named in the acknowledgment receipts.

The direct testimony therefore establishes that Acosta handed the cash to Lachica. What happened between Lachica and the supposed recipients rests on Lachica's explanations and on documents later submitted for liquidation. Neither Acosta nor Ortonio independently verified that part of the money trail.

THE ₱122 MILLION MEDICINE QUESTION

Senators returned to the reported use of ₱122 million for medicine-related rewards or assistance: ₱40 million in late 2022, ₱42 million in the first quarter of 2023 and ₱40 million in the second quarter.

Ortonio said his understanding was that informants received cash and used it to buy medicines for themselves. He also admitted that he had no personal knowledge that the money was actually spent that way.

The Joint Circular permits rewards to informants, but the payments must be approved by the agency head, tied to a specific confidential activity and supported by records showing the result of the information-gathering or surveillance work. Calling a payment a reward does not establish that those requirements were met.

Senator-Judge Raffy Tulfo asked why the supposed medicine rewards included individual amounts such as ₱50,000, ₱170,000 and ₱200,000. Ortonio could not explain the figures from personal knowledge.

THE ₱40 MILLION ENTRY THAT DISAPPEARED

Senator-Judge Francis Pangilinan showed that a ₱40 million medicine-related entry in earlier accomplishment reports no longer appeared in the report for the third quarter of 2023.

COA issued an Audit Observation Memorandum on October 4, 2023. The third-quarter accomplishment report was dated October 9, five days later, and the ₱40 million entry was gone.

Pangilinan suggested that the report may have been changed after auditors raised concerns. Ortonio said he did not prepare the report and could not explain the omission.

The timing raises a legitimate question. It does not, on its own, prove that anyone deliberately falsified the report.

REPEATED PLANS AND DISPUTED ALIASES

Senator-Judge Panfilo Lacson compared Physical and Financial Plans from different periods and said they appeared to repeat the same general descriptions and amounts. He questioned whether the documents had simply been copied without identifying the operations that supposedly required the money.

The court has not ruled that the plans were fraudulent. Still, a lack of operational detail would make it harder to show that the amounts were based on distinct, carefully identified activities.

Senator-Judge Robin Padilla defended the use of aliases in dangerous or confidential work by citing historical figures who used pseudonyms. Senator-Judge Bam Aquino responded that using an alias is not the same as receiving confidential funds.

The real issue is not whether an informant may use an alias. It is whether the names in the receipts corresponded to real people who received government money for legitimate confidential operations. The Philippine Statistics Authority witness expected to address the identities had not yet testified by the end of Day 19.

WHO CARRIED THE GREATEST RESPONSIBILITY?

Senator-Judge Risa Hontiveros asked Ortonio who carried the greatest responsibility for the confidential funds. He answered that, as agency head, it was Duterte.

Under the Joint Circular, the agency head approves cash advances, oversees the use and disposition of confidential funds, maintains internal controls, approves liquidation and accomplishment reports, and ensures that supporting records are submitted.

The defense may argue that an agency head is entitled to rely on subordinates and security officers. That argument will have to be weighed against the responsibilities the rules assign directly to the head of the agency.

WILL LACHICA BE CALLED?

Several senator-judges questioned why the person repeatedly identified as the ground implementer had not been presented as a witness.

Senator-Judge Erwin Tulfo said Lachica should be called because Acosta and Ortonio kept pointing to him when asked who knew what happened to the money.

The prosecution had listed Lachica as a possible witness but had not decided whether to present him. Escudero explained that the court could not force either side to call a particular witness while each side was still presenting its main evidence. After that stage, the court may call or recall a witness and subpoena records on its own.

No order summoning Lachica was issued on Day 19.

WHAT COMES NEXT

The court approved a revised prosecution schedule.

Col. Manaros Boransing II and Col. Magtangol Panopio were scheduled for September 1. Maj. Gen. Adonis Bajao was removed from the list after difficulties locating and serving him with a subpoena.

Atty. Michael Wesley Poa and PSA Assistant National Statistician Marizza Grande were requested for September 2. Poa, a former Department of Education undersecretary and spokesperson under Duterte who is now part of her defense team, is expected to be questioned about DepEd's ₱112.5 million confidential funds. Grande is expected to address whether names in the confidential-fund records can be found in civil-registry databases.

The hearing adjourned at about 3:06 p.m. The next session was set for September 1 at 10:00 a.m.

THE NUMBERS IN CONTEXT

The OVP received ₱625 million in confidential funds from late 2022 through all four quarters of 2023. Article I of the impeachment case, however, examines ₱500 million from the OVP covering late 2022 through the first three quarters of 2023, plus ₱112.5 million from DepEd.
For the OVP portion, COA issued disallowances with a combined face value of ₱448.287 million:
₱73.287 million for late 2022, final within COA but still open to a Supreme Court challenge
₱375 million for the first three quarters of 2023, still under appeal within COA
A COA disallowance is an audit ruling, not an impeachment verdict. The Senate must make its own judgment on whether the proven conduct amounts to an impeachable offense, including betrayal of public trust.

WHAT DAY 19 LEFT US WITH

Day 19 made the chain easier to follow but did not complete it.

Acosta, the designated special disbursing officer, said she handed the cash to Lachica. Ortonio helped answer the auditors, but did not open the box of supporting records and could not personally confirm the payments. Both officials pointed to Lachica when asked who knew how the operations worked on the ground.

Ortonio also testified that Duterte knew about and authorized the process, reviewed the OVP's replies to COA and carried the greatest official responsibility as head of the agency.

None of this proves that Duterte or Lachica personally pocketed the money. It does not prove that every named recipient was fictitious, that every operation was invented or that an audit violation automatically becomes betrayal of public trust.

It does leave the impeachment court with a question that Day 19 could not answer: How did ₱500 million in confidential funds pass through the OVP when the officials who handled the cash and answered the auditors could not independently explain what happened after the money reached a military officer who was not the agency's designated disbursing officer?

Sources

MCT IMPEACHMENT TRACKER: DAY 18 | THE REQUEST CAME BEFORE THE PLAN

Gino Borlado — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Senate impeachment court opened with 15 senator-judges present, enough to establish a quorum.

The court continued hearing Article I, which accuses Vice President Sara Duterte of misappropriating and irregularly liquidating ₱612.5 million in confidential funds: ₱500 million from the Office of the Vice President and ₱112.5 million from the Department of Education.

These remain allegations being tried. The Senate has not decided Duterte’s guilt or innocence.

These are live notes from the hearing, prepared while the testimony and documents were being presented. If I missed anything critical or described anything inaccurately, please let me know. I will be happy to review and correct it.

LEMUEL ORTONIO TAKES THE WITNESS STAND

The prosecution called its sixth witness, OVP Assistant Secretary and Assistant Chief of Staff Lemuel Ortonio.

Ortonio has served under Duterte in several government positions since 2008. He worked as chief of staff in the Davao City vice mayor’s and mayor’s offices, later headed the Davao City Investment Promotion Center and Human Resource Management Office, and joined the OVP in July 2022.

He reports directly to Duterte. His appointment is coterminous with hers and is considered a position of trust and confidence.

Ortonio also confirmed that he declined several invitations to appear before the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability in 2024. He considered them mere invitations and did not seek any judicial order against them.

WHY HE WAS DECLARED A HOSTILE WITNESS

The prosecution initially explored Ortonio’s family and social connections while seeking to establish that he had an interest adverse to the prosecution.

Presiding officer Francis Escudero stopped that line of questioning after confirming that Ortonio remained a coterminous OVP official serving at Duterte’s pleasure. If Duterte were removed from office, Ortonio’s appointment would also end.

The court found that employment relationship sufficient and declared Ortonio the prosecution’s second hostile witness, after former OVP special disbursing officer Gina Acosta.

“Hostile witness” is a procedural classification that allows leading questions. It does not mean the court found Ortonio dishonest.

Before questioning him, the prosecution read an 11-point offer describing what it hoped his testimony would prove. The defense objected that the statements were unproved conclusions, speculation and sound bites.

The court allowed the prosecution to attempt to prove its assertions through testimony. It did not adopt the 11 claims as established facts.

WHAT ORTONIO SUPERVISED

Ortonio testified that he exercises overall supervision over the OVP’s internal affairs. This includes the Administrative and Financial Services Office, which handles budgeting, disbursement, accounting and liquidation, and the Strategy Management Office, which handles planning and monitoring of OVP programs.

The directors of both offices report to him. His authority and instructions ultimately come from Duterte.

Ortonio repeatedly clarified that his supervision was general. He did not personally prepare every document or participate in every confidential operation.

THE REQUEST CAME BEFORE THE CONFIDENTIAL-FUND PLAN

When the Duterte administration entered the OVP in July 2022, the office had no confidential-fund allocation. Ortonio said the records available to the OVP also showed no confidential funds under former Vice President Leni Robredo.

On August 22, 2022, Duterte signed a letter asking the Department of Budget and Management for four items. These included additional financial assistance, special-duty allowances, 192 additional coterminous and contractual positions, and ₱250 million in confidential funds.

The first three requests came with computations, projections and supporting documents. The confidential-fund request had no computation, projection, physical and financial plan or supporting attachment.

Ortonio testified that Duterte ultimately determined the amount to be requested.

The letter stated that the OVP was committed to formulating programs, projects and activities related to national security, peace and order. Ortonio agreed that while the OVP already had ordinary programs, the security-related activities mentioned in the confidential-fund request were still to be formulated.

DBM asked for a physical and financial plan on September 15. The plan was prepared and approved on September 16 and transmitted to DBM on September 19.

The plan identified only the broad “Good Governance Program.” It did not itemize the particular confidential activities or the proposed amount for each activity.

The 2023 plan contained substantially the same targets, wording and amounts but used “Socioeconomic Program Delivery” as its umbrella program.

The documents therefore show that the physical and financial plan supporting the confidential-fund request was produced after the ₱250-million amount had already been requested. General OVP programs already existed, but the confidential activities and their individual costs were not identified in the August 22 request.

That sequence raises a legitimate question about how the ₱250-million figure was calculated. It does not, by itself, prove that the fund had no legitimate purpose.

LACHICA’S DESIGNATION CAME AFTER THE REQUEST

The August 22 confidential-fund request also preceded Col. Raymund Dante Lachica’s documented designation as the OVP security officer.

Ortonio said Lachica began serving in that capacity in September. The designation memorandum presented during the hearing was dated September 16.

This does not prove that no one was performing security planning before Lachica’s designation. It establishes only that the request for ₱250 million came before his documented appointment as the official later identified as the implementer of the confidential activities.

THE EXISTING REGULAR BUDGET

The prosecution presented the OVP’s regular budget to question whether some activities cited to justify the confidential funds were already publicly funded.

Ortonio confirmed that the Good Governance Program was an umbrella for OVP initiatives such as medical assistance, Libreng Sakay and satellite offices. The 2022 General Appropriations Act contained a regular allocation of approximately ₱621 million for good-governance engagement and social-service projects.

The August 22 request also sought ₱144.72 million in regular funding for medical and burial assistance, supported by beneficiary projections and computations.

These regular appropriations do not automatically prove that the confidential funds duplicated existing expenses. The prosecution raised the figures to question why separate confidential funding was necessary, but the impeachment court did not make a final finding of duplication.

TWO DIFFERENT-LOOKING SIGNATURES

Escudero observed that Duterte’s signature on the August 22 request appeared different from her signature on the September 16 physical and financial plan.

Ortonio, who said he was familiar with Duterte’s signature, identified both as hers. No party pursued a forgery allegation, and the court made no finding of falsification.

The visual difference should not be reported as proof that either signature was forged.

THE APPROVAL AND CHECK CHAIN

Ortonio identified four disbursement vouchers covering the OVP’s confidential-fund releases in late 2022 and 2023.

The vouchers bore signatures Ortonio identified as Duterte’s, certifying that the expenses and cash advances were necessary, lawful and incurred under her direct supervision.

Ortonio signed the “approved for payment” portion as Duterte’s authorized representative. Escudero established that Duterte’s certification came before Ortonio’s approval and that without the required approval, the money could not have been released.

Ortonio also signed the corresponding LandBank checks under an office order from Duterte authorizing him to sign checks exceeding ₱1 million.

He accompanied Acosta to the LandBank Shaw Boulevard branch during all four encashments.

Ortonio did not testify that he personally encashed, carried or received the money. Acosta was the payee and designated special disbursing officer.

Initially, Ortonio could not confirm whether Duterte knew that he had personally accompanied Acosta to the bank. Near the end of his testimony, however, he said he performed no confidential-fund-related action without Duterte’s knowledge and authorization.

That apparent tension may be explored during cross-examination.

ANSWERING COA WITHOUT FIRSTHAND KNOWLEDGE OF THE SPENDING

Ortonio confirmed receiving audit observation memoranda on Duterte’s behalf and signing acknowledgments of receipt. The memoranda presented included audit documents dated September 14 and October 3, 2023.

The memoranda were addressed to Duterte, with attention to Acosta and other OVP officials. Duterte instructed Ortonio to prepare the OVP’s responses.

Ortonio acknowledged that he had no personal knowledge of how the confidential funds were actually spent. He obtained the information for his replies from Acosta and Lachica.

He saw the liquidation reports, certifications and accomplishment reports but said he did not examine their details. As the OVP’s confidential-fund liaison, he also delivered protective intelligence operations reports to COA in sealed envelopes without reading them.

Ortonio did not ask Acosta or Lachica what specific threats had been discovered or what the sealed reports contained.

The hearing therefore established that Ortonio drafted and signed official explanations based largely on information provided by the officials who reportedly handled or implemented the activities. It did not establish that he independently verified their accounts.

WHAT THE LIQUIDATION REPORT SHOWED

The 2022 liquidation report covered December 21 to 31, 2022. On the face of the document, the full ₱125-million cash advance was liquidated within that 11-day reporting period.

The money had been encashed on December 20. The physical and financial plan covered the fourth quarter, or October through December.

Ortonio also confirmed that any unused year-end cash allocation or remaining cash-advance balance would have had to be returned to the Treasury.

Asked whether he personally knew of an extraordinary threat requiring the rapid utilization of the fund during the final days of December, Ortonio said he knew of none. He also had no information about whether the OVP coordinated with law-enforcement agencies concerning specific threats before requesting the fund.

Security operations were outside his responsibilities. His lack of knowledge does not prove that no threat or coordination existed.

THE OVP DISPUTED THE ELEVEN-DAY INTERPRETATION

In a November 30, 2023 response to COA, the OVP denied that the money was truly spent only within the 11-day period shown in the liquidation report.

The letter said the December 20 cash advance facilitated payment for “obligations already incurred” and that the expenses had been planned, implemented and paid over October to December.

The spending period is therefore disputed. The liquidation report covers 11 days, while the OVP said the underlying activities and arrangements extended over three months.

Ortonio explained that “obligations already incurred” referred to arrangements made before the money became available. He confirmed, however, that no confidential-fund allotment or certification of available funds existed during October, November and early December.

He also agreed that government obligations require an appropriation and allotment, and that a cash advance is supposed to precede spending rather than reimburse earlier expenses.

The release authority was issued on December 13. The check was encashed on December 20. The OVP’s November 2023 response said the office was able to finalize “definitive agreements” after the release authority became available.

Ortonio could not explain whether a nationwide network of agreements had been finalized within those seven days. No written agreement was provided to him or identified during his testimony.

This created a serious tension between the wording of the OVP’s explanation and the rules discussed in court. Whether the arrangements amounted to prohibited obligations or reimbursements remains for the impeachment court to determine.

THE REPEATED AMOUNTS

The first three accomplishment reports used the same six categories in the same order: purchase of information, payment of rewards, safe-house expenses, supplies, medical and food assistance, and incentives or travel.

Each of the four quarterly reports totaled exactly ₱125 million, with no balance returned.

Safe-house rental and maintenance remained exactly ₱16 million in the first three reports even though the reporting periods covered 11 days, 52 days and 67 days. The incentives-or-travel category similarly remained at ₱10 million during those periods.

The reports claimed coverage of 132 areas during the 11-day period in 2022, 127 areas during 52 days in early 2023, 111 areas during 67 days and 122 areas during 79 days.

The shortest reporting period therefore listed the largest number of areas.

Medical and food assistance amounted to ₱40 million, ₱42 million and ₱40 million in the first three reports. The OVP received the first relevant COA audit observation on October 4, 2023.

Five days later, the OVP submitted its third-quarter report without the medical-and-food category, but the total remained ₱125 million.

Ortonio could confirm what the documents contained but could not explain whether the removed amount had been transferred to other categories. He did not prepare the reports.

The 2022 report also recorded 100-percent implementation even though the OVP received only ₱125 million of the ₱250 million it requested. Ortonio clarified that the 100 percent referred to the ₱125 million actually released, not the original request.

The repeated figures and timing support further questioning. They do not, standing alone, prove that the reports were fabricated or altered to answer COA.

THE NO-INCIDENT CERTIFICATIONS

The OVP submitted certifications stating that no untoward incident occurred during the implementation of its projects and Duterte’s official engagements.

The certifications were presented to COA as support for the OVP’s explanation that confidential funds had financed surveillance and security activities.

Ortonio confirmed that the certifications did not identify an amount spent, a confidential-fund recipient or the location where the spending occurred. One certification stated that it had been issued at the OVP’s request “for whatever legal purpose it may serve.”

The first certification covered December 20 to 31, while the liquidation report covered December 21 to 31. Ortonio acknowledged the one-day difference.

These certifications support the claim that no incident was reported. Their lack of transaction details limits their ability to verify where the money went or what particular activity it funded.

MEDICINE, FOOD AND SUPPLIES

COA questioned whether medical and food assistance was an allowable confidential expense. The OVP defended it under the Joint Circular provision covering supplies, materials and equipment for confidential operations.

This was an audit dispute. The impeachment court did not rule during Day 18 that the category was either permissible or prohibited.

According to the information Lachica gave Ortonio, money was handed directly to informants or agents, who then purchased their own medicine, food, tables or chairs. The acknowledgment receipts supposedly documented the release of the money to those informants.

Ortonio said no official receipts were provided to him. He had also not personally seen the acknowledgment receipts and could not say whether Acosta or Lachica possessed receipts that he had not seen.

Escudero contrasted this procedure with the OVP’s regular medical-assistance program. Under the regular program, the OVP purchased medicines from partner pharmacies, obtained receipts and released medicine—not cash—to beneficiaries.

The confidential-fund reports also included approximately ₱3.5 million in tables, chairs, desktop computers, printers and supplies.

Ortonio said no inventory for those particular items was submitted to COA. He saw no invoices, official receipts or donation records and could not personally identify where the items were located.

This established a documentation and verification gap within Ortonio’s knowledge. It did not establish that the items never existed.

WHEN “INCENTIVES” BECAME TRANSPORTATION

The word “incentives” does not appear among the allowable confidential expenses listed in the Joint Circular.

In its responses to auditors, the OVP said it had not actually paid incentives. It described the reported expenses instead as vehicle rentals, van rentals, transportation and tracking services connected with confidential activities.

Ortonio said he had not seen any vehicle-rental contract or similar supporting document.

The hearing therefore did not resolve what services the reported ₱10 million actually purchased or how those services were verified.

THE ₱150,000 MISMATCH

COA found that the OVP accomplishment report recorded ₱125 million in expenses, while the supporting payment documents totaled ₱125.15 million.

The difference was an excess of ₱150,000 in the supporting documents—not ₱150,000 in missing public money.

The OVP’s initial response on March 13, 2024 said receipts might have been inadvertently mixed with other documents.

Nine days later, a supplemental response provided a different explanation. It said Ortonio had supplied ₱150,000 from his personal funds: ₱50,000 for rewards and ₱100,000 for supplies.

Ortonio testified that Acosta approached him concerning an urgent request from Lachica and that he provided the money. He described this as unusual and said he had never been reimbursed.

The prosecution noted that ₱150,000 was close to Ortonio’s gross monthly salary of approximately ₱180,000 to ₱190,000.

No receipt proving the personal payment was identified during the hearing. Ortonio also confirmed that the alleged payment did not appear in any OVP record.

His sworn testimony supports his claim that he supplied the money. The direct examination did not independently verify it.

THE 473-PERSON SECURITY DETAIL

An October 11, 2022 OVP letter listed 473 AFP and PNP personnel on the vice-presidential security roster as of October 10.

The prosecution argued that Duterte already had a large government-funded security force when the OVP sought confidential funds partly for security and surveillance.

The defense objected to questions about the personnel’s salaries. Escudero sustained the objection because confidential funds were not being used to pay their regular salaries.

The exchange established the reported size of Duterte’s security detail. It did not establish that confidential activities were unnecessary or that the same security work was being paid for twice.

Ortonio also confirmed that the OVP already operated seven satellite offices in Bacolod, Cebu, Dagupan, Davao, Surigao, Tacloban and Zamboanga. The August 2022 letter said each office served an average of 100 to 150 clients daily.

He testified that no untoward incident had been reported in the satellite offices before the confidential funds were released or after the OVP stopped receiving them following the third quarter of 2023.

The absence of reported incidents does not prove that confidential funding had no preventive value.

DIFFERENT EXPLANATIONS FOR THE SAME FUND

The documents presented during the hearing described the confidential funds in different ways.

The August 2022 request referred to the safe implementation of the Good Governance Program, official engagements and functional representation. The 2022 plan referred only to the Good Governance Program, while the 2023 plan used Socioeconomic Program Delivery.

The certifications referred to surveillance and information gathering intended to prevent untoward incidents. The protective intelligence reports referred to intelligence gathering, while the later audit responses said surveillance was needed to identify where OVP programs should be implemented.

The last explanation had not appeared in the original request. The August 2022 letter also showed that the OVP had already selected locations for seven satellite offices and had identified other planned program locations before receiving confidential funds.

Ortonio agreed that different justifications had been given for the fund.

Some of these explanations could be complementary rather than mutually exclusive. Whether they reflect legitimate elaboration or changing explanations created to answer audit findings is an issue the Senate must decide from the complete evidence.

WHAT ORTONIO SAID ABOUT DUTERTE’S KNOWLEDGE

Near the end of the direct examination, Escudero reformulated the prosecution’s question in neutral terms.

He asked whether everything connected with the confidential funds—from the request, release, encashment and spending to the liquidation and responses to COA—was known to, authorized by and conducted under Duterte’s supervision.

Ortonio answered that, based on his understanding and knowledge, Duterte knew about the confidential activities and how they were being implemented.

Asked whether he personally performed any confidential-fund-related action without Duterte’s knowledge or authorization, he answered no. Asked whether all his actions were known to and authorized by her, he answered yes.

When the same question was extended to Acosta and Lachica, however, Ortonio said he had no personal knowledge of whether they performed any action outside Duterte’s knowledge or authority.

His testimony strengthened the prosecution’s documented chain of authorization reaching Duterte. It did not establish that she physically received or personally kept any portion of the money.

“SCAM,” “LYING” AND “MASTERMIND” WERE STRICKEN

Prosecutor Mae Divinagracia asked whether the changing explanations could mean that someone was lying or that the confidential-fund operation was a “scam.” She later described Duterte as its “architect” and “mastermind.”

The defense objected. Escudero sustained the objections and ordered the inflammatory descriptions stricken from the record.

Senator-judge Alan Peter Cayetano warned that emotionally charged labels can go viral and take on a life of their own even after being withdrawn. He asked the lawyers and senator-judges to choose their words carefully.

Divinagracia apologized for being carried away by her zeal and passion and said the prosecution would try to observe greater restraint.

The impeachment court did not find that the fund operation was a scam, that anyone was lying or that Duterte was its mastermind.

OTHER COURTROOM NOTES

The defense said it received the prosecution’s proposed stipulations for Ortonio only the previous night. After a short recess, the defense agreed to stipulate to the authenticity of the common documents, while reserving the right to comment when the prosecution formally offered them as evidence.

Near the close of the hearing, the defense asked for clarification of the rule requiring advance disclosure of witnesses. Escudero said that, as a general rule, witnesses for the following week should be announced during the preceding Wednesday’s hearing.

Exceptions could be allowed when unexpected circumstances, such as a witness’s illness, required substitution, provided both sides received adequate preparation time.

Escudero acknowledged receiving the clerk of court’s report comparing acknowledgment receipts previously presented in the trial. He ordered copies furnished to the parties and senator-judges but did not announce its findings in open court. No conclusion from that comparison can yet be reported.

The Senate Medical and Dental Bureau validated former DepEd special disbursing officer Edward Fajarda’s need for bed rest through September 3. His appearance was moved to September 7.

Senator-judge Juan Miguel Zubiri also asked how the impeachment schedule would be reconciled with the coming national-budget deliberations. Escudero said he remained hopeful that the trial could be completed before the end of the year, although a more specific schedule would depend on the Senate’s budget calendar.

Divinagracia held a small wooden cross during her questioning, later describing it as a comfort cross she brings to hearings. When her throat became strained, senator-judges sent medicine and she briefly paused to drink salabat.

Ortonio’s direct examination ended during Day 18. His cross-examination was scheduled for August 26, meaning the defense had not yet tested his testimony when the court adjourned.

WHAT DAY 18 ESTABLISHED

The documents bore signatures Ortonio identified as Duterte’s on the confidential-fund request and key planning, disbursement, liquidation and certification documents.

Ortonio approved the releases and signed the checks under authority delegated by Duterte. He also accompanied Acosta during all four bank encashments.

The hearing established that the ₱250-million request preceded the physical and financial plan submitted to DBM, that later reports repeatedly totaled exactly ₱125 million and that Ortonio prepared official responses to COA without firsthand knowledge of the underlying spending.

On the face of the 2022 liquidation report, the ₱125-million cash advance was liquidated over an 11-day reporting period. The OVP disputed that interpretation and said the activities and obligations extended over October to December.

Ortonio testified that Duterte knew about and authorized his confidential-fund-related actions. He could not provide the same firsthand assurance regarding everything Acosta and Lachica did on the ground.

Day 18 did not prove that Duterte personally pocketed the money. It did not prove that every reported confidential activity was fictitious or that the medicine, supplies and equipment never existed.

Conversely, Ortonio’s lack of firsthand knowledge does not prove that the transactions were proper. It leaves unresolved how the actual payments, purchases, recipients and operations were verified before official documents were signed and submitted.

The defense’s cross-examination remains essential. Until that is completed and the full evidence is weighed, Ortonio’s testimony should be treated as one part of the case—not as the verdict.

SEVEN YEARS AS GOVERNOR. ₱44 BILLION IN PROJECTS. BULACAN’S FLOODING GOT WORSE.

Gino Borlado — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 09:15:00 GMT

On August 20, I watched Ted Failon interview Bulacan Governor Daniel Fernando. Failon asked him a simple question: Had flooding in Bulacan improved, or had it worsened?

Fernando said it had worsened.

His response appeared to me almost half-amused. That is only my impression of his delivery, but the answer itself was unmistakable. After seven years under his leadership, flooding in Bulacan had not improved. According to the governor himself, it had become worse.

That made me curious. How long had Daniel Fernando been governor? What happened during those years? How could flooding worsen despite all the projects and public money supposedly devoted to controlling it?

If you came here expecting me to have already judged Fernando or Bulacan, you would be disappointed. The truth is, I did not know enough about the issue in Bulacan to begin with a conclusion. This article is my attempt to understand why the flooding worsened, what happened to the projects and who should explain the results.

I frequently pass through Bulacan. On almost every trip, I find myself braking hard to avoid a large pothole. I curse, recover and continue driving. Then I wonder why the people of Bulacan allow themselves to experience this kind of governance, commuting and travel.

The pothole may be on a national, provincial, municipal or barangay road. Responsibility depends on which agency controls it. But commuters do not experience government according to jurisdiction charts. They experience the pothole, the traffic, the floodwater and the failure of different offices to work together.

It made me wonder why voters continue to accept the same conditions and what they should reasonably demand from those they elect.

HOW LONG HAS FERNANDO BEEN IN GOVERNMENT?

Daniel Fernando became governor of Bulacan on June 30, 2019. As of August 2026, he has been governor for a little more than seven years.

Before that, he served as vice governor from 2010 to 2019. He has therefore occupied one of Bulacan’s two highest provincial positions continuously for more than 16 years.

A vice governor does not exercise the same authority as a governor. But Fernando entered the governorship with nine years of experience immediately below it. He was already familiar with the provincial government, its municipalities, its roads, its rivers and the communities that repeatedly go underwater.

He was reelected to a third consecutive term as governor in 2025 with more than 1.1 million votes. Few local officials receive a mandate that large.

A mandate that large should produce accountability equally large.

THE FLOODING RECORD

The flooding did not begin with Fernando, and no governor can stop a typhoon. Elected leaders can still be judged by whether years of planning, spending and construction make communities safer when the weather arrives.

The record during Fernando’s governorship shows a recurring provincial emergency.

After Typhoon Ulysses in 2020, the provincial government reported that more than 800,000 people in Bulacan had been affected. More than 18,000 people were evacuated.

In 2021, floods affected 106 barangays and caused an estimated ₱155 million in agricultural and infrastructure damage.

After Super Typhoon Karding in 2022, Fernando publicly estimated that Bulacan had suffered approximately ₱1.2 billion in crop and infrastructure damage. Five rescuers died in San Miguel while attempting to save residents during a flash flood.

In 2023, Bulacan declared a state of calamity after flooding affected more than 228,000 families in 171 barangays.

In 2024, Typhoon Carina and the enhanced southwest monsoon affected all four cities and 20 municipalities. The provincial government reported that more than 1.67 million residents were affected and damage exceeded ₱895 million.

In 2025, the province reported more than ₱626 million in damage from successive storms. Nine local government units were placed under states of calamity.

In August 2026, Bulacan again declared a province-wide state of calamity. Approximately 960,000 people were reported directly affected.

The figures are not perfectly comparable. Different reports count individuals, families, barangays, evacuations or economic damage over different reporting periods.

But they reveal a pattern that cannot be dismissed as one unusually severe storm. Flooding remained widespread, destructive and recurrent throughout Fernando’s seven years as governor.

Then Fernando himself said it had worsened.

WHY BULACAN KEEPS FLOODING

Bulacan faces unusually complex flood risks. The province combines low-lying coastal areas, multiple river systems, upstream inflows, dam releases, high tides, rapid urbanization and significant land subsidence.

Water comes from heavy local rainfall and from upstream watersheds. Rivers and drainage channels must carry it toward Manila Bay, where high tides can slow its release. Water coming through the Pampanga River system can compound the problem.

There is also the fact that portions of Bulacan are sinking.

A University of the Philippines study covering 2014 to 2020 found subsidence rates in parts of Bulacan reaching as much as 109 millimeters, or 10.9 centimeters, per year.

A separate study of Hagonoy and Calumpit, covering a different period and geographic area, measured subsidence of as much as 124.51 millimeters, or about 12.45 centimeters, per year near areas of intensive groundwater extraction.

The two studies should not be combined into one continuous measurement. But both point to the same serious danger. Groundwater extraction, urbanization and the natural compaction of sediment are causing parts of the province to lose elevation while rising seas and high tides make drainage increasingly difficult.

This is why isolated dikes, short river walls, occasional dredging and pumps installed without a larger system will not be enough. Bulacan needs coordinated management of its watersheds, rivers, drainage systems, pumping stations, floodgates, coastal defenses, groundwater use and land development.

The problem is technically difficult. That should have created more urgency, better planning and tighter coordination.

That complexity required a unified provincial strategy.

₱44 BILLION AND 668 PROJECTS

From July 2022 to May 2025, COA-cited government records and subsequent reporting identified approximately 668 DPWH flood-control projects in Bulacan. Their reported combined value was roughly ₱44 billion.

Bulacan reportedly had the largest number of projects among the provinces examined. The amount represented approximately 45 percent of the nearly ₱98 billion in flood-control projects identified across Central Luzon during that period.

These were principally national DPWH projects rather than ₱44 billion personally controlled by Fernando. The provincial government still belongs in the discussion because the projects were built in Bulacan, supposedly for the benefit of Bulakenyos, during Fernando’s administration.

Without measurable results, the ₱44 billion records spending alone. It does not establish that the projects successfully controlled flooding.

THE FLOOD-CONTROL SCANDAL

The situation became worse when auditors and investigators began finding serious irregularities in some Bulacan projects.

The Commission on Audit ordered a fraud audit. Inspections reportedly found projects that were missing, incomplete, inconsistent with official descriptions or built below the expected standard.

Those findings do not automatically apply to all 668 projects. But neither can they be treated as minor paperwork errors.

In Barangay Bulusan, Calumpit, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. inspected a river-protection project worth approximately ₱96.4 million. Records reportedly indicated that it had been completed in February 2023. On the ground, portions appeared missing, damaged or unfinished.

The President demanded an explanation from the contractor.

A completed project should exist. It should match its plans, survive reasonable inspection and provide the protection taxpayers paid for.

When a flood-control project is listed as completed but is missing, defective or unfinished, the problem goes beyond poor performance. Public money may have failed to become public protection.

That is the real scandal.

BULACAN HAD A SENATOR ASKING THE SAME QUESTION

Bulacan also has a sitting senator from Bocaue: Joel Villanueva.

Villanueva had publicly questioned flood-control spending before the present scandal fully emerged. In 2023, he asked whether Bulakenyos were receiving any benefit from the national flood-control program while communities in his home province were again experiencing deep floods.

A local report identified approximately ₱1.7 billion in flood-control funding for Bulacan that year.

After the Carina floods in July 2024, Villanueva again questioned the results. He said roads that had been impassable during floods 10 or 15 years earlier remained impassable. He criticized piecemeal interventions and called for an integrated master plan.

In an official Senate press release containing the transcript of a July 31, 2024 media interview, Villanueva said: “Sa amin sa Bulacan, 30 billion eh. 30 billion yung gagastusin this year.”

That establishes that Villanueva publicly cited a ₱30-billion figure for Bulacan. It does not establish how the figure was calculated, how much was released or paid, or whether every peso was exclusively for flood control.

The amount also should not be added to the later ₱44-billion total. The figures cover overlapping periods and may use different stages of government spending.

But Villanueva’s question was valid: If that much money was being directed toward Bulacan, why were Bulakenyos not experiencing relief?

Then Villanueva himself was linked to the flood-control controversy.

THE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST VILLANUEVA

In 2025, former DPWH personnel alleged that approximately ₱600 million in 2023 Bulacan flood-control projects was associated with Villanueva. One former official also alleged that ₱150 million was delivered as a kickback through an aide.

Senator Panfilo Lacson confirmed that the budget contained eight Bulacan projects valued at ₱75 million each, for a total of ₱600 million.

That confirms the existence of the budget items. It does not prove Villanueva requested them or received money.

Villanueva denied requesting flood-control projects and said the original request involved multipurpose buildings. He also denied receiving kickbacks and described the accusations as a demolition job.

The Independent Commission for Infrastructure later recommended that the Ombudsman consider charges against Villanueva and several other individuals in connection with alleged irregularities in flood-control projects.

In March 2026, the Department of Justice endorsed its findings on malversation complaints involving alleged ghost flood-control projects to the Ombudsman.

In June 2026, the Ombudsman said it found the DOJ case buildup lacking and would conduct its own preliminary investigation before deciding whether to file a possible case in the Sandiganbayan. The DOJ subsequently said it would continue working to strengthen the evidence.

As of the latest public information reviewed for this article, the allegations had not produced a final judicial finding against Villanueva.

But the contradiction remains politically significant. A senator who publicly questioned why Bulacan’s flood-control spending was not producing results was later linked, through allegations he denies, to some of the budget items being investigated.

That deserves a complete investigation and a complete public explanation.

WHAT DID FERNANDO DO?

Fernando’s administration did not ignore flooding completely. It conducted rescue and relief operations, declared states of calamity, coordinated evacuations, distributed assistance and repeatedly requested help from the national government.

In 2022, Fernando acknowledged that dredging was only a temporary response. He said longer-term protection required dikes, pumps, floodgates and walls.

In 2023, he asked the national government for urgent support and called for a proper flood-control master plan.

In 2024, the province launched an inter-agency river-dredging and restoration effort with private-sector participation. The administration later said poor weather delayed portions of the work.

Fernando also complained that national flood-control projects were being planned and implemented without adequate coordination with the provincial government.

That complaint may be true. It also shows that the coordination system was failing.

Once the governor knew national agencies were building projects without sufficient coordination, he had a responsibility to demand complete records and establish strong provincial tracking. His complaint does not explain why Bulacan’s own coordinating machinery remained weak for so long.

THE MASTER PLAN THAT NEVER ARRIVED

In October 2025, the provincial government said DPWH still had not submitted the flood-control master plan requested under a 2023 provincial executive order.

In December 2025, more than six years after Fernando became governor, the province created a Provincial Infrastructure Coordinating Council intended to coordinate national and local infrastructure projects.

By August 2026, DPWH was discussing a ₱200-million comprehensive feasibility study that could be funded in 2027, with implementation potentially beginning in 2028.

Throughout those years, severe flooding continued while hundreds of projects worth tens of billions of pesos appeared across Bulacan.

Yet after all of that, the province was still waiting for another comprehensive study and the possibility of unified implementation beginning in 2028.

Earlier regional, basin-level and Manila Bay studies existed. Years of studies, budgets and construction still failed to produce one transparent program that Bulakenyos could examine and measure.

Hundreds of projects should not have come before the plan connecting them.

THE GOVERNOR’S RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW

A governor does not need to control every DPWH project to keep track of what is being built inside his province. He does not need to control Congress to demand a list of appropriations. He does not need to supervise national contractors to inspect whether their projects exist.

Fernando has political influence and access to mayors, provincial engineers, district offices and national officials.

If DPWH kept him uninformed, why did he not use that mandate to force the issue much earlier?

In my view, seven years without a publicly demonstrated, province-wide tracking and performance system is inadequate provincial oversight.

My judgment concerns Fernando’s performance as governor. I am not accusing him of stealing flood-control funds.

He was responsible for leading the province while hundreds of projects were being funded and constructed. He now has a political obligation to explain what those projects accomplished, why flooding worsened and why the province had no complete public record showing the results.

WHAT SHOULD BULAKENYOS DEMAND?

Bulakenyos should demand a public inventory of every major flood-control project in the province.

Each entry should identify the project’s exact location, cost, funding source, contractor, implementing office, construction status, inspection results and intended function within the larger flood-control system.

The province should publish measurable results: flood depth, drainage time, roads closed, families evacuated and communities repeatedly inundated.

It should identify which projects worked, which failed and which merely transferred water from one area to another.

It should explain whether groundwater extraction and land subsidence are being incorporated into engineering designs and land-use decisions.

It should also name the agencies and contractors that refuse to provide records or coordinate with the provincial government.

People should not have to wait for a presidential inspection, congressional hearing or television interview to learn that a supposedly completed project is missing or defective.

WHY DO VOTERS KEEP ACCEPTING THIS?

Fernando received more than 1.1 million votes in 2025 despite the recurring floods.

Some voters may value his visibility during disasters, assistance programs, accessibility or work in other areas. Others may believe that DPWH, Congress and Malacañang deserve more blame because they control most national infrastructure funding.

Some may see flooding as unavoidable. Others may not believe an alternative candidate would perform better. Political machinery, alliances and name recognition also influence local elections.

But elections should not become rewards for appearing at evacuation centers after another disaster. Voters should judge whether years of planning and spending reduced the disaster in the first place.

Bulakenyos should not accept potholes, flooded roads, destroyed livelihoods and repeated evacuations as the permanent cost of living in their province.

They should demand answers from Fernando, Villanueva, district representatives, mayors, DPWH officials, contractors and everyone else who participated in proposing, funding, approving, constructing and inspecting these projects.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Daniel Fernando did not cause Bulacan’s geography, typhoons, high tides or land subsidence. He also did not personally control every peso attached to national DPWH projects.

After seven years as governor, he remains accountable for how the province monitored those projects, coordinated with national agencies and measured whether Bulakenyos became safer.

Bulacan endured recurring calamities while hundreds of flood-control projects worth tens of billions of pesos were associated with the province. Audits and inspections found serious irregularities in some projects. Fernando himself acknowledged that flooding had worsened.

That is a governance failure.

The people of Bulacan deserve more than relief goods after another flood. They deserve leaders who know what is being built, who is building it, how much it costs, whether it works and who should answer when it does not.

Seven years is enough time to expect those answers.

More than ₱44 billion is enough money to demand them.

Sources

MCT IMPEACHMENT TRACKER: DAY 17 | WHERE THE ₱500-MILLION MONEY TRAIL STOPPED

Gino Borlado — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Senate impeachment court convened at 10:04 a.m. Senator-judge Joel Villanueva led the opening prayer. At 10:08 a.m., the court declared a quorum with 17 senator-judges present.

The court continued hearing Article I, which accuses Vice President Sara Duterte of systematic misappropriation and irregular liquidation of ₱612.5 million in confidential funds: ₱500 million from the Office of the Vice President and ₱112.5 million from the Department of Education during her tenure as education secretary.

These remain allegations being tried. The Senate has not yet decided Duterte’s guilt or innocence.

GINA ACOSTA RETURNS TO THE WITNESS STAND

Former OVP special disbursing officer Gina Acosta returned for her second day of testimony. She had been declared a hostile witness for the prosecution.

“Hostile witness” is a courtroom classification that allowed prosecutors to ask her leading questions. It did not mean the court had already found her dishonest.

Acosta completed direct examination, cross-examination, redirect and recross before answering questions from the senator-judges. She was excused after completing her testimony.

HOW THE ₱500 MILLION MOVED

Acosta testified that the OVP received four confidential-fund allocations of ₱125 million each: one in December 2022 and three more in 2023.

According to Acosta, Duterte instructed her to release the first ₱125 million to Col. Raymund Dante Lachica because he was the designated security officer who supposedly knew how to implement the OVP’s confidential activities.

When asked whether she also released the ₱375 million in 2023 to Lachica for the same reasons, Acosta answered yes.

Acosta therefore testified that the entire ₱500 million was ultimately released to Lachica.

For the December 2022 withdrawal, Acosta said the cash consisted of 125 sealed bundles worth ₱1 million each. The money was transferred from bank boxes into four traveling bags and transported to the OVP office.

Acosta said she suggested using four bags based only on her estimate. Duterte reportedly agreed to the arrangement.

Acosta also said she and Lachica were the only people inside the room when the cash was handed over, although Lachica had companions waiting outside.

THE ₱80-MILLION AND ₱45-MILLION RELEASES

One important detail emerged during Senator Lito Lapid’s questioning.

At least one of the 2023 ₱125-million allocations was not released to Lachica all at once. Acosta said she initially released ₱80 million and kept the remaining ₱45 million in the OVP vault.

The balance was later released after Lachica submitted a fund utilization report and an object of expenditure.

This does not change Acosta’s testimony that Lachica ultimately received the full ₱500 million. It shows that one allocation was released in two stages.

WHO WAS ACCOUNTABLE?

Acosta was the OVP’s designated and bonded special disbursing officer. Lachica was not bonded.

Acosta acknowledged that Lachica was not the accountable disbursing officer. She nevertheless maintained that she remained accountable for the money and considered her release of the cash to Lachica to be the act of “disbursement.”

Lachica, she said, merely implemented the confidential activities on the ground.

The prosecution and previous COA witnesses have argued that the arrangement violated the rules governing confidential funds because the designated SDO is supposed to make the disbursements and maintain the transaction records.

The defense’s position is that Acosta remained accountable, that the physical turnover was already her disbursement and that the Joint Circular did not expressly prohibit her from relying on documents submitted by the designated security officer.

The impeachment court has not yet issued a final ruling on that legal dispute.

THE RECEIPTS WERE RETURNED

Acosta said Lachica signed acknowledgment receipts whenever he received the money. However, after Acosta completed the liquidation process, Lachica took those receipts back.

This reportedly happened for the December 2022 allocation and all three 2023 allocations. Acosta therefore no longer possessed the receipts directly documenting Lachica’s receipt of the ₱500 million.

Separate acknowledgment receipts bearing the names of alleged recipients were retained and submitted to the Commission on Audit.

Acosta repeatedly acknowledged that she did not personally witness Lachica give money to those recipients. She was not present during the reported transactions and relied on the utilization reports, acknowledgment receipts and other papers Lachica provided.

That does not prove that no payments occurred. It establishes that Acosta could not verify them through her own observation.

₱16 MILLION FOR SAFE HOUSES

The prosecution presented an accomplishment report covering December 21 to 31, 2022.

The report listed ₱16 million for the rental of safe houses and related incidental expenses.

When asked whether she personally verified those expenses, Acosta again pointed to Lachica and the documents he submitted.

₱75 MILLION WITHOUT OFFICIAL RECEIPTS

Acosta confirmed that ₱75 million reportedly spent on supplies and medical and food assistance was supported by acknowledgment receipts rather than official receipts or sales invoices.

Some supporting documents were reportedly missing names, signatures or dates.

The absence of official receipts establishes a documentation problem. By itself, it does not prove that the money was stolen or that nothing was purchased.

THE NAMES ON THE ACKNOWLEDGMENT RECEIPTS

The prosecution presented acknowledgment receipts carrying several unusual names and corresponding payments:

- Antonio Pagong: ₱100,000 for the purchase of information

- Timon Andrew Pusa: ₱100,000 for vehicle rental connected with confidential activities

- Don Piang: ₱250,000 for vehicle rental

- May Pamana: ₱150,000 for the purchase of information

- Shane Ngitngit: ₱150,000 for the purchase or rental of supplies, materials and equipment

- Xuniso P. Belat: ₱100,000 for the purchase of information

Acosta said the people were real but the names were aliases. She could not provide their true identities because she said only Lachica knew who they were.

Senator Bam Aquino later asked whether the OVP had conducted an internal investigation after these names became publicly controversial.

Acosta said no such investigation or verification had been conducted. She also acknowledged that the OVP did not maintain a master list connecting the aliases to verified identities.

The hearing therefore did not establish that the recipients were imaginary. It established that Acosta could not identify or independently verify them.

CERTIFICATIONS BASED ON LACHICA’S PAPERS

Acosta confirmed that she signed liquidation documents and that Duterte signed reports covering the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first three quarters of 2023.

Acosta said her certification concerned the dates, amounts and entries appearing in the papers. She testified that the information supporting both her certification and Duterte’s certification came from documents submitted by Lachica.

This placed the same unanswered question before the court: how could the people signing the liquidation reports verify that the activities and payments described in the documents had actually occurred?

Acosta’s answer remained that she trusted Lachica because Duterte had designated him as the OVP security officer.

THE DAVAO PROCEDURE

The prosecution questioned Acosta about her earlier work as special disbursing officer for Davao City while Duterte was mayor.

Acosta agreed that the same basic procedure had been followed: confidential funds were released in cash to a security officer, the security officer submitted utilization documents and the receipt acknowledging his receipt of the money was later returned to him.

The defense objected because the Davao City funds were not included in the impeachment charge.

The court allowed the questioning only to examine an alleged pattern or practice. It did not turn Davao City’s confidential funds into a separate impeachment charge.

THE TREE-PLANTING ARGUMENT

The prosecution presented a post showing Duterte participating in an OVP tree-planting activity in Nunungan, Lanao del Norte, on August 13, 2026.

Acosta confirmed that the OVP had no confidential-fund allocation in 2026. Prosecutor Amando Ligutan argued that this showed the OVP could conduct a tree-planting activity safely without confidential funds.

The defense objected that the 2026 activity was outside the impeachment charges. Acosta said she could not draw the prosecution’s conclusion.

The exchange established that the OVP held a 2026 tree-planting activity despite having no confidential-fund allocation. Whether that proves earlier confidential spending for similar activities was unnecessary or improper remains an argument from the prosecution, not a finding of the court.

THE WORD “SCAM” IS STRICKEN

Near the end of direct examination, Ligutan asked whether the confidential-fund arrangement could be considered a “scam” or blatant deception involving public money.

The defense objected that the question was argumentative and impertinent.

Presiding officer Francis Escudero agreed and ordered the word “scam” stricken from the record because it had come from the prosecutor, not from Acosta.

The court did not call the arrangement a scam.

THE DEFENSE’S CROSS-EXAMINATION

During cross-examination, defense lawyer Lindon Bacquel emphasized that Acosta recalled receiving no audit observation memorandum or notice of suspension concerning Davao City confidential funds while she served there.

The defense also highlighted the March 31, 2026 notice of disallowance covering the OVP’s ₱375 million in confidential funds for the first three quarters of 2023.

Bacquel pointed out that it was issued more than two years after the liquidation and during the period of House impeachment proceedings.

Acosta could not recall whether the COA notice and House hearings actually overlapped.

The absence of similar COA notices during Acosta’s Davao tenure does not prove that every transaction there was proper. The timing of the 2023 notice also does not, by itself, prove political motivation.

A separate COA disallowance covering ₱73.287 million from the December 2022 confidential funds had been affirmed by the COA Commission Proper on April 10, 2026. The OVP filed a motion for reconsideration that remained pending.

A notice of disallowance is an audit action. It is not a criminal conviction or an impeachment verdict.

The defense ended its cross-examination at 1:05 p.m.

REDIRECT AND THE MEETING WITH A DEFENSE LAWYER

During redirect, the prosecution accused Acosta of having “selective memory.”

Prosecutors noted that she had difficulty recalling details when they asked about Davao City confidential funds but could answer the defense’s questions about the absence of COA notices.

Acosta explained that what she could not remember were the specific amounts, not everything that happened during her Davao service.

The prosecution also questioned Acosta about meeting defense lawyer Lindon Bacquel before her testimony.

Acosta admitted speaking with Bacquel while she was in Davao visiting her seriously ill husband. She said she asked only about how the Senate proceedings would work and that Bacquel did not disclose the questions he would ask.

The prosecution later raised the possibility that Acosta had been coached because of her repetitive answers.

No evidence presented during Day 17 established that coaching had occurred.

THE SENATOR-JUDGES QUESTION ACOSTA

After the lawyers completed their examination, the senator-judges questioned Acosta about the accountability and verification gaps in her testimony.

Kiko Pangilinan and Win Gatchalian pressed Acosta on how she could remain accountable after turning the cash over to an unbonded officer.

When Gatchalian asked what safeguard prevented the money from being pocketed, Acosta pointed to the liquidation documents submitted to COA. She admitted that she had not raised the accountability problem directly with Duterte.

Erwin Tulfo questioned documents covering ₱122 million in reported medicine purchases and ₱112 million in supplies. He asked how medicines could be classified as rewards connected with informants.

Acosta said she could not personally confirm that ₱122 million had actually been spent on medicines because she relied on Lachica’s documents.

Raffy Tulfo questioned why names such as Pagong, Pusa and Belat did not prompt stronger verification.

After Acosta described herself as having average intelligence, Tulfo called her “stupid in the name of blind loyalty.”

That was Tulfo’s personal assessment, not a ruling of the court.

Risa Hontiveros presented an acknowledgment receipt bearing the name “Clarisse Hontiveros,” dated February 24, 2023. That was Hontiveros’ birthday.

Acosta said she had not noticed the coincidence and did not know the person’s true identity.

Imee Marcos asked whether Acosta had ever seen Duterte touch, claim or receive any part of the confidential funds. Acosta answered no.

That answer established only what Acosta personally saw. It did not establish that Duterte received money. Acosta’s limited personal observation was also insufficient to rule out other possible routes of benefit that she did not witness.

Marcos then asked about Acosta’s seriously ill husband. Acosta became emotional, and the court allowed her time to compose herself.

Lito Lapid asked about the remaining ₱45 million from one ₱125-million allocation and about acknowledgment receipts bearing the names Diane Maple Lapid and John A. Lapid.

Acosta said the ₱45 million had remained in the vault before being released to Lachica, and that only Lachica could explain the identities behind the Lapid names.

Bam Aquino asked why the OVP had not conducted an internal investigation into the aliases or established a master list connecting them to verified identities.

Panfilo Lacson stressed that purchases of supplies, even for confidential activities, ordinarily require official receipts or sales invoices signed by real people rather than aliases.

This was Lacson’s reading of the documentation rules, not yet a ruling by the impeachment court.

Tito Sotto questioned how reported activities could have been conducted in 132 locations over 11 days when Acosta said her disbursing authority could not be delegated.

Acosta again answered that Lachica implemented the activities.

Sotto referred to the OVP’s lack of regional offices. The OVP did operate satellite offices, so this should not be interpreted as proof that it had no field presence anywhere in the country.

Escudero later observed that even Lachica was not “Superman” and could not personally distribute money to several people in different locations on the same day.

He suggested that other people must have handled some of the distributions.

That was an inference. Acosta did not identify any additional distributors, and no such person was established through her testimony.

FAJARDA’S REPORTED STROKE

Near the close of the hearing, Escudero announced that former DepEd special disbursing officer Edward Fajarda had asked to be excused from the August 24 to 26 trial dates after reportedly suffering a stroke.

According to the letter and medical certificate submitted to the court, Fajarda had been placed in intensive care for observation and later transferred to a regular hospital room.

The court did not immediately accept the medical claim. Escudero ordered the Senate Medical and Dental Bureau to examine Fajarda, coordinate with his physicians and report whether he was medically unable to testify.

The prosecution tentatively reserved September 7 for his testimony.

THREE MILITARY WITNESSES SUBPOENAED

Because Fajarda was unavailable, the prosecution requested subpoenas for retired Col. Manaros Boransing II, Col. Magtangol Panopio and Maj. Gen. Adonis Bajao concerning DepEd’s 2023 confidential funds.

The defense objected that it would have only one day to prepare.

Escudero allowed the subpoenas but said the defense’s cross-examination would most likely occur the following week, giving it additional preparation time.

The issuance of subpoenas did not establish what the military officers would say in the Senate or whether their earlier statements would survive cross-examination.

The court subsequently adjourned. Public reports confirm the adjournment but do not provide a sufficiently reliable exact time.

The 3:30 p.m. appearing on one live-update page was the page’s final update time, not a verified adjournment time.

WHAT DAY 17 ESTABLISHED

Acosta’s testimony established her account of how the ₱500 million left her custody.

She said Duterte instructed her to release the money to Lachica, who was unbonded but designated to implement the confidential activities.

Acosta remained the bonded and accountable SDO. She signed liquidation documents based on papers supplied by Lachica even though she did not personally witness the final payments, confirm the reported purchases or verify the identities behind the aliases.

Day 17 did not prove that Duterte personally pocketed the money. It did not prove that all the recipients were imaginary, and it did not prove that every reported activity was fabricated.

Acosta’s lack of personal knowledge also does not prove Duterte’s innocence.

What remains is an incomplete money trail. Once the cash reached Lachica, Acosta could no longer independently explain who physically distributed it, who ultimately received it or how the purchases and operations described in the liquidation documents were verified.

An impeachment trial is not a criminal trial. Senators are nevertheless being asked to decide whether the fund system described under oath constitutes an impeachable abuse of public trust.

They cannot make that assessment responsibly without examining where the money actually went.

This is why Lachica’s testimony, along with the records he can produce or cannot produce, will be central.

WHY DID FACEBOOK NEED TEN MORE MINUTES?

Gino Borlado — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Facebook livestream from the Zamboanga school shooting was reportedly taken down about 14 minutes after it began. At first, I thought the main question was why Facebook needed almost 15 minutes to recognize what was happening.

The August 20 Senate hearing gave us a better question.

Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) Executive Director Renato Paraiso told senators that CICC gained visibility on the livestream and reported it to Meta at around the five-minute mark. The video then remained on Facebook for roughly nine to ten more minutes.

That changes how I look at the delay.

The first five minutes appear to involve detection. The next nine or ten minutes happened after a Philippine government cybercrime agency says it had already alerted Meta.

So I wanted to know what Facebook has to do after receiving a report like that, and why an urgent report about an ongoing violent livestream does not mean an immediate takedown.

I am deliberately staying away from the details of the shooting itself. There is no need to replay, reconstruct, or describe the violence to examine Facebook's response.

THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES

Facebook Live was built around immediacy.

Meta's own engineering team wrote in 2015 about bringing livestream transmission latency down to roughly two to three seconds. The technology has changed since then, but the basic product design is obvious every time someone presses the Live button: viewers are supposed to see the broadcast almost as it happens.

Moderation has to operate while that broadcast is already moving.

Meta has publicly described a content-review process that combines automated detection with human review. Its systems can identify some likely violations automatically, rank potentially harmful content for faster review, and remove material automatically when confidence is high enough.

Lower-confidence cases can require human judgment, and real-world violence creates a difficult classification problem.

A machine can identify objects, sound, movement, text, and other signals. It still has to determine whether those signals add up to an actual emergency.

A firearm on camera can appear in news footage, police video, training, films, games, sporting activity, historical material, or criminal violence. A moderation system that treats every visual match as an emergency would generate false alarms on an enormous scale.

Meta explained a version of this problem after the 2019 Christchurch terrorist attack.

Facebook said the original livestream did not trigger its automatic detection systems. No user reported it while the broadcast was live, and the first report arrived 29 minutes after the stream began.

Meta said rare first-person violent events are difficult for machine-learning systems because there are far fewer examples available for training. It also warned that visually similar material, including livestreamed video games, could trigger false positives and swamp reviewers.

The comparison helps explain why Facebook may not identify a new violent livestream immediately.

It does not explain the whole Zamboanga timeline.

CICC DID IDENTIFY IT

Paraiso told the Senate that CICC became aware of the livestream at around five minutes and reported it to Meta. He also said CICC did not learn about it through a caller to its hotline.

According to Paraiso, the stream appeared in the agency's threat-monitoring operation because it had already spread enough to draw its attention.

Paraiso also told senators that Meta's automated systems probably would not have identified the stream reliably. He said artificial intelligence cannot reliably interpret a video in real time according to its full context.

That statement needs to be attributed correctly. It was Paraiso's assessment at the hearing, not a public admission from Meta about this particular incident.

Still, his explanation closely resembles the problem Meta itself described after Christchurch.

There is now a harder question.

Once CICC sent the report, Meta was no longer dealing only with an algorithm trying to classify unfamiliar footage. According to Paraiso, a Philippine government cybercrime agency had already told the company that the content needed to be taken down.

The stream remained online for roughly nine to ten more minutes.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE REPORT?

This is the part Meta needs to explain.

A report reaching Facebook does not necessarily mean a person with authority to stop a livestream sees it at that same second. Reports can be classified, prioritized, routed, checked against policy, and, where required, sent for human review.

Meta has said that reports concerning an active Facebook Live can receive accelerated review. Its 2019 Christchurch report said reports received while a video is still broadcasting are prioritized because real-world harm may still be occurring.

We do not know what exact internal route the CICC report took on August 18.

We do not know when Meta acknowledged receiving it, whether an automated process handled it first, when a human reviewer opened it, or whether that reviewer could terminate the livestream without another approval.

Those are no longer questions about the first five minutes. They concern the period after Meta had reportedly been alerted.

THE GOVERNMENT COULD REPORT IT, BUT COULD NOT ORDER FACEBOOK TO REMOVE IT

Paraiso raised another problem at the hearing.

CICC cannot simply reach into Facebook and switch off a livestream. He told senators that Philippine agencies cannot immediately compel foreign platforms such as Meta to remove content because the government lacks jurisdiction over the platforms in that way.

CICC therefore relied on Meta's own rules and community standards when requesting the takedown.

That limits what the Philippine government can do during an online emergency. Giving government agencies unrestricted power to erase social-media content instantly would also create serious free-expression and abuse concerns.

An emergency reporting process for an active threat to life presents a much narrower problem.

How quickly can a credible emergency report reach somebody at Meta who has the authority to act?

The Philippine government had already raised a related problem with Meta months before Zamboanga.

THE GOVERNMENT ASKED META FOR FASTER EMERGENCY CHANNELS MONTHS AGO

On April 10, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and Presidential Communications Office (PCO) sent Meta a formal letter demanding stronger action on high-risk online content.

The dispute concerned false information, including fabricated claims about the President's health and death, oil prices, economic disruption, government actions, and other content the government said could cause panic or threaten public order.

The letter went further than asking Meta to remove individual posts.

DICT and PCO asked for an expedited government flagging and takedown protocol, a senior-level contact available 24 hours a day, defined escalation paths, enforceable response times for high-risk content, and regular reporting on enforcement.

Meta was told to acknowledge the letter within 48 hours and submit a detailed implementation plan within seven calendar days.

Three days later, government officials said Meta had expressed support for efforts against harmful online content.

But the exchange did not end there.

On April 20, DICT publicly said Meta's response was insufficient. The department said Meta had offered general descriptions of existing policies but had not provided the specific, time-bound actions the government had requested.

That April disagreement looks very different after Zamboanga.

Four months later, CICC says it sent Meta an urgent report about a livestream involving an immediate threat to life, and the stream remained online for almost ten more minutes.

What emergency arrangement existed by August 18?

Did CICC have a dedicated 24/7 contact? Had Meta committed to a response time for reports involving active violence?

Was the Zamboanga report sent through such a channel, and if so, did it work as designed?

The absence of such an arrangement would raise another question. What happened after the Philippine government demanded one in April?

Those questions belong to Meta and to the Philippine agencies that were supposed to follow through.

TAKING DOWN THE ORIGINAL DID NOT END THE PROBLEM

The hearing also showed why every minute before removal can create problems beyond the original livestream.

Paraiso said another person recorded the footage on a separate device and later uploaded a copy. Removing the original stream therefore did not remove every version already in circulation.

During the August 20 hearing itself, Hontiveros said her staff could still find shooting footage on Meta. Paraiso asked the committee to send the links to CICC so the agency could relay them to Meta for removal.

That happened two days after the original incident.

The problem Meta described after Christchurch was appearing again on a smaller scale. Once footage is recorded, screen-captured, altered, or uploaded from another account, removing the source addresses only part of the problem.

Meta's own Christchurch figures show how different the task becomes once the company knows what it is searching for.

After identifying that video, Facebook said it blocked more than 1.2 million attempted uploads during the first 24 hours and removed about 300,000 additional copies after posting. It also used video, image, and audio matching to locate altered versions.

Identifying the first livestream requires the system to decide what an unfamiliar video actually shows. Later copies can be compared with material that Meta has already identified, although altered recordings can still escape matching systems.

That makes the footage found during the Senate hearing especially relevant.

Meta had already taken down the original, yet copies remained available and still required somebody to find them, report them, and ask for removal.

FACEBOOK LIVE MAY NEED AN EMERGENCY BRAKE

After Christchurch, Meta considered the idea of placing a delay on every Facebook Live broadcast.

The company rejected a universal delay. It said millions of Live broadcasts occur each day and argued that delaying all of them could also slow user reports, review, and contact with first responders.

I understand that argument.

Most Facebook Live broadcasts are harmless. Holding every live church service, birthday, press conference, concert, game, or family video because a tiny fraction may become dangerous would be an enormous intervention.

The Zamboanga case raises a narrower technical question.

What happens when a credible authority has already identified an active livestream as an immediate danger?

At that point, Facebook could have options short of allowing normal distribution while an ordinary review runs its course. It could temporarily limit distribution, stop recommendations, freeze wider sharing, place the stream into a restricted state, or route it directly to a reviewer with emergency authority.

I have found no public evidence that Meta currently uses that exact system for violent livestreams. I am describing a possible safety design, not Meta's current procedure.

The idea is an emergency brake triggered only by strong risk signals or a highly credible report.

Zamboanga gives us a reason to ask whether Facebook Live needs one.

WE NOW KNOW WHERE MOST OF THE 14 MINUTES WENT

The August 20 hearing answered part of the question that initially bothered me.

CICC says it detected and reported the livestream at around five minutes. The video remained on Facebook for roughly nine to ten more minutes.

We still need Meta's side before deciding whether those minutes reflect technical necessity, policy safeguards, human-review delay, routing problems, or a failure in the emergency process.

But the unknown period is now much smaller and much more specific.

Meta should be asked for the incident log.

When did its system receive CICC's report? When was the report classified as urgent?

When did a reviewer first see it? When was the decision to stop the stream made, and when did the stream actually become unavailable?

Those timestamps could tell us where the delay occurred without replaying a second of the shooting. They could also tell us whether the emergency relationship the Philippine government demanded from Meta in April exists in practice.

I started with a question about why Facebook needed almost 15 minutes.

After the Senate hearing, the question is narrower.

CICC says Facebook was warned at around minute five.

Why did it need almost ten more?

Sources

FORTY-THREE YEARS AFTER NINOY: WHAT DO WE ACTUALLY KNOW?

Gino Borlado — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Every August 21, one sentence returns with the commemorations: forty-three years later, we still do not know who killed Ninoy Aquino.

I used to accept some version of that too. But when I went back through the court decisions, the investigations, contemporary accounts and Ninoy's own words, I found that the sentence is not quite right. The assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr. is not an entirely unsolved murder. Parts of it were solved in court. Other parts were contested, deliberately obscured or never proved.

The unresolved question is narrower, and perhaps more disturbing: who ultimately ordered it?

I am not trying to solve that question here. I have no new witness, secret document or evidence that somehow escaped everyone for forty-three years. What I wanted to do was something simpler: go back to the record and separate what we actually know from what we have repeated for so long that we now assume it must be true.

And to understand what happened on August 21, it helps to begin with the man who decided to come home.

THE MAN BEFORE AUGUST 21

For many Filipinos, Ninoy Aquino is inseparable from the final images of his life: the white clothes, the airport tarmac, the funeral, the yellow ribbons and eventually the events that led to EDSA.

That is understandable. His assassination became one of the defining moments of modern Philippine history, and the courage it took to return home despite repeated warnings of what could happen to him became central to how generations came to remember him.

But before August 21, 1983, Benigno Aquino Jr. had already lived an extraordinary political life.

He entered public life remarkably young, first gaining national attention as a journalist before moving into politics. He became mayor of Concepcion in his twenties, then vice governor, governor and, at 34, one of the youngest senators in Philippine history. By the years before martial law, he had become one of Ferdinand Marcos' most formidable political opponents and was widely regarded as a possible future presidential contender.

He was also unmistakably a politician. He came from a prominent political family, understood the power of media, knew how to command public attention and possessed enormous political ambition. None of those things are revelations meant to diminish him. They are simply part of who he was.

And perhaps that is precisely what makes his later choices more significant.

Ninoy had known power, competed for it and understood how Philippine politics worked. Then came martial law, arrest, military trial, years of imprisonment, a hunger strike, exile and finally the decision to return to a country where he knew his life could be in danger.

The interesting question is not whether Ninoy Aquino had always been the national hero Filipinos later remembered. It is how the politician became the man who boarded that final flight home.

WHY DID HE COME HOME?

This is another part of the story that has been simplified over time.

The popular version is that Ninoy returned to confront Marcos, fully expecting to die, almost as though everything after he boarded the plane had already been written.

He certainly understood that he could be killed. His final interviews show a man acutely aware of the danger, talking openly about the possibility that something could happen within minutes of arriving.

But expecting that death was possible is different from returning because you intended to die.

His own undelivered statement says he was returning to join the struggle to restore rights and freedoms through nonviolence. He wrote, "I seek no confrontation." He warned against both dictatorship and revolutionary violence and argued that the country's political problems could not simply be suppressed by force.

There was also a more complicated political calculation behind his return.

According to Cory Aquino's account shortly after his death, Ninoy believed Marcos was physically weakening and that the Philippines was becoming dangerously polarized. If Marcos suddenly died without an orderly political transition, Ninoy feared the resulting power vacuum could produce an even worse crisis.

Remarkably, Ninoy apparently hoped to talk to Marcos. He believed there was still a possibility, however remote, that Marcos himself could preside over a peaceful restoration of democracy because Marcos still controlled the military and the machinery of government.

That is quite different from the image of Ninoy returning simply to ignite a revolution.

The irony is difficult to miss. He appears to have returned partly because he feared where the country was heading if a peaceful political transition became impossible. His assassination then helped accelerate precisely the political explosion he hoped the Philippines could avoid.

There is another detail that complicates the familiar martyr story, but in a very human way. In a June 1983 letter to Antonio Cuenco, Ninoy discussed reorganizing the opposition and preparing it for the restoration of democracy. He then wrote that after democracy returned, he intended to retire, describing himself as physically and financially exhausted and speaking of leaving a functioning political organization to younger leaders.

Would he really have retired? Nobody can know. Politicians change their minds. But the letter tells us something important about the man who was coming home: Ninoy was still making plans for a life after Marcos.

THE LAST JOURNEY HOME

Getting back to Manila was itself an operation.

The Marcos government did not make Ninoy's return easy, so his journey took him through several countries and involved unusual travel arrangements. Among them was a Philippine travel document issued under the name "Marcial Bonifacio," an alias that has since become part of the lore surrounding his return.

He traveled through the United States and Asia, meeting political contacts and explaining why he had decided to return. Journalists accompanied him on the final leg aboard China Airlines Flight 811 from Taipei to Manila.

We know what happened next largely because those journalists were there.

Ninoy knew the danger as the aircraft approached Manila. He spoke about the possibility of being arrested immediately and about the possibility that something worse could happen. He had been warned that he might be assassinated.

Yet when Flight 811 landed, he got up and went with the military personnel waiting for him.

He never reached the terminal.

TWO BODIES ON THE TARMAC

The photographs have become so familiar that our eyes automatically go to one body.

Ninoy Aquino lies dead, but another man is lying there too.

His name was Rolando Galman.

The government explanation after the assassination was simple: Galman was a communist hitman who had managed to infiltrate one of the country's most heavily secured airports, shot Aquino and was immediately killed by security personnel.

What is striking is how quickly that explanation appeared. Within roughly three hours of the assassination, military investigators were already reporting that Aquino had been killed by a communist-hired gunman. A reenactment supporting the military version followed and was repeatedly shown on television.

The explanation did not survive investigation.

The Agrava Board rejected the claim that Galman had killed Aquino. Even though the board later split over how extensive the conspiracy was and which senior officers were involved, its findings destroyed the central premise of the original government account.

The later criminal trial went further. The Sandiganbayan convicted military personnel for the murders of both Ninoy Aquino and Rolando Galman.

The man presented to the country as the assassin eventually became, in the final judicial account, the second murder victim.

WAS NINOY STILL ALIVE ON THE TARMAC?

There is another detail in the photographs from August 21 that has received surprisingly little attention.

In 2013, VERA Files revisited a photograph originally published by TIME shortly after the assassination. Ninoy appears to be lying on the tarmac with both feet raised slightly above the ground. A reader who brought the photograph to VERA Files' attention argued that the position suggested Aquino may still have been alive at that moment, noting that later photographs showed his feet flat on the pavement.

The photograph alone cannot prove that Ninoy consciously moved or lifted his feet. A still image gives us a position, not necessarily an action, and there are other possible explanations for how his body ended up that way.

But another detail makes the question worth examining.

During the autopsy, Dr. Juanito Billote, who represented the Aquino family, observed hemorrhaging around a depressed fracture near the top of Ninoy's skull. According to the Sandiganbayan decision, Billote said the injury could have resulted from a severe blow by a blunt object.

That raises another question, but not necessarily the one conspiracy theories might suggest.

Pathologist Dr. Raquel Fortun, when VERA Files later asked her about the injury, cautioned against concluding that somebody deliberately struck Aquino after the shooting. There were other possible explanations. His head could have hit the pavement as his body fell or was handled, or the injury could have occurred while he was being moved and placed inside the vehicle.

In other words, the photograph is not proof that Ninoy remained conscious after being shot, and the skull injury is not proof that somebody deliberately struck him afterward.

But taken together, they leave a small and unsettling part of August 21 without a definitive answer: was Ninoy already dead in those first photographs on the tarmac, or was he still dying?

The available evidence does not allow us to say. What it does show is that even some of the most familiar images from that day contain details that were never completely explained.

WHO WAS ROLANDO GALMAN?

We should resist the temptation to correct one myth by creating another.

Galman was not a spotless civilian who happened to wander onto the tarmac. Contemporary records describe a man with a criminal background, firearms cases and connections to people in the military. There were legitimate questions about who he was and what he had been involved in.

But the government's description of him as the communist assassin who killed Aquino was another question entirely.

His lawyer said he knew of no subversion or New People's Army case against him. Military officers acknowledged knowing Galman. His son later positively identified Air Force Col. Arturo Custodio as one of the men who had come for his father on August 17, four days before the assassination.

Custodio acknowledged knowing Galman but denied going to the Galman house that day. He said he had last seen him the previous month.

Those competing accounts were part of a much larger mess surrounding Galman's final days.

Some members of his family and people close to him were subsequently reported missing or allegedly taken away by armed men. The surviving contemporary reports are not always consistent about dates and circumstances, which is precisely why we should be careful about turning every disappearance into one tidy conspiracy story.

There is already enough without embellishment.

Galman had military contacts. There was testimony that military men came for him shortly before August 21. He appeared inside an extremely secure airport operation. He was killed immediately after Aquino. The courts eventually concluded that Galman was one of the victims of the conspiracy rather than Aquino's assassin.

How did Rolando Galman get there?

THE PEOPLE WHO SAW IT HAPPEN

Another part of this history tends to disappear behind the famous names: the witnesses.

Passengers and airport personnel saw pieces of what happened. Their accounts did not always arrive immediately, and some people later described fear, intimidation or pressure.

One of the most important was Rebecca Quijano, a passenger on Aquino's flight. She eventually testified that she saw a uniformed man behind Aquino and then heard the shot.

Her explanation for not speaking earlier was fear.

In the later investigation into the handling of the case, Quijano described armed men allegedly looking for her, harassment of her family and attempts to induce her not to testify. Those were her allegations, and they should be presented as such. But they were not considered in isolation: the commission investigating the original proceedings found a broader pattern of efforts to suppress, discourage or influence witnesses whose testimony contradicted the government's version.

Imagine witnessing the assassination of the government's most famous political opponent while the same government controls the military, the investigation, the prosecution machinery and much of the information people receive about the case.

Fear becomes part of the evidence problem, and that problem began almost immediately.

BEFORE THERE WAS AGRAVA

Most Filipinos who remember the investigation remember the Agrava Board.

It was not the first attempt.

Only days after the assassination, Marcos created an investigative commission headed by then Chief Justice Enrique Fernando. The order establishing it even addressed the obvious concern: the investigation had to avoid the appearance of a whitewash.

That itself tells us how deep the credibility problem already was.

The Fernando commission quickly failed to gain public confidence and was dissolved. It was replaced by the independent fact-finding board headed by Corazon Agrava.

Creating an investigating body was easy. Convincing people that the government accused of involvement in the crime could credibly investigate itself was something else.

THE AGRAVA BOARD DID NOT PRODUCE ONE SIMPLE ANSWER

We often talk about "the Agrava report" as though there was one conclusion.

There were actually two.

Corazon Agrava submitted one report. The four other members submitted a majority report.

They agreed on the central point that destroyed the official story: Galman was not the man who assassinated Aquino, and military personnel were involved in the killing.

Where they differed was how far the conspiracy reached.

The majority implicated Armed Forces Chief Gen. Fabian Ver and several senior officers. Agrava's own report limited the conspiracy and did not include Ver in the same way.

That difference is important because political memory often turns an investigative finding into a criminal conviction.

Ver was among those prosecuted in the first Sandiganbayan case and was acquitted with the other accused in 1985. That acquittal, however, did not survive: when the Supreme Court later declared the entire proceeding a sham and void from the beginning, the acquittals were nullified with it.

By the time a valid retrial proceeded, Ver had already left the Philippines with Marcos after EDSA. The Sandiganbayan expressly noted that it had not acquired jurisdiction over him in the retrial.

So it would be incorrect to say Ver was convicted as the mastermind. It would also be incorrect to say he was never involved in any legal proceeding over the case.

Again, what we know depends on what kind of finding we are talking about.

An allegation is not an investigative conclusion. An investigative conclusion is not automatically a judicial finding. And a judicial finding against one person cannot simply be extended to somebody who was never validly tried to judgment.

That discipline becomes especially important when we reach Ferdinand Marcos.

THE TRIAL THAT WASN'T REALLY A TRIAL

This may be the most disturbing part of the entire story.

After the Agrava investigation, the accused military officers and men were prosecuted before the Sandiganbayan.

On December 2, 1985, all of them were acquitted.

For anyone looking at the case at that moment, it appeared finished. The constitutional protection against double jeopardy generally prevents the government from simply trying an acquitted defendant again because it dislikes the result.

Then Marcos fell.

After EDSA, Deputy Tanodbayan Manuel Herrera disclosed something extraordinary: there had been a meeting in Malacañang on January 10, 1985 involving Marcos, officials responsible for the prosecution and Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Manuel Pamaran while the Aquino-Galman case was being prepared.

The Supreme Court did not simply accept Herrera's account at face value. It appointed a three-member commission headed by retired Justice Conrado Vasquez to receive evidence and investigate the allegations.

What that inquiry uncovered eventually became part of the basis for one of the most extraordinary Supreme Court decisions in Philippine legal history.

The Court concluded that the original Aquino-Galman proceeding had been manipulated to produce a predetermined acquittal. Its decision described the case using language that would sound excessive if it came from a political blogger.

The Court called it a "sham trial," a "mock trial" and the "non-trial of the century."

Even more remarkable was the legal strategy described in the record. An acquittal could trigger double jeopardy and potentially protect the accused from prosecution later, including after Marcos was no longer in office.

The Supreme Court concluded that what had occurred was not a genuine trial at all. Because the proceeding was void from the beginning, the accused could be prosecuted again without violating double jeopardy.

This was no longer merely a story about the manipulation of evidence. It was about the attempted manipulation of the judicial system itself.

WHAT THE SECOND TRIAL ACTUALLY ESTABLISHED

The retrial finally produced something the first proceeding did not: convictions.

In 1990, the Sandiganbayan convicted 16 military personnel of the murders of both Benigno Aquino Jr. and Rolando Galman.

The court identified CIC Rogelio Moreno as the man who fired the shot that killed Aquino. Fifteen others were held criminally liable as co-conspirators.

That point is worth emphasizing because later retellings sometimes create uncertainty about whether another convicted man, Pablo Martinez, was also judicially identified as the shooter. The final Sandiganbayan finding affirmed in the later Supreme Court proceedings identified Moreno as the gunman. Martinez was convicted as part of the conspiracy.

The convictions became final.

Years afterward, some of the convicted men attempted to reopen the case using a forensic theory arguing that Aquino had actually been shot on the tarmac rather than while descending the service stairs. The Supreme Court rejected the attempt, ruling that the evidence being offered did not justify another trial.

So when someone says, "Nobody ever found out who killed Ninoy," we should be more precise.

A Philippine court identified the gunman, found a military conspiracy and convicted sixteen men of murdering both Aquino and Galman. Those are not theories. Those are judicial findings.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE 16 MEN?

There is another part of the story that tends to disappear once the convictions are mentioned.

The sentences were not the end.

Over the following years, some of the convicted men died in prison while others received executive clemency or had their sentences commuted. Pablo Martinez was released in 2007. Two more convicted men were released in February 2009, and the remaining surviving prisoners followed the next month after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo commuted their sentences.

By March 2009, every surviving man convicted in the Aquino-Galman murders was out of prison. Three of the sixteen had died in custody.

Whether one agrees with those releases is a separate question from whether they were legally possible. But historically, it completes an important part of the story.

The people whom the courts found responsible for carrying out the murders were eventually convicted. The surviving convicts eventually walked free, while the person who ultimately ordered the operation was never judicially identified.

SO WHAT REMAINS UNSOLVED?

This is where the story reaches the wall.

The convictions tell us who carried out the assassination operation.

They do not conclusively tell us who stood at the very beginning of the chain of command.

The retrial record contains references to orders being passed down. Moreno's defense was that he was following orders. Other parts of the evidence pointed toward officers coordinating the operation.

But the final judgment never produced the name Filipinos have been asking for since 1983.

Who ultimately gave the order?

Suspicion has always reached upward-to senior military officers, to Fabian Ver, and inevitably to Ferdinand Marcos and people surrounding him.

Suspicion, however powerful, is not a conviction.

The Sandiganbayan itself acknowledged the public suspicion surrounding Ferdinand Marcos, Imelda Marcos and Fabian Ver. Yet Ferdinand and Imelda were never indicted in the murder case because, as the court explained, no witness had come forward to accuse them and the evidence presented did not establish the prima facie case necessary to prosecute them for ordering the assassination.

That does not erase every historical suspicion.

It tells us where the judicial evidence stops.

And there is a particularly uncomfortable fact sitting beside that evidentiary gap: the Supreme Court separately found that Ferdinand Marcos intervened in the handling of the first Aquino-Galman trial and that the proceeding had been manipulated to obtain acquittals.

That is an established judicial finding.

But even that does not logically prove that Marcos ordered the killing itself. Interfering with or manipulating the prosecution of a crime is not automatically proof that the same person ordered the original crime.

We cannot fill the missing link simply because history makes us suspicious.

If this article is about separating what we know from what we inherited, then we have to apply that rule even when the uncertainty is frustrating.

THE ASSASSINATION DID NOT CREATE THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

Another familiar version of the story is that Ninoy's death destroyed the Philippine economy.

The record is more complicated.

By August 1983, the economy was already in serious trouble. The country carried heavy external debt. International interest rates had risen. Government finances were under pressure. Banks were vulnerable, reserves were deteriorating and foreign creditors were increasingly nervous about continuing to lend.

The bomb was already there, and Aquino's assassination helped light the fuse.

The World Bank later described the sequence very directly: the assassination "hastened the slide of the economy into recession." Political uncertainty intensified capital flight, commercial lenders became increasingly unwilling to roll over short-term credit or extend new money, and the country's external-debt crisis burst into the open.

So August 21 should not be treated as the origin of the economic collapse. It was an accelerant.

The assassination also changed who was willing to oppose Marcos. Political protest was no longer confined to traditional opposition groups and activists. Members of the middle class and business community increasingly entered the streets as political stability, economic confidence and the credibility of the government deteriorated together.

The country was already sick. Ninoy's death made it much harder to pretend otherwise.

THE BODY THE GOVERNMENT COULD NOT CENSOR

Then there was the body.

After Ninoy's remains were brought home, his mother Aurora made an extraordinary decision. She did not want the injuries cosmetically concealed. She wanted people to see what had been done to her son.

The blood remained visible, the wound remained visible, and the dead politician became physical evidence of what had happened.

That decision took on greater power because of the information environment surrounding the assassination. The Marcos government still exercised enormous influence over television and the mainstream press. Journalists trying to cover August 21 and its aftermath operated under restrictions that younger Filipinos accustomed to social media may find difficult to imagine.

But photographs escaped.

Photographers at the airport captured what happened. Images circulated internationally. Alternative publications and the so-called mosquito press published material that the larger establishment press initially handled cautiously or inadequately.

Eugenia Apostol's special editions documenting Ninoy's death, wake and enormous funeral became part of that alternative information system.

The government could issue explanations, but it could not make the photographs disappear.

There is something almost primitive about the political power of an image in that environment. Before hashtags, livestreams and viral video, Filipinos saw a dead man's blood and were forced to reconcile what they could see with what they were being told.

Aurora Aquino understood that before most people did.

THEN THE POLITICIAN BECAME "NINOY"

The assassination did not end the argument over Benigno Aquino Jr.

It transformed him.

The senator, political opponent, prisoner, exile and man who knowingly returned to danger gradually became something larger: Ninoy, the martyr whose death became inseparable from the movement that eventually ended the Marcos dictatorship.

That transformation was understandable. He had returned despite threats, was taken into military custody and was shot within minutes of arriving home. His funeral became one of the largest political demonstrations the Philippines had ever seen. His widow later became the opposition candidate against Marcos. His death became inseparable from the chain of events that ended the dictatorship.

But national symbols inevitably simplify the people behind them.

As the years passed, some admirers remembered primarily the courage and sacrifice. Later critics sometimes moved in the opposite direction, rediscovering his political ambition, family background or tactical skill and presenting those characteristics as though they somehow cancelled what happened afterward.

They do not.

Finding out that Ninoy Aquino belonged to a political dynasty does not disprove his opposition to dictatorship. Knowing that he once wanted to become president does not erase years of imprisonment. Recognizing that he understood publicity does not make his decision to return in 1983 less dangerous.

Likewise, believing that his assassination was a crime of enormous historical consequence does not require pretending that every claim made about him afterward was true.

We should be capable of remembering a historical figure in full. History should be able to survive that.

FORTY-THREE YEARS LATER, WHAT DO WE ACTUALLY KNOW?

We know that Benigno Aquino Jr. returned voluntarily to the Philippines on August 21, 1983 despite knowing he faced arrest and possible assassination.

We know that he was taken from China Airlines Flight 811 by military personnel and was killed before reaching the terminal, and we know Rolando Galman died on the same tarmac.

We know the official claim that Galman assassinated Aquino did not survive the Agrava investigation or the later criminal trial. We know the Agrava Board concluded that military personnel were involved, although its members disagreed over how extensive the conspiracy was.

We know the first prosecution ended in acquittals. We know the Supreme Court later concluded that the proceeding had been manipulated under Ferdinand Marcos and declared it void.

We know a second trial convicted 16 military men of murdering both Aquino and Galman, and we know the court identified Rogelio Moreno as Aquino's gunman.

We know those convictions became final, and we know that by 2009 every surviving convict had eventually been released while three had died in custody.

What we still do not have is a final Philippine judgment identifying and convicting the person who ultimately ordered the assassination.

That last question remains, but describing the entire murder as unsolved accidentally erases the enormous amount of work done by witnesses, investigators, prosecutors and courts who did manage to establish substantial parts of what happened. It also lets the real mystery hide inside a much larger one.

The question is no longer simply, "Who killed Ninoy?"

The question history still has not answered is: Who told them to do it?

Maybe that is why August 21 continues to disturb us forty-three years later. After investigations, frightened witnesses, competing reports, a sham trial, a revolution, a second trial, convictions, clemency and decades of argument, the trail still stops just before the place Filipinos most want it to reach.

And somewhere along the way, we also stopped talking as much about the living man who stepped onto Flight 811 and began talking primarily about the symbol created after he died.

Perhaps remembering Ninoy Aquino properly does not require making him flawless.

It simply requires being honest about the man, the murder, what the historical record has established, and what it still cannot tell us.

Sources

NAGBAGO NA BA ANG MGA PILIPINO?

Gino Borlado — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I recently read a two-page document from the Liga ng mga Barangay sa Pilipinas promoting something called #MagalangNaPinoy: A Filipino Values Revival Movement.

The question printed beside its QR code was simple:

Nagbago na ba ang mga Pilipino?

My first reaction was that I had heard this question before, only in different forms. What happened to Filipino values? Why are people angrier? Why has public conversation become so vicious? Why do children seem more violent? Why are people so comfortable humiliating strangers online? And almost inevitably, the usual suspects appear: Facebook, smartphones, gaming, artificial intelligence, materialism, weakened families, the internet.

The document itself makes many of those connections. But reading it brought me back to an old thesis of mine, one I have carried around for years and never completely settled.

I used to wonder whether Filipinos had a dormant capacity for violence and cruelty that we simply kept under control because society told us certain things were unacceptable. And then one president arrived who somehow gave people permission to stop hiding it.

I was thinking, of course, about Rodrigo Duterte.

That is a dangerous proposition to make casually, so before revisiting it I decided to ask a harder question:

What if I was wrong?

THE PROBLEM WITH SAYING DUTERTE CHANGED US

The easiest version of the argument would be this: Duterte became president in 2016, normalized violent language, thousands died during the drug war, political discourse became uglier, social media became more vicious, therefore Duterte made Filipinos violent.

Convenient, but also intellectually lazy, because the evidence tells us something uncomfortable.

Some of this was already here.

The World Values Survey asked Filipinos long before Duterte became president whether having a strong leader who did not have to bother with parliament and elections would be a good way of governing the country. In 2001, around 62 percent considered that fairly or very good. In 2012, it was still around 59 percent.

Duterte would not become president until four years later.

There was already a substantial Filipino constituency receptive to the idea of a leader unconstrained by normal democratic institutions.

Davao gives us an even more disturbing pre-presidency example. In 2015, an Ateneo de Davao University survey found that more than half of Dabawenyos approved of the existence of the so-called Davao Death Squad. Yet many of those same respondents also said they were worried about it.

Months later, shortly before Duterte assumed the presidency, another survey found that 60 percent believed the DDS could solve criminality while 68 percent believed the justice system was unfair.

People can be afraid of violence and still tolerate it. They can believe killing is wrong and still make exceptions when they think the justice system no longer works. They can believe in democracy and still be drawn to someone promising to bulldoze through the usual restraints.

So perhaps the original thesis needs to be revised. Maybe Duterte did not put something inside Filipinos.

Maybe he found something that was already there.

WHAT DUTERTE MAY HAVE CHANGED

Political scientists have been studying something very close to this question.

Nicole Curato described what she called latent anxiety surrounding drugs, insecurity, disorder and a justice system people did not trust. These anxieties existed before Duterte. His political talent was recognizing them, turning them into a national political issue and giving people an enemy around which those anxieties could be organized.

Other researchers examining Duterte's presidency found that his violent rhetoric was not merely random profanity from a foul-mouthed politician. A study of hundreds of his presidential speeches found evidence of what researchers describe as strategic priming: repeatedly framing crime and drugs in ways that helped build legitimacy for the policies being pursued.

This is where my old idea becomes more interesting. Perhaps the important change was not necessarily what Filipinos believed privately. Perhaps the change was what Filipinos felt permitted to say publicly.

Imagine someone who already believes that suspected criminals deserve whatever happens to them. Before Duterte, saying, “Patayin na lang sila,” might still carry a social cost. You could be considered cruel, ignorant or extreme.

Then the president himself repeatedly speaks about killing criminals. Crowds cheer. Officials defend him. His popularity remains enormous. Supporters repeat the language. Your friends repeat it. Your Facebook feed rewards it.

Suddenly the belief has not merely become expressible. In a large political community, it has become acceptable to defend publicly.

Cruelty can be recast as toughness. Disregard for due process can be recast as decisiveness. Threatening people can be defended as authenticity. Compassion can be mocked as weakness.

The idea existed before.

What may have changed was the restraint.

BUT FILIPINOS DID NOT SIMPLY BECOME BLOODTHIRSTY

There is another set of numbers that prevents us from turning this into an anti-Duterte morality tale.

At the height of the drug war's popularity, Filipinos repeatedly told survey researchers that they wanted drug suspects captured alive. In late 2016, roughly 84 to 85 percent were satisfied with the government's anti-drug campaign. At the same time, around 94 percent said it was important for suspects to be captured alive.

Large numbers worried that they themselves, relatives or acquaintances could become victims of extrajudicial killings. Many considered EJKs a serious problem.

That is not the profile of a country whose population suddenly decided killing was morally acceptable. It is the profile of a country wanting two things at the same time.

We wanted somebody tough enough to solve the problem, but we did not necessarily want what toughness could become once ordinary restraints disappeared.

That may also help explain why, years later, substantial numbers of Filipinos would say Duterte should be held accountable for drug-war killings.

The values were still there. They were competing with one another: justice versus vengeance, order versus due process, loyalty versus accountability, compassion versus anger, democracy versus the desire for someone who could simply get things done.

Perhaps Filipinos were not transformed so much as different values and impulses were being activated at different times.

And this is why the question on the #MagalangNaPinoy document interests me. If something changed, we first have to understand what changed before deciding how to change it back.

THEN FACEBOOK HANDED EVERYONE A LOUDSPEAKER

This is also why I am reluctant to blame social media for everything.

Facebook did not invent Filipino political anger. Research into Duterte's 2016 campaign found that much of his enormous digital support reflected genuine grassroots support that also existed offline.

The trolls were real. Organized disinformation was real. Political amplification networks were real.

But so were the people.

Social media did something else: it made expression incredibly cheap. You could insult someone without seeing his face. You could wish death on somebody and immediately receive hundreds of likes. You could discover thousands of strangers who shared an opinion you previously thought unacceptable.

And when enough people repeat something, the abnormal begins to feel normal.

So perhaps the sequence looked more like this: a grievance already exists; a political leader validates it and provides the language for expressing it; social media distributes that language; other people reward it; the behavior becomes normalized.

Then eventually nobody remembers that we once considered it unacceptable.

That is much more frightening than saying Facebook made us bad, because it means technology may only reveal and amplify what society has already permitted.

WHICH BRINGS ME BACK TO #MAGALANGNAPINOY

The Liga ng mga Barangay is now proposing a nationwide Filipino values revival.

Its document talks about respect, responsibility, compassion, discipline, integrity and active citizenship. It also points toward social media abuse, cyberbullying, gaming, artificial intelligence, violence among young people, HIV, teenage pregnancy and weakening relationships as signs of a society experiencing serious problems.

Some of those problems are undeniably real. The school violence that apparently helped trigger this campaign is especially disturbing, and we have now seen multiple violent incidents involving students, including killings.

There is nothing unreasonable about looking at those events and asking whether something deeper is happening in our communities.

But I have a problem with the diagnosis.

You cannot collect every disturbing statistic in modern Philippine society and simply place “declining values” underneath them.

A school shooting can involve values. It can also involve firearms access, bullying, psychological distress, family problems, school security failures or a dozen other factors.

A teenage pregnancy involving a very young girl may not be evidence that children have lost their values at all. It may be evidence that a child has been abused.

An HIV epidemic is a public-health problem. Turning it automatically into evidence of moral deterioration risks misunderstanding the very problem we are trying to solve.

AI can encourage people to offload more of their thinking when used carelessly, but it can also make an extraordinary educational resource available to somebody who previously had none. Gaming can expose children to violent content, but millions of completely ordinary, decent people also play video games without becoming violent. Facebook can spread hatred, but it can also expose corruption, organize disaster relief, reconnect families and allow ordinary Filipinos to participate in public debate.

Technology has consequences, but technology has no morality of its own.

People supply that. And leaders help establish what behavior society rewards.

WE HAVE TRIED MORAL RECOVERY BEFORE

There is an interesting historical comparison here.

In 1992, the Ramos administration launched a Moral Recovery Program. What struck me when I read the proclamation was what government considered part of the moral problem: graft and corruption, patronage politics, lack of accountability, apathy, indifference to the common good and lack of discipline.

The program did not simply look downward and tell citizens to behave themselves.

It looked at government too.

Later, Integrity Circles were established inside government because public servants themselves were supposed to participate in moral recovery.

That makes the current discussion much more interesting. Because if we genuinely believe Filipino values need reviving, why would we stop at children, Facebook users, gamers and families? Why not politicians, presidents, congressmen, barangay officials, government employees, bloggers , why not us?

A society does not teach values only through classrooms and parenting.

It teaches values by what it rewards.

When a corrupt politician continues winning elections, we teach something. When lying carries no consequence, we teach something. When political supporters defend behavior they would condemn if the other side did it, we teach something. When public officials humiliate people and society applauds, we teach something. When someone is killed and our first question is whether the victim deserved it, we teach something.

Children are watching all of that too.

MAYBE THE LIGA IS SEEING SOMETHING REAL

And this is where I surprised myself.

I began looking at #MagalangNaPinoy expecting to challenge the premise. After going through the research, I am not convinced that the premise should simply be dismissed.

It is difficult not to notice how coarse some of our public conversation has become, especially in politics and online. Cruelty can be expressed openly, people can be humiliated before enormous audiences, and death threats and dehumanizing language no longer seem as shocking as they should.

That is an observation, however, not proof that Filipino values as a whole have measurably declined.

Whether what we are seeing can scientifically be called a “decline in Filipino values,” I am not yet prepared to say.

But I understand why somebody would look at the Philippines today and conclude that we need to talk about values again.

Maybe we do.

What I would resist is reducing that conversation to good manners.

Paggalang cannot only mean saying po and opo.

Respect means respecting somebody's humanity when you disagree with him. Integrity means refusing corruption even when the politician involved belongs to your side. Compassion means recognizing that human rights do not disappear when the person involved is accused of a crime. Responsibility means verifying something before sharing it. Discipline means accepting democratic processes even when they produce an outcome we dislike. Citizenship means understanding that protecting institutions is sometimes more important than protecting politicians.

And if we are going to revive Filipino values, then accountability must be one of those values.

Especially for people in power.

SO, ANO ANG NAGBAGO?

I don't think the evidence gives us a simple yes.

The attraction to strongmen existed before 2016. Distrust of institutions existed earlier. Tolerance for punitive solutions existed earlier. Political patronage existed earlier. Cruelty certainly existed earlier.

But presidents do something ordinary citizens cannot.

They model permission.

By their words and behavior, they can influence what their supporters consider defensible, admirable or acceptable in public life.

Duterte may not have created the punitive and dehumanizing impulses we saw during his political rise and presidency, but I think there is enough evidence to seriously consider whether his leadership helped lower the social cost of expressing and defending some of them.

Social media then gave those attitudes unprecedented reach, and once society changes what it considers acceptable, putting the restraints back is much harder than removing them.

Which is why I find myself more interested in #MagalangNaPinoy now than when I first read the proposal.

Not because its diagnosis is already complete. I don't think it is.

Some of the research cited in the document also needs cleaning up, and the program still needs to explain clearly what it intends to do, how it will measure success and what evidence established the decline it wants to reverse.

But the underlying conversation is worth having.

Maybe even necessary.

Just don't ask Filipino children to recover values that Filipino adults refuse to practice.

And don't ask ordinary citizens to rediscover respect, integrity and responsibility while exempting the people who hold the greatest power to teach those values by example.

If #MagalangNaPinoy really wants to ask, “Nagbago na ba ang mga Pilipino?”, then let us answer honestly.

Maybe.

But before deciding how to change them back, we should first have the courage to ask:

What changed us?

And who did we allow to teach us that it was acceptable?

Sources

THE MAYOR WHO DID THE MATH

Gino Borlado — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Fourteen years ago today, Jesse Robredo died when the small plane carrying him home to Naga crashed into the sea off Masbate.

For many Filipinos, the image that survived him is easy to recognize. Jesse Robredo in simple clothes, often in tsinelas, walking around Naga without the usual distance between a politician and the people around him.

That image became part of how we understood him, and for good reason. It showed a kind of humility that felt unusual in Philippine politics.

I remember that man in tsinelas very well.

In 1995, I was working as a radio jock at one of the FM stations in Naga. Jesse Robredo was still mayor then, and one day there he was in front of me wearing a sando, shorts and tsinelas.

Since he was already there, I greeted him. “Marhay na aga tabi, Mayor Jess.”

He smiled, looked me in the eye and offered his hand. I shook it and he replied, “Marhay na aga man,” then went on his way.

That was it. I was a radio jock who happened to greet the mayor, and the mayor greeted me back.

So when people talk about Jesse Robredo as the man in tsinelas, I know exactly what they mean. I saw him that way myself in 1995, long before the slippers became one of the images Filipinos would associate most strongly with him.

There was much more to Jesse Robredo than that image.

The sandals showed something real about him. They showed how simply he carried himself and how comfortable he seemed around ordinary people.

When I started reading more closely about what he actually did as mayor, and later as secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government, I found another side of his legacy that deserves just as much attention.

We remember the man in tsinelas very well. If we want to pay homage to his legacy, we should also remember what the man in those tsinelas actually built.

A YOUNG MAYOR IN A CITY THAT NEEDED FIXING

Robredo was 29 when he was elected mayor of Naga in 1988. He studied mechanical engineering and industrial management engineering at De La Salle University, then later earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of the Philippines.

Before politics, he worked in the private sector. His return to Bicol was not originally part of a long political plan.

He came home in 1986 to work for the Bicol River Basin Development Program after an invitation from his uncle, then Camarines Sur governor Luis Villafuerte. Two years later, he ran for mayor and won.

The city he inherited was struggling financially. Patronage had a strong hold on local politics, and vice operators had political influence.

A Princeton University case study also says his first campaign relied partly on the support of gambling operators and describes that support as something Robredo viewed as a “necessary evil.”

I think that detail is worth knowing because it shows the political environment he entered. He did not begin his career in some unusually clean corner of Philippine politics. He entered a system Filipinos would recognize.

What he did after winning tells us much more.

Inside City Hall, his administration pushed merit-based hiring and promotion. He also moved against gambling and other vice operations that had become tied to local politics.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation later credited his administration with improving the city's finances and professionalizing local government. Those decisions may sound ordinary, but they changed how City Hall worked.

Hiring and promoting people based more on merit gives politicians less room to use government jobs as favors. Better financial management also gives citizens a clearer idea of where public money goes.

Neither reform produces a dramatic photograph. Both can affect people long after an election is over.

WHEN CITIZENS COULD TELL THE MAYOR NO

One of the most revealing parts of Robredo's years in Naga came in 1995, the same year I happened to meet him in my very ordinary way.

That year, Naga passed its Empowerment Ordinance and formally recognized the Naga City People's Council. Organized civic groups were given a regular place in discussions involving city policies, programs and public spending.

There is an episode from those years that deserves to be remembered as much as the tsinelas.

Robredo favored a plan to build a golf course in Naga. The Naga City People's Council opposed the project because of environmental concerns, and the groups argued against it until the proposal was abandoned.

I like that story because it tells us something a photograph cannot. Robredo helped create a system that citizens later used to oppose a project he wanted.

Supporting citizen participation is easy when citizens agree with you. The harder test comes when the people given access use it to challenge your own decision.

The golf course was not built.

For me, that says a great deal about Robredo's approach to government. He allowed room for disagreement, and the mechanism still worked when the disagreement was with him.

TELL PEOPLE HOW GOVERNMENT IS SUPPOSED TO WORK

Naga also introduced a Citizen's Charter that explained government services in plain terms. Residents could see which office handled a transaction, what requirements were needed and how long the process was expected to take.

The city distributed thousands of copies to households. Anyone who has dealt with government offices knows how useful that kind of information can be.

Without it, a person can spend hours moving from one window to another, only to be told that another document is needed or that the person responsible is unavailable. Clear rules make citizens less dependent on favors, fixers and connections.

Naga also began making budgets, procurement information and other government records easier for the public to inspect. This happened years before online disclosure became common in Philippine government.

None of these steps magically removes corruption. A public document can still contain questionable spending, and a posted budget does not mean every peso was well spent.

But a citizen cannot question what he or she cannot see.

Once the numbers are available, somebody can ask why a project costs that much, why one supplier keeps winning contracts, why spending suddenly increased, or why an office failed to deliver what the budget promised.

That kind of access can look boring until the day you need it.

THE NAGA IDEA GOES NATIONAL

Robredo became secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government in 2010 under President Benigno Aquino III.

His job was suddenly much bigger than Naga. The department dealt with local governments across the country, each with its own political culture, local alliances and ways of doing business.

One of the policies pushed during Robredo's time was the Full Disclosure Policy. Local governments were required to make key financial documents public, including budgets, procurement information and statements showing how public money was being used.

A DILG accomplishment report for 2011 said 1,551 of the country's 1,713 local government units had complied with the policy. The department also used the Seal of Good Housekeeping to assess local governments on financial management and other basic standards.

There was also money attached to good performance.

Local governments that met the requirements could qualify for grants through the Performance Challenge Fund. In 2011, 351 local governments received grants under the program.

I find that approach more useful than another speech about honesty. Government officials have heard countless reminders to be transparent and responsible, but Robredo's department connected those expectations to the way national support was given to local governments.

The reforms did not end corruption in local government. We know that from what we still see in the news today.

Still, requiring local governments to disclose records gives citizens, journalists, auditors and watchdog groups something they can examine. A town or city may still make a questionable decision, but leaving a paper trail makes that decision easier to discover and harder to deny.

THE SANDALS WERE PART OF THE STORY

Jesse Robredo received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service in 2000. The award recognized the reforms in Naga and his work in giving citizens a greater role in local government.

Yet the image many Filipinos remember first is the simpler one.

The tsinelas.

I understand why. When I remember my brief encounter with him in 1995, I do not remember a mayor surrounded by people announcing that the mayor had arrived.

I remember a man in a sando, shorts and slippers who looked me in the eye, shook my hand, returned my greeting and continued on his way. There was something genuine in that simplicity.

Government reforms are harder to remember than a human moment like that.

There is no iconic photograph of a merit-based promotion rule. Nobody puts a procurement record on a commemorative poster, and a Citizen's Charter will never create the same emotional reaction as a picture of a Cabinet secretary among ordinary people.

That is why I think the other side of his legacy deserves more attention.

Humility is admirable. In government, it becomes even more valuable when citizens also have rules that tell them what to expect, records they can inspect and a place where they can question decisions.

A good mayor eventually leaves office. The institutions created during his time have a chance to keep serving people long afterward.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE MAN IS GONE?

The Naga City People's Council continued beyond Robredo's years as mayor, although keeping it active was not always easy.

A Princeton case study later found that participation had weakened, some committee seats reserved for the People's Council were unfilled, and the council had problems finding money independent of City Hall and outside donors.

I think that belongs in the story because creating an institution is only part of the job. People still have to use it, defend it and keep it alive after the politician who helped create it is gone.

Other parts of Robredo's work also survived him. The Full Disclosure Policy continued under later administrations, and the good-governance seal that began during his time at the DILG was later expanded into the Seal of Good Local Governance and eventually written into law.

That does not mean every program still works exactly as intended. A disclosure requirement can become another document officials upload because they are required to, and citizen participation can become ceremonial when people stop using the space given to them.

So remembering Robredo also gives us a reason to look at the government we have now.

Can citizens still see where public money goes? Can people question local decisions without first knowing somebody at City Hall?

Are procurement records easy to find? Are government services clear enough that ordinary citizens know what to expect, and do local officials accept scrutiny even when it becomes uncomfortable?

Those questions belong to the present.

Fourteen years after his death, I can still picture that brief encounter in Naga. A mayor in a sando, shorts and tsinelas, a smile, a handshake, “Marhay na aga man,” and then he went on his way.

I am glad Filipinos remember that Jesse Robredo. I remember him that way too.

If we truly want to honor what he left behind, we should remember the less visible part as well. The rules, the records, the room he tried to create for citizens inside government, and the belief that people should be able to question those in power without depending entirely on the goodness of the person occupying the office.

The sandals showed us Jesse Robredo.

What he built helps explain why, fourteen years later, we still remember the man who wore them.

Sources

MCT IMPEACHMENT CASE TRACKER, DAY 16: GINA ACOSTA AND THE ₱125-MILLION CASH TRAIL

Gino Borlado — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

AUGUST 17, 2026

These are my personal notes from the August 17 impeachment hearing.

They are not the official Senate minutes or a stenographic transcript. I am keeping them as a working record so I can track what each witness actually said, what the lawyers argued, what had already been established in previous hearings, where different witnesses corroborate or contradict each other, and what remains unanswered.

The main witness was Gina Acosta, former Special Disbursing Officer of the Office of the Vice President.

The hearing centered on the ₱125 million in OVP confidential funds that Acosta personally withdrew in cash on December 20, 2022, and what happened to that money after it left LandBank.

The most important testimony of the day was not that the ₱125 million existed or that Acosta withdrew it. Those facts had already been established.

What became clearer was the next part of the chain.

According to Acosta, Vice President Sara Duterte personally instructed her to release the ₱125 million to Col. Raymund Dante Lachica.

That gives me this working trail:

LandBank → Gina Acosta → Col. Raymund Dante Lachica → still to be fully established

And according to Acosta, the instruction moving the money from her to Lachica came from Sara Duterte herself.

That is where Day 16 became important.

For taxpayers, the practical issue is whether the government can show, through authorized officers and verifiable records, who controlled ₱125 million, what operations it paid for and who accepted responsibility when that chain changed.

WHO IS GINA ACOSTA?

Acosta's role went beyond picking up money for the OVP.

She was the Special Disbursing Officer, or SDO.

That means she was an accountable officer entrusted with government funds.

She was responsible for the cash advance placed under her name and for ensuring that the money was safeguarded, disbursed and liquidated according to government rules.

That makes her role central to the confidential-fund story.

She was also not new to this kind of work.

Acosta had previously served as a Special Disbursing Officer handling confidential funds in Davao City while Sara Duterte was mayor, before eventually performing the same type of function at the Office of the Vice President.

That history is relevant because it means Acosta was not an inexperienced employee encountering confidential funds for the first time.

She already had experience handling this kind of government money.

That becomes important when evaluating later explanations about what she understood her responsibilities to be.

ACOSTA IS DECLARED A HOSTILE WITNESS

The prosecution asked that Acosta be declared a hostile witness.

The impeachment court granted the request.

That allowed prosecutor Atty. Amando Virgil Ligutan to ask leading questions even though Acosta had technically been called as a prosecution witness.

Presiding Officer Francis Escudero reminded Ligutan of an important distinction:

Leading questions were allowed.

Misleading questions were not.

That became relevant because Ligutan's examination was aggressive and often attempted to pin Acosta down on responsibilities, instructions and the governing confidential-fund rules.

For my notes, the hostile-witness designation should not itself be treated as proof that Acosta was lying.

It was a procedural ruling that gave the prosecution greater latitude in questioning her.

THE LANGUAGE ISSUE

One of the first controversies surrounding Acosta was language.

She asked to answer in Bisaya and appeared uncomfortable answering some questions in Tagalog or English.

An interpreter was made available.

The problem eventually drew the attention of Senator-Judge Erwin Tulfo.

Tulfo said he had reviewed Acosta's earlier testimony before the House, particularly exchanges during the congressional investigation involving Rep. Gerville Luistro.

His point was that Acosta had previously answered questions in Tagalog and English.

He questioned why she appeared to have much greater difficulty doing that during the impeachment hearing.

Tulfo openly challenged the inconsistency and eventually said:

“Tama na po itong panloloko sa atin.”

That was Tulfo's accusation.

It is not something I should convert into a factual finding that Acosta was deliberately pretending not to understand.

But the contradiction is legitimate credibility material.

She had previously demonstrated an ability to answer in Tagalog and English.

During the impeachment proceeding, she requested to use Bisaya and at times appeared to have difficulty with the other languages.

Tulfo confronted her with the earlier transcript.

For my purposes, that stays in the credibility file.

It does not prove anything about where the confidential funds went.

THE DECEMBER 20, 2022 WITHDRAWAL

The questioning eventually turned to the actual ₱125-million withdrawal.

The check was encashed at the LandBank Shaw Boulevard branch on December 20, 2022.

The transaction occurred at around 2:00 in the afternoon.

The time and place fix the December 20 movement of the cash more precisely.

Previous testimony had already established that Acosta personally encashed the check.

So the real question on Day 16 was no longer whether the money left LandBank.

It did.

The question was:

What happened after it became physical cash?

FOUR DUFFEL BAGS

Acosta testified that the ₱125 million was placed in four duffel bags.

She described the bags being moved from the bank.

According to her recollection, LandBank security guards helped by dragging the four duffel bags toward the vehicle.

She was uncertain whether a trolley had been used.

That is more specific than simply saying somebody helped carry the bags.

The physical volume of ₱125 million became part of the prosecution's presentation because this was not money that could simply be slipped into an envelope or briefcase.

It required several large bags.

THE AI-GENERATED IMAGE OF THE CASH

One of the more unusual procedural moments was the prosecution's use of an AI-generated image depicting what ₱125 million in cash inside duffel bags might look like.

The prosecution was using the image as a visual aid or simulation to help illustrate the physical scale of the amount.

The defense objected.

The defense's point was that the image did not necessarily represent the actual dimensions, quantity or arrangement of the real cash withdrawn by Acosta.

Escudero allowed its use after the prosecution clarified that it was merely a simulation or demonstrative illustration, not actual photographic evidence of the December 20 transaction.

That distinction is important.

The AI-generated image proves nothing about how the real money looked.

It was a courtroom visual aid.

Nothing more.

THE LANDBANK-GUARD DISCREPANCY

Acosta's recollection that LandBank guards dragged or helped move the bags creates a possible conflict with earlier evidence regarding LandBank procedure.

The earlier LandBank position was that once the cash was released, bank personnel were not supposed to assume responsibility for helping transport it to the client's vehicle.

So I now have two accounts that do not fit neatly together:

Acosta remembers LandBank guards helping move the four duffel bags.

The earlier LandBank evidence suggests that should not have been part of their procedure.

I am not resolving that contradiction yet.

It could be a minor difference in memory.

Or it could become useful later when Acosta's reliability is assessed.

For now, it stays marked:

I am marking this discrepancy as unresolved.

WHY WAS LACHICA INVOLVED?

The prosecution then moved to what happened after the cash left the bank.

Acosta said she contacted Col. Raymund Dante Lachica.

Lachica was associated with the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group.

That raises a fundamental question.

Acosta was the Special Disbursing Officer.

Lachica was a security officer.

Why was a security officer taking control of money that had been formally entrusted to an accountable disbursing officer?

That is one of the most important distinctions in this whole confidential-fund case.

A security officer may participate in a confidential activity.

That does not automatically make him the accountable officer authorized to receive and disburse the cash advance.

Those are two different functions.

ACOSTA'S EXPLANATION OF LACHICA'S ROLE

Acosta's explanation was essentially that Lachica knew how to implement confidential activities.

She had previously described implementation as something effectively left to him.

The idea appears to have been:

Acosta handled the financial side.

Lachica handled the operational side.

But that explanation immediately creates another problem.

If Acosta withdrew ₱125 million and then turned the money over to Lachica to distribute or use at his discretion, was she still exercising control over the cash advance?

Or had she effectively transferred responsibility for the money to someone who was not the designated SDO?

That distinction became central.

WHO ORDERED THE HANDOVER?

This produced the most important testimony of the day.

Acosta testified that Vice President Sara Duterte instructed her to release the ₱125 million to Col. Lachica.

This is the part I want to preserve carefully.

Acosta did not describe the transfer as something she independently decided to do.

She attributed the instruction directly to Duterte.

So the sequence becomes:

The government releases ₱125 million.

Acosta encashes the check.

The money becomes physical cash placed in four duffel bags.

Acosta contacts Lachica.

Acosta releases the money to Lachica.

Acosta says Sara Duterte instructed her to do it.

That is the major Day 16 evidentiary development.

ACOSTA HAD SAID THIS BEFORE

Acosta had already given substantially the same account during the House investigation.

She had previously said that she turned the money over to Lachica with Duterte's authority or approval.

She had also said that she trusted Lachica because Duterte trusted him.

So the August 17 testimony did not reveal this allegation to the public for the first time.

The difference is institutional.

Acosta was now saying it before the Senate sitting as an impeachment court.

That means the testimony was now being formally placed before the senator-judges who will ultimately decide Duterte's impeachment case.

THE JOINT CIRCULAR BECOMES CRITICAL

The prosecution then turned to the rules governing confidential funds.

This is where the legal and accounting problem becomes much sharper.

The relevant Joint Circular requires cash advances for confidential and intelligence funds to be drawn by duly designated and bonded Special Disbursing Officers.

The circular also provides that:

under no circumstance may the cash advance be transferred from one accountable officer to another.

Acosta was the designated and bonded SDO. Lachica was not the SDO named for the cash advance.

The quoted provision does not, by itself, settle every role a security officer may perform in a confidential operation. The prosecution's compliance argument rests on the actual handover, the limits of Lachica's authority and Acosta's own acknowledgment that the circular contains no provision authorizing release or disbursement to a security officer simply because he is a security officer.

ACOSTA'S IMPORTANT ADMISSION

During questioning, Acosta acknowledged an important point:

There is no provision in Joint Circular No. 2015-01 authorizing the release or disbursement of confidential funds to a security officer simply because he is a security officer.

That admission may actually be as important as her statement that Duterte instructed her to hand over the money.

Because now we have two propositions coming from Acosta herself:

Sara Duterte instructed her to release the ₱125 million to Lachica.

And:

The Joint Circular contains no provision authorizing that type of release to a security officer.

That creates a much more direct compliance problem.

THE ₱125-MILLION PROGRAM ITSELF HAD ANOTHER PROBLEM

Acosta also acknowledged another deficiency.

The ₱125-million confidential-fund allocation was lodged under a broad “Good Governance Program.”

But the allocation did not contain detailed activities identifying precisely what operations were supposed to be funded.

That becomes important because confidential funds are not exempt from planning simply because the activities themselves are secret.

There still has to be a legitimate government purpose and an accountable relationship between the fund, the authorized activity and the eventual liquidation.

If the planning document merely contains a broad label without detailed activities, that raises another accountability problem before the money is even spent.

COA'S “BREAK IN THE CHAIN OF ACCOUNTABILITY”

This also connects directly to testimony already given by COA state auditor Xylene del Campo.

Her earlier testimony described what happened when Lachica became involved as a break in the chain of accountability.

That framing now makes much more sense when placed beside Acosta's testimony.

The chain should normally be straightforward:

Cash advance → designated bonded SDO → authorized expenditures → liquidation

But what happened here, according to Acosta, was:

Cash advance → Acosta → Lachica

And Lachica was not the designated SDO.

That is the break.

ACOSTA'S RESPONSIBILITY AS THE ACCOUNTABLE OFFICER

This leaves a very basic problem.

If Acosta was the accountable officer, what exactly did she do after turning the money over to Lachica?

Did she decide who should receive payments?

Did she know who the confidential informants were?

Did she personally meet them?

Did she see the payments take place?

Did she know how much each person received?

Did she verify whether the supposed intelligence or confidential operations actually happened?

Did she witness the signing of acknowledgment receipts?

Did she know whether the names appearing on those receipts represented real people?

If not, what exactly was she certifying when the money was later liquidated?

These questions go directly to the integrity of the paper trail.

THE WORD “DISCRETION”

The idea that implementation was left to Lachica's discretion is especially important.

If Lachica merely helped transport money under Acosta's direction, that would be one thing.

If Acosta handed him ₱125 million and allowed him to decide how, where and to whom it would be distributed, that is something entirely different.

One is physical assistance.

The other is operational control.

And if operational control moved from the bonded SDO to a security officer, the prosecution has a much stronger argument that the chain of accountability was broken.

DID ACOSTA KNOW THE FINAL RECIPIENTS?

This remains unresolved.

If Acosta did not personally distribute the cash, then who did?

If Lachica distributed it, who received it?

Were the supposed recipients real?

Were the acknowledgment receipts signed by actual people?

Were the confidential operations genuinely conducted?

And who checked any of this before the documents were submitted for liquidation?

The OVP had also previously submitted more than 1,200 deficient acknowledgment receipts connected to confidential-fund expenditures.

The presence of paperwork left a harder question:

Was there paperwork?

The question becomes:

Did the paperwork accurately document real transactions involving real people and real confidential operations?

THE DECEMBER 2022 COA DISALLOWANCE

The December 2022 ₱125-million transaction also has to be kept separate from later 2023 findings.

For the December 21–31, 2022 confidential-fund expenses, COA disallowed ₱73.287 million out of the ₱125 million. The Commission Proper upheld that amount on April 10, 2026, while a later motion for reconsideration was reported pending.

That figure is important.

It is not correct simply to say COA questioned the entire ₱125 million.

The disallowance covered ₱73.287 million, not the entire ₱125 million.

Of that amount, roughly ₱69.8 million was recorded as “rewards,” while approximately ₱3.5 million involved office equipment such as tables, chairs, computers and printers.

The breakdown identifies the exact categories COA questioned.

THE 2023 CONFIDENTIAL-FUND CASE IS SEPARATE

The three ₱125-million withdrawals in 2023 total ₱375 million.

Those transactions produced their own separate COA problems.

Those findings should not be merged casually with the December 2022 disallowance.

The 2022 and 2023 transactions involve different periods, different audit findings and different stages of review or appeal.

So in my notes:

December 2022 = one audit problem.

2023 = separate audit problems.

And neither should automatically be described as if COA had simply disallowed one undifferentiated ₱500-million block.

THE ₱500 MILLION MUST ALSO NOT BE CONFUSED WITH ₱612.5 MILLION

Another number that appears elsewhere in the impeachment case is ₱612.5 million.

That refers to the broader confidential-fund controversy involving both the OVP and DepEd.

It should not be confused with the ₱500 million representing the four ₱125-million OVP withdrawals handled by Acosta.

The numbers refer to different scopes.

Keeping them separate is necessary if these notes are going to remain useful later.

HOW ACOSTA'S TESTIMONY CONNECTS TO MADRIAGA

The connection to Ramil Madriaga is becoming more interesting.

Madriaga previously described four bags of cash and alleged that the money was subsequently divided and moved through people connected to Lachica.

Acosta now independently confirms several upstream details:

There was a ₱125-million cash withdrawal.

The money was placed into four duffel bags.

Lachica became involved.

Acosta released the money to him.

And Acosta says Sara Duterte instructed her to release it.

That gives partial corroboration to the beginning of Madriaga's story.

But it does not prove his entire account.

THERE IS ALSO A POSSIBLE ACOSTA–MADRIAGA CONTRADICTION

This is something I want to watch carefully.

Madriaga has alleged that the money or portions of it were brought to DepEd premises as part of the downstream distribution.

Acosta's account appears to place the OVP vehicles going directly toward the Office of the Vice President, not DepEd.

That may become important.

If they are talking about the same money movement and the same point in time, then the two versions may conflict.

But I do not want to force a contradiction prematurely.

They could be describing different legs of the movement.

So for now:

Acosta: bank → OVP vehicle → OVP direction

Madriaga: later alleged movement involving DepEd premises

The exact timeline needs to be compared carefully before declaring one of them wrong.

WHAT THE LANDBANK EVIDENCE GIVES US

The LandBank evidence establishes the beginning of the trail.

The check existed.

Acosta encashed it.

The money was physically released.

A very large amount of cash was involved.

The bank records and testimony make it difficult to dispute that the transaction occurred.

Acosta then takes the story one step farther.

She tells us what happened after the cash was under OVP control.

So:

LandBank tells us how the money left the bank.

Acosta tells us how the money left her control.

The unresolved problem is still:

What happened after Lachica obtained it?

THE DOCUMENTS I NEED TO KEEP TRACK OF

For Article I, the documentary trail is becoming as important as the witnesses.

The records I need to track include:

- Treasury checks; - LandBank encashment records; - Acosta's SDO designation; - fidelity-bond records; - cash-advance documents; - financial plans; - the “Good Governance Program” documentation; - liquidation reports; - acknowledgment receipts; - confidential-fund accomplishment reports; - Joint Circular No. 2015-01; - COA Notices of Disallowance and audit findings; - Acosta's 2024 House testimony; - records identifying supposed recipients; - and documents supposedly connecting payments to actual confidential operations.

I want to keep testimonial evidence and documentary evidence separate.

Because eventually the question becomes:

Does the paper trail confirm what the witnesses say happened?

THE DEFENSE OBJECTIONS

The defense objected at several points during Ligutan's questioning.

The objections form part of the record because Acosta had been declared hostile and Ligutan was using leading questions.

For my notes, the most important rule is this:

A lawyer's question is not evidence.

If Ligutan says something in a question, that does not make the proposition true.

The evidence is Acosta's answer.

The same applies to the defense.

For future detailed note-taking, I need to preserve important sequences as:

Question → objection → ruling → answer

That prevents me from accidentally converting lawyer argument into sworn testimony.

THE NDRRMC ALERT INTERRUPTION

At one point, phones inside the chamber simultaneously sounded an NDRRMC emergency alert.

The proceedings were briefly interrupted.

Escudero instructed those inside the chamber to silence their phones before the examination continued.

It has no evidentiary significance.

But since these are also functioning as minutes of the hearing, I am keeping it here.

WHAT ACOSTA ACTUALLY ESTABLISHED ON DAY 16

For my own purposes, these are the propositions I am comfortable attributing directly to Acosta:

1. She was the OVP Special Disbursing Officer.

2. She had previous experience as an SDO handling confidential funds in Davao City.

3. She personally encashed the ₱125-million OVP confidential-fund check on December 20, 2022.

4. The money was released as physical cash.

5. The money was placed into four duffel bags.

6. She contacted Col. Raymund Dante Lachica.

7. She released the money to Lachica.

8. She identified Sara Duterte as the person who instructed her to release the money to Lachica.

9. She acknowledged that Joint Circular No. 2015-01 does not contain a provision expressly authorizing confidential-fund cash to be turned over to a security officer.

10. She acknowledged that the ₱125-million allocation under the Good Governance Program did not contain detailed activities identifying exactly what would be funded.

Those are the Acosta points I consider most important from Day 16.

WHAT ACOSTA DID NOT ESTABLISH

Acosta did not establish that Sara Duterte personally pocketed the ₱125 million.

She did not establish that Lachica stole it.

She did not prove Madriaga's entire account.

She did not establish the identity of every final recipient.

She did not establish that every acknowledgment receipt was fictitious.

She did not establish that every claimed confidential operation was fake.

She did not prove that the entire ₱125 million was stolen.

She did not establish that every confidential-fund withdrawal followed exactly the same route.

And she did not establish what ultimately happened to every peso after the money entered Lachica's control.

Those questions remain open.

CREDIBILITY ISSUES I AM TRACKING

I now have several credibility issues surrounding Acosta.

LANGUAGE

Why was there such difficulty answering in Tagalog or English during the impeachment proceeding when previous House testimony showed her answering in those languages?

Not proof of dishonesty.

But something worth tracking.

LANDBANK GUARDS

Her recollection that bank security personnel dragged or helped move the bags may conflict with earlier testimony or LandBank procedure.

Still unresolved.

HER OWN SDO RESPONSIBILITY

She was the accountable officer.

Yet her explanation suggests that Lachica exercised significant control over implementation and possibly over the cash itself.

That creates a legitimate question about what she actually knew regarding the expenditures she later had responsibility for liquidating.

KNOWLEDGE OF RECIPIENTS

If she did not personally distribute the money or know the recipients, the credibility and reliability of the eventual liquidation documents become even more important.

WHAT THE PROSECUTION GAINED

The prosecution gained a clearer line toward personal responsibility.

Before Acosta, the prosecution could already establish:

The money was released.

The money was withdrawn.

After Acosta, the prosecution can now point to sworn testimony saying:

Sara Duterte personally instructed the accountable officer to release the ₱125 million to Lachica.

That is substantially stronger than simply saying Duterte headed an office where questionable transactions occurred.

It places her, according to Acosta, inside the decision-making chain itself.

WHAT MAY BE EVEN MORE DAMAGING THAN THE INSTRUCTION

The Duterte instruction receives the headline attention.

But I think the compliance admission may eventually be just as important.

Acosta says Duterte instructed her to give the money to Lachica.

Then Acosta acknowledges that the governing Joint Circular contains no provision authorizing that type of release to a security officer.

Put those together with the earlier COA testimony about a break in the chain of accountability and the prosecution begins to have a more structured argument:

The prosecution's argument is more specific: control of the cash moved outside the normal accountability chain.

The accountable officer was directed to move control of public funds outside the normal accountability chain.

Whether that rises to an impeachable offense remains for the Senate to decide.

But it is a much more specific allegation than simply saying the confidential funds were suspicious.

WHAT THE DEFENSE CAN STILL ARGUE

The defense still has substantial room.

It can argue that Lachica's participation was part of legitimate confidential operations.

It can argue that the transfer was operational and not corrupt.

It can challenge whether the Joint Circular should be interpreted as prohibiting exactly what occurred.

It can challenge Acosta's credibility.

It can argue that an accounting violation is not automatically an impeachable offense.

It can distinguish procedural irregularity from theft.

And most importantly:

It can demand proof of what actually happened to the money after Lachica received it.

That remains the prosecution's biggest unfinished task.

WHAT THE PROSECUTION STILL NEEDS TO PROVE

The chain currently reaches:

LandBank → Acosta → Lachica

with Acosta saying:

Sara Duterte ordered the handover.

But then the trail becomes much less certain.

The prosecution still needs credible evidence answering:

Where did the four bags go after Lachica received them?

Did he divide the money?

Who received it?

Did any of it go to DepEd?

Were there delivery teams?

Who were the supposed confidential informants?

Were those people real?

Were the operations real?

Who produced the acknowledgment receipts?

Who signed them?

Who checked them?

Who prepared the liquidation?

Who certified that the expenditures actually happened?

And does the documentary record correspond to the actual movement of the cash?

Those are the questions that can either complete the case or expose gaps in it.

WHO I WANT TO HEAR FROM NEXT

For this specific money trail, the witness I want to hear from most is Col. Raymund Dante Lachica.

Acosta puts the money in his hands.

Madriaga claims to describe what happened afterward.

COA says his involvement broke the normal accountability chain.

That places Lachica directly in the middle.

If he testifies, I want answers to very basic questions:

Did Acosta give him the ₱125 million?

Did Duterte tell him to receive it?

Why did he receive money entrusted to the SDO?

What authority did he believe allowed him to do that?

Did he distribute the cash?

To whom?

Did he supervise confidential operations?

Who prepared the acknowledgment receipts?

Did he know the supposed informants?

Did he return liquidation documents to Acosta?

Did he know who actually received the money?

And ultimately:

Where did the ₱125 million go?

Lachica can potentially connect Acosta's testimony to Madriaga's.

Or he can blow a hole through that connection.

Either way, his testimony could be extremely important.

MY EVIDENTIARY MAP AFTER DAY 16

This is where I currently place the December 20, 2022 transaction.

STRONGLY DOCUMENTED

The ₱125-million check existed.

Acosta encashed it.

The transaction occurred at LandBank Shaw Boulevard.

The money was released as physical cash.

DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTED TO ACOSTA

The cash was placed into four duffel bags.

She contacted Lachica.

She released the money to him.

Sara Duterte instructed her to do so.

There was no provision in the Joint Circular expressly authorizing release of the confidential-fund cash to a security officer.

The ₱125-million Good Governance Program allocation lacked detailed activities.

SUPPORTED BY OTHER EVIDENCE

The approximate four-bag physical volume.

The fact that Lachica became involved in the confidential-fund process.

COA's conclusion that Lachica's involvement broke the normal chain of accountability.

PARTIALLY CORROBORATIVE OF MADRIAGA

Cash existed.

Four bags existed.

Lachica became involved.

But Madriaga's downstream delivery story remains separately dependent on proof.

POSSIBLE CONFLICT WITH MADRIAGA

Acosta's description of the immediate movement of the OVP vehicles does not perfectly match Madriaga's allegation involving DepEd premises.

The timelines need to be compared carefully before deciding whether the accounts genuinely contradict each other.

STILL UNPROVEN

That Duterte personally received cash.

That Lachica stole the money.

That the entire ₱125 million was stolen.

That every acknowledgment receipt was fictitious.

That every confidential recipient was fake.

That all confidential operations were fabricated.

That Madriaga's full downstream account is true.

MY TAKEAWAY FROM AUGUST 17

August 17 did not solve the confidential-fund case.

It did something narrower but important.

It moved the evidentiary trail farther.

Before Acosta, we could follow the money from the government to LandBank and from LandBank to Acosta.

After her testimony, we can follow it farther:

LandBank → Acosta → Lachica.

And according to Acosta:

Sara Duterte gave the instruction that moved the money from Acosta to Lachica.

We also learned something equally important about the rules.

Acosta acknowledged that the Joint Circular does not contain a provision authorizing the confidential-fund cash to be released to a security officer.

That now sits beside the earlier COA testimony describing Lachica's involvement as a break in the chain of accountability.

That does not yet tell me the money was stolen.

It does not tell me Sara Duterte pocketed it.

It does not tell me Madriaga's entire story is true.

But it tells me something very specific happened to ₱125 million in public money:

The accountable officer withdrew it.

It was turned into four bags of cash.

And instead of remaining entirely within the hands of that accountable officer, it moved to a security officer.

According to the accountable officer herself, Sara Duterte ordered that handover.

The next question is still the same.

But it has become much harder to avoid.

Where did the money go after Lachica got it?

Sources

I WAS WAITING FOR GINA ACOSTA

Gino Borlado — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I had been waiting for Gina Acosta to testify because I already had Ramil Madriaga’s testimony sitting in front of me.

Madriaga had made a very detailed allegation about what supposedly happened to the first ₱125 million in confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President. He named people. He described physical cash. He talked about four bags. He gave a date. Then he went much further and claimed that the money moved through several hands and destinations and was disposed of in less than 24 hours.

Those are explosive allegations, but they were still allegations coming from Madriaga.

That was precisely why I did not want to write about them yet.

I wanted Gina Acosta.

Not because I expected Acosta to prove Madriaga right. I wanted her because she was directly involved in the actual ₱125-million transaction. If she contradicted Madriaga, I wanted to see where. If she described something completely different, that would also tell us something.

What I really wanted to know was whether two people looking at the same ₱125 million from different positions would independently start describing some of the same things.

Now Acosta has testified.

And there are overlaps.

Not enough to say Madriaga has been proven right.

But enough that I think we have to pay attention.

WHAT CAN WE ESTABLISH WITHOUT MADRIAGA?

Forget Madriaga for a moment.

We know Gina Acosta was the OVP special disbursing officer who encashed the ₱125-million check. We also know this was not simply an accounting entry moving electronically from one government account to another. The money became physical cash.

LandBank testimony established that the ₱125 million was prepared in ₱1-million bundles. Former branch manager Violeta Constantino previously described OVP personnel putting the money into around three to four gym bags.

Then Acosta took the stand on August 17 and gave us something more specific from her own recollection: she said the cash was transferred from the boxes into four traveling bags. Reporting on her testimony describes those bags as black and oblong, with straight zippers.

Four bags.

That caught my attention because Madriaga had also talked about four bags.

But this is where precision is necessary. The number overlaps. The physical descriptions are not a perfect one-to-one match.

Madriaga described three large dark bags and one lighter-colored, relatively smaller bag. Acosta described four black traveling bags. Constantino, meanwhile, remembered around three to four gym bags.

So I am not going to tell you, “These were definitely the exact same bags.”

We cannot establish that from the descriptions alone.

What I can say is that Madriaga spoke months earlier about four bags carrying this money, and Acosta has now independently testified that she herself placed the ₱125 million into four bags.

That is an overlap.

There is another person here who should not be forgotten: Assistant Secretary Lemuel Ortonio.

Acosta had already testified during the earlier House investigation that Ortonio accompanied her when the money was encashed. Earlier testimony and reporting also place him with Acosta during the initial handling of the funds.

That does not prove anything about Madriaga’s alleged deliveries. But if we are trying to understand who was physically around this money at the beginning, Ortonio belongs in that chain and may be important in establishing what happened before the cash reached the next person.

And that next person is where the story gets more interesting.

Col. Raymund Dante Lachica.

Acosta had already testified in the 2024 House hearings that she turned the ₱125 million over to Lachica. She said she did so with Sara Duterte’s approval.

On August 17, she again testified that Duterte instructed her to release the ₱125 million to Lachica.

So without using Madriaga’s testimony at all, we can independently get this far:

The ₱125 million existed as physical cash. Gina Acosta encashed it. She placed it into four bags. Ortonio was with her during the early part of the transaction. And Acosta says she delivered the money to Lachica upon Sara Duterte’s instruction.

Now go back to Madriaga.

His account also places Acosta and Lachica inside the chain involving those bags of money.

That is not proof of his entire story.

But neither is it nothing.

WHERE THE ACCOUNTS STOP MEETING

This is where I think people on both sides are going to make the same mistake.

One side will say: See? Acosta proved Madriaga was telling the truth.

No.

The other side will say: Madriaga is a liar, therefore nothing he said deserves examination.

That does not work either.

Acosta did not confirm Madriaga’s entire account. From the testimony and evidence I have reviewed, she did not establish that Madriaga was physically present when she handed the money over. She did not confirm his claim that he took ₱1 million. She did not confirm his allegations that Nolasco or Lachica took their own shares.

And she certainly did not confirm Madriaga’s allegations about where the bags supposedly went afterward.

She did not tell us one went to Laguna. She did not tell us another went to Tomas Morato. She did not corroborate his allegation involving the Office of the Ombudsman.

Those remain Madriaga’s allegations, and some have been specifically denied by people he implicated.

So Gina Acosta did not prove Ramil Madriaga was telling the truth.

What happened is more limited than that, but I find it more useful:

Parts of the story Madriaga told can now be reconstructed without relying on Madriaga.

That changes the question.

Instead of asking whether I personally believe Madriaga, I would rather ask how much of what he said can be independently established.

At this point, we can establish a substantial part of the beginning: the ₱125 million, Acosta, physical cash, four bags, Lachica, and Acosta’s testimony that Sara Duterte instructed her to turn the money over to Lachica.

After Lachica, however, we run into a wall.

Madriaga claims to tell us what happened after that. But the independent evidentiary trail I can see does not yet follow him all the way there.

That is now the part I want the prosecution to build.

If Madriaga says those bags moved somewhere after Lachica, who else saw them? Were there drivers? Security personnel? Vehicle records? CCTV? Building entry logs? Phone calls? Messages? Other witnesses? Can any alleged recipient be independently connected to those bags?

And what does Lachica himself say happened to ₱125 million in cash after Acosta says she handed it to him?

That, to me, is now the obvious missing part.

THE DECEMBER 20 TIMELINE

There is another detail that initially looked confusing but becomes more interesting when laid out properly.

Madriaga placed the alleged operation on December 20, 2022. Acosta testified that she encashed the ₱125 million on December 20 and delivered the full amount to Lachica that same day.

That means the date in Madriaga’s account overlaps with Acosta’s account of the actual withdrawal and handoff.

Earlier discussions of the OVP liquidation, meanwhile, deal with expenditures reported for the succeeding period beginning December 21. That should not automatically be turned into a contradiction about when the OVP “received” the money. Those are not necessarily the same accounting event.

So I would no longer frame this as: How could the money be withdrawn on December 20 if it was only received on December 21?

The much better question is this:

What happened after Acosta says she handed ₱125 million in four bags to Lachica on December 20, and how does that connect to the expenditures subsequently reported in the OVP’s confidential-fund liquidation?

That is where the records and the witness testimony have to meet.

And again, we arrive at Lachica.

THEN SARA DUTERTE FILED ANOTHER PERJURY CASE

While all of this was unfolding on August 17, Sara Duterte filed another perjury complaint against Ramil Madriaga at the Taguig City Prosecutor’s Office.

This is her second perjury complaint against him.

There is an important fact that has to be included here: Duterte’s camp says the new complaint is based on alleged falsehoods contained in Madriaga’s Supplemental Affidavit dated April 11, 2026. It was not a complaint suddenly created because of something Gina Acosta said on August 17.

That context belongs here because otherwise I would be creating a misleading impression about the timing.

But I am still watching what happens to the public conversation whenever this occurs.

I have seen this pattern repeatedly in Duterte politics. Something damaging or explosive is raised, and almost immediately there is another battle over the accuser: credibility, motives, criminal complaints, counteraccusations, personal history.

Whether this particular complaint was deliberately timed to divert attention from Acosta’s testimony is something I cannot prove.

So I will not claim that as fact.

But I can observe the effect.

Instead of the discussion remaining focused on ₱125 million, four bags, Acosta and Lachica, part of the conversation immediately moves toward Madriaga being accused of perjury.

Maybe Madriaga did lie in his affidavit.

Then establish the lie.

Show which statement was false. Show the document that contradicts him. Present the witness who destroys his version. If his testimony collapses when placed against independent evidence, then let it collapse.

That is precisely what evidence is for.

But filing a case against the witness does not itself answer what the witness said.

And Madriaga’s credibility problems do not make independently verifiable parts of his account disappear.

That is why I waited for Gina Acosta in the first place.

I did not want to rely on Madriaga.

NOW I WANT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS AFTER LACHICA

Before Acosta took the stand, Madriaga had already told us a story involving ₱125 million, Acosta, Lachica and four bags of cash.

Now Acosta herself has independently put ₱125 million, four bags and Lachica into the record.

The descriptions of the bags are not identical. She has not confirmed Madriaga’s alleged participation. And she has not corroborated the destinations and recipients he identified.

Those limitations are real.

But so are the overlaps.

And that is why I think the wrong question at this stage is whether Madriaga should already be believed or disbelieved completely.

I am more interested in something that can actually be tested:

How much of Madriaga’s account can the prosecution prove without needing Madriaga?

We now have part of the answer.

They can independently get us to Lachica.

They have not yet independently taken us much farther than that.

And this is why we need to keep watching.

The prosecution is trying to build the whole story piece by piece, and this is one story we cannot afford not to know and understand. The next witnesses and the next documents may corroborate Madriaga further. They may contradict him. They may expose parts of his testimony as false while confirming other parts.

That is exactly what a serious examination of testimony is supposed to do.

Right now, four bags have reached Lachica.

I want to know where they went next.

Sources

GAGO AMPOTAH: YOU ASKED OTON TO TRUST YOU. THEN YOU WALKED OUT.

Gino Borlado — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 04:30:00 GMT

I started looking into this because of Pax Silica.

Some protesters in Oton, Iloilo carried signs connecting Pax Silica to a public consultation for a proposed hyperscale AI data center. Naturally, I wanted to know whether Daniel Stefan Robertsen’s project was actually part of the US-led initiative.

After going through the documents and reporting I could find, here is the answer:

I cannot prove that it is.

The Philippines and Norway are both Pax Silica signatories. That is true. Some Oton protesters made the connection themselves. That is also true.

But I found no agreement, government announcement, project filing or corporate document identifying Robertsen’s Oton proposal as an official Pax Silica project. Official records place the documented Philippine development under Pax Silica in New Clark City, Tarlac. They describe a proposed 4,000-acre industrial hub there. The Oton proposal has no documented place in that initiative.

So I am not going to attach Robertsen’s project to Pax Silica because the association makes the article more dramatic.

Turns out I do not need to.

What happened in Oton on August 14, 2026, was astonishing enough on its own.

Robertsen came before a Filipino community to present a proposed data-center campus. Daily Guardian and Panay News reported a site of about 10 hectares. The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported 8.19 hectares and identified the proposal as the “WS Hyperscale AI Campus.” The available reports do not explain the difference, so neither figure should be treated as settled. They agree that the presentation described an initial capacity of roughly 10 megawatts, eventually scaling to 50 MW. The proposal had not been endorsed by the municipal government.

He asked residents to trust him and invited questions. Then Oton councilor Annie Rose Paro asked about water.

And the discussion began to fall apart.

Gago ampotah.

A PUBLIC CONSULTATION REQUIRES ANSWERS

The barangay invited residents to listen, understand the proposal, raise concerns and ask questions. That is a consultation. It cannot work like a product launch where everybody politely applauds the words “AI” and “hyperscale.”

That is the job.

Paro asked how the facility would use water and how the water would be treated. Daily Guardian described it as the only question asked during the hearing before the exchange fell apart.

The published reports I checked do not provide a reliable transcript or a specific video of Robertsen’s opening response to Paro, so I will not quote one. The documented exchange still shows the basic failure: the proponent did not give the clear water explanation the public meeting required, the discussion deteriorated, and he eventually stopped it and walked out.

Paro did not need data-center employment to ask the question. Robertsen was presenting the project and claiming the relevant expertise. A consultation exists so people who do not design data centers can question the people who do.

If only data-center operators may question data-center developers, cancel the public meeting. Invite ten engineers into a locked room and let them talk among themselves.

Public consent and competent stakeholder management require open questions and understandable answers.

SHE DOESN’T NEED YOUR RÉSUMÉ. SHE LIVES THERE.

Local reports identified at least 20 households and more than 20 farmers or farm owners as potentially affected by the proposed development. GMA interviewed a resident who worried that her family might have to move again after recently transferring, with crops still growing behind their home.

Those numbers are reported estimates. No completed census appears in the material I reviewed, and the interview describes one family’s experience.

But it explains why the question was urgent.

A farmer does not need to understand server architecture before asking what happens to his land. A mother does not need to understand hyperscale computing before asking what happens to the water supply. A municipal councilor needs no industry résumé before asking a developer to explain what his project will consume and what it will leave behind.

She lives there and represents people who live there. That is her qualification to question you.

WATER WAS EXACTLY THE QUESTION TO ASK

Different data-center designs have very different water demands. Some cooling systems consume substantial water. Others use closed loops, air cooling or hybrid designs that reduce direct consumption.

So the answer could have been reassuring.

Then give it.

Explain the cooling design. Give the expected consumption. Identify the source. Describe treatment and discharge. If the project would use little community water, show the engineering.

Real expertise includes the ability to explain complicated things to the people who will live beside the project.

To be precise, the consultation did not end one second after a single question. Reporting describes a longer, deteriorating exchange. Residents voiced opposition. Robertsen said he would not force the project on anyone, stopped the discussion and walked out.

The chronology is important because the meeting continued beyond the first water question.

The water question did not exist alone. But it exposed the attitude that drove everything after it.

“I DO THAT FOR YOU”

During the exchange, Robertsen reportedly said he was financially stable, did not need the project, was not doing it for profit and was doing it “for you.”

Nobody in Oton asked for charity.

This was a commercial infrastructure proposal. Maybe it would create useful jobs. Maybe it would bring investment to Western Visayas. Maybe its engineering would be excellent and its environmental effects manageable.

All of that remained possible.

Those possible benefits gave residents even more reason to ask precise questions about land, water and jobs. They did not place the community in Robertsen’s debt.

Robertsen had the relationship backwards. His proposal needed Oton’s scrutiny and the approvals required by law.

The municipal government had not endorsed the project. Answering questions was part of what he came there to do.

THEN HE WALKED OUT

Robertsen stopped the discussion and left. Vice Mayor Jose Neil Olivares later said the walkout could be interpreted as a withdrawal of the proposal and would be reflected in the council committee’s report.

That was Olivares’s interpretation. It was neither a court judgment nor, by itself, a formal legal ruling.

But the behavior is relevant to project risk.

Public consultation is easier than construction. Construction brings permits, environmental conditions, land negotiations, utility coordination, delays, complaints, regulators, journalists and people who remember what they were promised.

A data center operating for years creates a long relationship with its host community.

If the relationship collapses while the project is still a presentation, local officials are entitled to ask what happens when the concrete is already in the ground.

AND THE PRESENTATION SAID GROUNDBREAKING THE NEXT MONTH?

Reports say the presentation listed September 2026 as a target for groundbreaking. That was one month after the consultation, while municipal endorsement had not been given and people were still asking basic questions about water, power, zoning, land and livelihoods.

That does not prove Robertsen intended to bypass any legal requirement. I found no evidence of that.

But it creates a fair question: how much room did the schedule leave for consultation to change the project?

What if officials required more studies? What if the design had to change? What if Oton said no?

Was September an aspiration, a placeholder or a date the proponent believed was already realistic?

There may be a perfectly reasonable answer.

Someone should ask him.

RESIDENTS INSIDE. JOURNALISTS OUTSIDE.

The sequence and the identities of the people involved need to stay clear.

Inside the consultation, residents and local officials questioned the proposal and voiced opposition.

Outside, after the walkout, local journalists approached Robertsen for an interview.

The journalists outside were separate from the residents and protesters who had challenged Robertsen inside. The reporting says the media approached him after the walkout and tried to interview him. It does not establish that the journalists initiated an aggressive confrontation.

Robertsen reportedly replied:

“If you don’t have brain, just f*ck, go away.”

I am not going to inflate that into a claim that he cursed the entire Filipino people. The evidence does not establish that.

What it does establish is ugly enough: after walking out on Filipino residents and officials questioning his proposal, he cursed at journalists who approached him.

The documented words and sequence are enough.

“FILIPINO PRIVACY LAW” IS NOT A DISAPPEARING SPELL

Robertsen also objected to being photographed and reportedly threatened legal action while invoking “Filipino privacy law.”

The legal point needs care.

The Data Privacy Act does not give journalists unlimited freedom. Its implementing rules say journalists who process personal information may still have duties under the law and other applicable rules.

But the same rules expressly recognize personal-information processing for journalistic purposes to protect freedom of speech, expression and the press.

So “privacy law” is not an automatic command that erases news coverage of a public consultation and its aftermath. Whether any particular act is lawful depends on the facts and all applicable law.

A threat of legal action does not settle what the law allows.

WHAT HIS PUBLIC CORPORATE RECORD SHOWS

Riot Blockchain, now Riot Platforms, announced Robertsen in 2018 as president of its subsidiary Digital Green Energy Corp. That announcement establishes a prior corporate role. I could not independently verify a fuller résumé from the records reviewed for this article.

Whatever his work history, Robertsen was the project proponent in Oton. The public could reasonably expect him to answer questions calmly and clearly.

THE OPERATING COMPANY STILL NEEDS A PUBLIC RECORD

Daily Guardian reported that it found no relevant public web presence for Norway Green Energy and no result for the company in the Philippine SEC’s Check With SEC portal. Robertsen reportedly said a Philippine operating company would later be formed with a Filipino partner.

Those searches have limits because they do not cover every company in every jurisdiction. Oton still needs verifiable corporate records before acting on the proposal.

Before Oton is asked to trust a project of this scale, officials should know which Philippine entity would own or operate it, who would finance it, who would be legally accountable, who owns or leases the land, and what protects the community if construction stops or ownership changes.

Asking for those records is ordinary due diligence.

AND NOW, THE DOCUMENTED PAX SILICA PROJECT

The documented Philippine project under Pax Silica is the proposed “Golden Node” in New Clark City: about 4,000 acres, or roughly 1,620 hectares, envisioned as an industrial hub for advanced manufacturing and technology supply chains. No documentary evidence reviewed for this article formally links the separate Oton proposal to Pax Silica.

Oton still offers a lesson about public consultation because the Marcos administration and BCDA are asking Filipinos to trust something vastly larger while some of its most important terms, designs and safeguards remain under development.

Government descriptions of the project have not been consistent.

US and Philippine materials described an “AI-native” hub encompassing advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, critical minerals, digital infrastructure and, in some official discussions, data centers. In July, BCDA said only one or two interested firms were data-center operators. In August, BCDA went further and said no data centers would be built on the Pax Silica site, which would focus on chip and semiconductor manufacturing.

Those statements can be reconciled if the plan evolved or if “AI hub” always meant an industrial supply-chain hub rather than a campus full of hyperscale computing facilities.

The confusion came from the government’s own language. Officials now need to give the public one clear and complete description of the project.

THE PROJECTIONS NEED THEIR ASSUMPTIONS

BCDA projects that the hub could attract $40 billion to $70 billion in investment and generate roughly 130,000 to 190,000 jobs.

The words “projects” and “could” carry the load. The figures describe forecasts for a project whose framework and infrastructure were still being planned. They do not describe investment already secured or jobs already created. The public deserves the assumptions behind them: industries, phases, occupancy, wage levels, local hiring, training, indirect-job multipliers and the timetable on which the projections depend.

The same discipline applies to resources.

BCDA estimates that the industrial hub may require 65 million to 90 million liters of water per day at full development. It says the plan is to rely on harvested surface water and rainwater rather than community groundwater, with an initial system designed for 120 million liters per day and potential expansion to 300 million.

That may be a sound design.

The next step is evidence that the system will work through drought and dry seasons. Filipinos are entitled to see the river-flow assumptions, storage requirements, treatment plans, downstream effects, capital cost and construction timetable.

BCDA has also discussed power demand reaching as much as 3 gigawatts at full development. Gigawatts measure power capacity. The Department of Energy says it is reviewing requirements and wants to ensure the hub does not disadvantage the rest of the country. Officials have discussed several possible sources, including renewables, storage and firm generation. I could not verify a settled final mix.

Good. Keep asking.

DEVELOPMENT NEEDS A PUBLIC RECORD

In May, BCDA denied an FOI request for a Pax Silica project pipeline. The government portal records BCDA saying the project was still in planning and that disclosure would be premature and deliberative.

There are legitimate reasons governments protect live negotiations.

There is also a legitimate public interest in a 1,620-hectare project involving water, power, land, strategic industries and foreign-government cooperation.

Both can be true.

By early August, local reports said some Capas officials and residents had not received a comprehensive public presentation, while the LGU had asked BCDA for one. The reports do not establish a complete absence of coordination. They document a gap between preliminary official contact and meaningful public consultation.

Congress has begun asking similar questions. Makabayan lawmakers filed House Resolution 1128. Akbayan Rep. Percival Cendaña filed House Resolution 1227. The second resolution calls for scrutiny of projected economic benefits, environmental, labor, social and national-security implications, and whether existing law is adequate.

The resolutions request inquiries. They record no finding of guilt. Asking agencies to produce evidence and explain safeguards is the normal work of legislative oversight.

ERIN BROCKOVICH’S MAP RAISES PROCESS QUESTIONS

Erin Brockovich has launched a US-focused project mapping data centers and collecting community reports. Her central demand is simple: notify people before decisions are locked in and hold public hearings with real information about water, energy, noise and local infrastructure.

Her map is crowdsourced. The submissions require verification, and her work establishes no prediction of a water crisis in Oton or New Clark City.

She belongs in this conversation because her project asks a useful process question: when do communities receive the important details?

For Oton and Pax Silica, the answer should come early. Put the engineering, contracts, safeguards, projections and tradeoffs on the table before asking people to trust the project.

SHOW THE RECORDS AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS

Robertsen made the mistake of treating questions as opposition.

The Marcos administration and BCDA should be careful not to make the same mistake at national scale.

Maybe the New Clark City hub will become a genuine leap for Philippine manufacturing. Maybe it will create high-value jobs, deepen semiconductor capability and move the country into more profitable parts of global supply chains.

I hope it does.

I can hope for that outcome while still demanding due diligence.

Show us the framework when it can legally be released. Show us the land boundaries, lease structure, investor-selection rules, water and power studies, drought scenarios, environmental assessments, consultation records, affected-person maps, job methodology, technology-transfer commitments and dispute-resolution provisions.

One portal. Versioned documents. Clear explanations when the design changes.

The public should not have to assemble the plan from press conferences, interviews and later clarifications.

Oton asked a developer about water and got attitude, a walkout and profanity outside.

Pax Silica is bigger than Oton by orders of magnitude. It deserves questions proportionate to its scale.

A credible project can survive questions. Government earns trust by answering them with records.

Sources

PAANO KA KUMIKITA AS A BLOGGER?

Gino Borlado — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 06:03:00 GMT

Someone asked me recently, “Paano ka kumikita as a blogger?”

I understand why the question was asked. When you tell people you run a Facebook page, write regularly, produce content, maintain a website and spend a good part of your day doing all of that, the natural assumption is that you are a content creator. Content creators are supposed to earn from their content.

The expected answer is probably Facebook monetization, advertising, sponsorships, subscriptions and donations. Yes, those are part of the answer.

Here is the honest version. Morning Coffee Thoughts currently earns enough to keep operating from month to month. It helps pay for research, the website, software, subscriptions and production. It does not earn enough to give its creator a comfortable living or real financial security.

The question made me think about something I have known for quite some time. There are probably easier ways to earn more money from a political page. The price may be the independence that made the page valuable in the first place.

“NAKADIKIT KASI KAY GANITO”

I have a friend who sometimes tells me stories about people we both know.

“Dalawa na ang kotse niyan. Laging nagbabakasyon.”

Then the explanation comes almost naturally: “Nakadikit kasi kay ganito.”

The “ganito” is a politician.

I want to be careful. I have not seen those people’s finances, and I have no evidence that they received anything illegal. Being associated with a politician is not proof of corruption. What stays with me is how casually political proximity is offered as an explanation for prosperity, sometimes almost as an achievement. Parang mahusay siyang dumiskarte because he figured out which politician to attach himself to.

Whenever I hear conversations like that, I compare them with what I chose to do with MCT.

There is legitimate money in politics. Campaigns hire communications staff and consultants. Advertising agencies handle political accounts. Content creators may legally endorse candidates for compensation, subject to election and disclosure rules. None of those arrangements automatically makes anyone corrupt.

Paid political influence online is also a documented industry. Researchers Fatima Gaw and Aries Arugay identified approximately 1,425 influencer accounts across Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Twitter that showed indicators of participation in influence operations during the 2022 Philippine elections. Their research describes influencers being selected for their social capital, meaning the audience and credibility they have built, as well as their previous performance and political notoriety. It also describes a gray area between ordinary political participation and commissioned political influence.

COMELEC has also recognized the role of online content in campaign spending. Resolution No. 11109, issued for the May 2025 elections and succeeding national and local elections, covers influencers, content creators, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, memes and social-media posts. It creates a presumption of paid service when a person openly promotes a candidate or party during the campaign. The rule exempts relatives of the candidate within the second civil degree. The presumption alone does not prove that every endorsement is paid. It shows that election regulators now treat online political promotion as something that can have monetary value and should be included in campaign-finance disclosure.

LOYALTY IS A POLITICAL CURRENCY

If your rule is to criticize the bad and acknowledge the good, you are a poor political investment. Readers may find that reassuring. A political camp may find it risky.

Suppose I agree with a politician today. Tomorrow, that politician does something dishonest or indefensible. MCT’s principle requires criticism. If the politician’s opponent does something right the following week, the same principle requires an honest acknowledgment.

A political camp paying for loyalty usually wants predictability. It wants to know who will defend its candidate during a controversy, repeat its message, attack an opponent or remain silent when silence is useful. An independent page cannot promise any of that.

Readers can expect MCT to apply its own standards. No politician can expect permanent protection from MCT. If I were running a campaign, I would understand the risk of spending heavily on a commentator who might criticize my candidate tomorrow.

That would make me a terrible propagandist. It is also the kind of commentator I want to remain.

THEY WANTED THE AUDIENCE

MCT has received approaches and offers from people associated with different political camps. I am not naming them because this article is not an accusation against any specific person, and I am not alleging that every offer was illegal.

Those conversations taught me something. MCT had already spent years finding readers, earning their attention, surviving platform changes and building enough credibility for people to return. A political operator looking at the page could see an audience already gathered in one place.

There is nothing wrong with paying for clearly identified advertising space. Sponsors have supported MCT before, and businesses buy advertising every day. A proper advertisement pays for space and access to an audience. It does not buy control over the surrounding editorial work.

As I understood them, some approaches went further than advertising. The conditions would have affected whom I could criticize, whom I should protect, what I should say or what I should ignore. Accepting that arrangement would mean selling editorial loyalty.

An official campaign page praising its own politician has limited persuasive value because the source is obvious. Praise from a page that appears independent carries more weight. The value comes from using a voice the audience already trusts.

That trust does not belong to me alone. Readers built it with their time and attention. I have no right to quietly rent it out while continuing to present the page as independent.

MONEY IS PART OF THE PROBLEM

This is not a sermon about money being dirty. MCT needs money.

Research, software, subscriptions, equipment, website maintenance and production all cost money. A Facebook post may look simple when it reaches a reader, but the work behind it has become more complicated and more expensive.

Even established media organizations struggle with the economics of online publishing. A 2025 Philippine Institute for Development Studies report said that the movement of audiences and advertising online had not produced sustainable operations for many local newsrooms. They continued to face rising production costs, declining print revenue and the expense of moving fully online. MCT is a personal advocacy rather than a newsroom. It faces a smaller version of the same basic problem: a large digital audience does not automatically generate enough income to pay for the work serving that audience.

MCT has donors, sponsors and readers who have given money because they want the work to continue. Some have given a little, some have given more and some businesses have provided support. Others help by sharing articles and introducing the page to people I could not reach on my own. I am deeply grateful for all of it. Without that support, some of what MCT does today would not be possible.

Support is welcome. Ownership is not for sale. A donation does not purchase my opinion, and sponsorship does not give anyone editorial control.

This reader-supported model has limits. I cannot return to the same people whenever costs increase and expect them to carry the entire operation. A reader may value MCT and still need to pay for food, rent, tuition, medicine and family expenses. A political organization may calculate the value of the same audience differently because influencing that audience can produce a direct political benefit.

The people supporting an independent page usually give because they believe it should exist. The people seeking control over its audience may have a stronger financial reason to spend much more.

MCT IS REACHING A DIFFERENT STAGE

I know MCT has a shelf life. I do not know whether that means two years, five years, ten years or longer. Political attention changes. Audiences change. Facebook can alter an algorithm and disrupt the reach a page spent years building. People may eventually grow tired of hearing from you.

MCT is also operated by one person. It was never built as a media corporation with deep pockets, a permanent endowment or an institution designed to survive its founder.

I think the page is reaching maturity. I do not mean that it is dying. I mean that easy growth is becoming harder, operating costs are more visible and decisions about what happens next carry greater consequences. Growing a page from nothing is one kind of problem. Keeping it useful and sustainable without destroying what people trusted is another.

I understand the temptation. Who does not want financial security, better equipment, researchers, employees and enough money to begin a new project without first asking how to pay for it? I am not morally immune to wanting a comfortable life. I know what I am unwilling to exchange for it.

WHAT EXACTLY AM I TRYING TO GROW?

When I say I want MCT to grow, what do I mean? More followers, reach and revenue would help. So would researchers, editors, a stronger website and enough resources to build projects properly.

Growth cannot be the only measure. MCT could become financially larger while losing its freedom. It could gain access while becoming unable to criticize powerful friends. It could acquire more resources while leaving readers unsure whether an opinion came from me or from whoever was helping pay the bills.

That version might preserve the logo, Facebook page and name. It would not preserve the reason MCT exists.

I chose to run the page this way. Nobody owes me a living because I placed financial restrictions on the advocacy. I have to accept that some projects will take longer and that some ideas may remain unaffordable. MCT may eventually reach the limit of what this model can support.

I can live with that limit more easily than I can live with selling the page’s independence.

SO, PAANO NGA BA AKO KUMIKITA AS A BLOGGER?

The practical answer is Facebook monetization, sponsors, donations, reader support and legitimate opportunities that do not require MCT to surrender editorial control. At present, those sources keep the operation alive from month to month. They do not provide the income needed for a comfortable life or long-term financial security.

There may be better ways to develop this model, and I am still learning them. I could probably earn considerably more by becoming politically useful to the right people. Some political camps have already shown that they see value in the audience.

The most valuable things MCT holds are your attention and your trust. When I criticize someone, you should be able to believe that I think the facts justify it. When I praise someone, the same standard should apply. MCT will sometimes anger people who agreed with it yesterday because no political camp receives permanent protection.

Politically, that makes me unreliable. As an independent blogger, I hope it makes me reliable in the way that counts.

MCT has survived because readers, donors, sponsors and other supporters decided an independent voice was worth helping. Their support is the reason I can think seriously about what comes next. The task now is to make the page sustainable without selling the trust that gave it value.

If MCT has to grow more slowly to remain independent, then that is the path I will take. I would rather protect what readers trust than make the page bigger by surrendering control over what it says.

Sources

I TRIED TO UNDERSTAND THE ₱7.2-TRILLION BUDGET. IT WASN’T WHAT I THOUGHT IT WAS.

Gino Borlado — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 02:52:04 GMT

Like any ordinary Filipino, I do not really understand how the government budget works. I know we have one every year, Congress holds hearings about it, politicians fight over allocations, and every so often somebody points to an item and calls it an “insertion.”

Beyond that, ask me to explain how the whole thing works and I would probably get lost.

That was why I started reading about the 2027 National Expenditure Program, or NEP. Before doing my own digging, I tried reading write-ups by other bloggers about it, hoping someone had already explained the whole thing in a way I could follow.

The problem was that most of what I found seemed to assume that I already understood what they were talking about and how the budget process worked.

NEP. GAA. Programmed appropriations. Automatic appropriations. Unprogrammed appropriations. Allotments. Obligations. Disbursements.

I would understand one paragraph, encounter a term I did not know, look it up, and discover three more terms I did not know.

So I decided to start from zero. I wanted to understand what the NEP actually was, how a proposed national budget becomes law, and what government really means when it says it is proposing a ₱7.2-trillion budget for 2027.

What I found was more complicated than the number we usually see in the headlines, but not impossible to understand once I stopped treating “the budget” as though it were one number and one event.

The easiest way I found to keep things straight was to separate two questions in my head.

First: What is government legally allowed to spend or commit?

Second: What money was actually released, committed and paid?

Those are related questions, but they are not the same question.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

Before going further, I had to learn a few basic terms because almost everything else depends on them.

NEP — National Expenditure Program. The President’s proposed national budget submitted to Congress. It is not yet the final budget law.

GAA — General Appropriations Act. The annual budget law after Congress has acted on the proposal and the President has signed it, subject to any vetoes.

Appropriation. Legal authority for government money to be used for a particular purpose. It does not necessarily mean the money has already been released or spent.

Allotment. The amount an agency is authorized to commit for an approved purpose.

Obligation. A commitment by government to pay for something, such as a contract, purchase or service.

Disbursement. The actual payment of government money to settle an obligation.

There are other terms we will encounter, but these six were enough for me to start following the process without having to stop every few paragraphs and look something up.

WHAT EXACTLY IS THE NEP?

The National Expenditure Program is essentially the President’s proposed budget. Government agencies prepare their requests, the Department of Budget and Management evaluates them, the Executive settles on proposed allocations and priorities, and the resulting NEP is submitted to Congress.

Congress then deliberates on the proposal. The House and Senate act on the budget bill, differences are reconciled, Congress sends the final bill to the President, and after presidential action we eventually get the GAA.

That corrected one assumption I had been making for years. Whenever somebody said that something was “in the budget,” I treated that as though there were only one budget document.

There isn’t.

Something may already be in the President’s NEP. It may later be changed in the House, altered in the Senate, modified during the bicameral conference, vetoed by the President, or retained in the final GAA.

So when somebody tells me that a project or allocation is “in the budget,” I now know that the next question should be: Which budget?

That matters because the answer can tell us something about where an item came from.

SO WHAT DOES ₱7.2 TRILLION ACTUALLY MEAN?

The proposed 2027 Total Expenditure Program, or TEP (the total amount of financial commitments government plans to be allowed to make during the year), is about ₱7.2 trillion.

My natural interpretation was simple: government plans to spend ₱7.2 trillion in 2027.

That is close enough for casual conversation, but it is not exactly what the figure means. The TEP is an obligation budget, meaning it refers to the amount of commitments government may incur, not necessarily the amount of cash that will physically be paid out during the same year.

That distinction becomes clearer when the government's own numbers are placed beside each other. The proposed 2027 Total Expenditure Program is around ₱7.2 trillion, while projected 2027 cash disbursements are around ₱6.9 trillion.

Both figures can be correct because they are measuring different things.

Government may enter into an obligation in 2027 without the actual payment happening at exactly the same time. Likewise, some cash paid in 2027 may settle obligations incurred earlier.

The next thing that confused me was discovering that the ₱7.2 trillion itself is not one single type of appropriation.

About ₱4.494 trillion consists of Programmed New General Appropriations (spending for which government has already identified the funding when the budget is prepared).

Another ₱2.706 trillion consists of Automatic Appropriations (spending already authorized under existing laws and therefore not requiring Congress to create a fresh annual appropriation for it).

Put those together and you get the roughly ₱7.2-trillion Total Expenditure Program.

That made the number much easier for me to understand:

₱4.494 trillion programmed + ₱2.706 trillion automatic = roughly ₱7.2 trillion.

There is also another official figure: about ₱4.606 trillion in New General Appropriations.

This was where I got confused again because I instinctively wanted to subtract ₱4.606 trillion from ₱7.2 trillion and figure out what the difference represented.

That would be the wrong way to read the figures.

The ₱4.606 trillion is constructed differently. It consists of the ₱4.494 trillion in Programmed New General Appropriations plus about ₱111.984 billion in Unprogrammed Appropriations (standby spending authority that can be used only when specified additional funding conditions are met).

So the same ₱4.494 trillion appears in two different calculations.

One calculation helps make up the ₱7.2-trillion expenditure program.

The other tells us how much in new annual appropriations Congress is being asked to authorize.

Once I understood that, the numbers stopped looking like contradictions.

AUTOMATIC DOES NOT MEAN AUTOMATICALLY SPENT

The ₱2.706 trillion in Automatic Appropriations surprised me because that is about 37.6 percent of the entire ₱7.2-trillion expenditure program.

My first question was obvious: if Congress passes a national budget every year, how can more than a third of the expenditure program already be automatic?

The answer is that another law has already provided the legal authority for those expenditures. Congress does not have to recreate that authority from scratch in every annual GAA.

But “automatic” does not mean the money simply goes out automatically.

Those appropriations are still subject to government budgeting, accounting and auditing rules. The legal authority may already exist, but actual execution still has to follow the budget system.

Two items account for almost all of the automatic portion.

The National Tax Allotment, which is the legally determined share going to local government units, is approximately ₱1.320 trillion for 2027. Interest payments on government debt are approximately ₱1.114 trillion.

Together, those two account for almost 90 percent of all Automatic Appropriations and roughly one-third of the entire ₱7.2-trillion expenditure program.

The year-to-year increase made this even more interesting.

The Total Expenditure Program increased by roughly ₱407 billion from 2026 to 2027. Of that increase, approximately ₱316 billion came from higher Automatic Appropriations.

That is almost eight pesos out of every ten pesos of the increase.

So when I hear that the proposed national budget increased by around 6 percent, I can no longer automatically interpret that as government simply deciding to spend 6 percent more on new programs. Much of the increase can come from obligations and transfers already built into the system.

I also cannot simply subtract Automatic Appropriations from the total and declare everything left over to be freely available money. The programmed budget still has to pay salaries, keep agencies operating, continue existing programs and fund commitments government already has.

There is no easy subtraction that tells me how much of the national budget is genuinely available for completely new choices.

UNPROGRAMMED DOES NOT MEAN “NO ONE KNOWS WHAT IT IS FOR”

The term Unprogrammed Appropriations sounded suspicious to me when I first encountered it because I assumed “unprogrammed” meant the government had money sitting around without knowing what to do with it.

That is not what it means.

The proposed 2027 Unprogrammed Appropriations amount to around ₱111.984 billion, and the purposes are already identified. They include foreign-assisted projects, restoration of certain Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation fund balances, risk-management requirements and certain government advances involving government corporations.

What makes them “unprogrammed” is not that nobody knows their purpose. It is that the authority is standby or conditional and can only be used when the required funding conditions are met.

That distinction makes the name easier to remember.

Programmed means the funding has already been identified.

Unprogrammed means the authority exists, but the required additional funding still has to materialize under the conditions set by law.

That is very different from a blank check.

APPROPRIATED DOES NOT MEAN SPENT

This was probably the most useful thing I learned because I had been using several budget words almost interchangeably.

I would read that Congress had “allocated” a certain amount, then see a report that DBM had “released” another amount, then later read that an agency had “spent” something else. If those numbers did not match, my instinct was to wonder which one was wrong.

Sometimes none of them is wrong because they are talking about different stages.

An appropriation is the legal authority to use government money for a particular purpose. An allotment is the amount an agency is authorized to commit. An obligation happens when government enters into a commitment that it must pay, and a disbursement is when the money is actually paid.

In simplified form:

proposed → appropriated → allotted → obligated → disbursed

That chain does not mean every government peso always moves through the exact same paperwork in exactly the same way. Some appropriations may already be considered released under the GAA while others require additional conditions or budget actions.

For an ordinary citizen trying to understand a news report, however, the important distinction is much simpler:

Appropriated does not automatically mean spent.

An amount appearing in the GAA does not necessarily mean the entire amount has already been paid out. An agency being authorized to commit money does not mean it has already spent all of it, and an obligation can exist before the corresponding cash payment has been completed.

That changes how I now read claims about billions supposedly being “spent” simply because somebody found the amount in the GAA.

WHY COMPARING THE NEP AND GAA MATTERS

Once I understood that the NEP was only the Executive’s starting proposal, I became curious about what happens when a number changes before becoming law.

The 2026 budget gave me a useful example through the Medical Assistance to Indigent and Financially Incapacitated Patients program, or MAIFIP, which provides medical assistance to qualified patients.

In the President’s 2026 NEP, MAIFIP had about ₱24.2 billion.

In the final 2026 GAA, it had about ₱51.6 billion.

That is a difference of roughly ₱27.4 billion, meaning the final appropriation was more than double the amount in the original proposal.

My first instinct was to say: Congress inserted ₱27 billion.

But the two documents alone do not prove that.

What they prove is that the number changed somewhere between the President’s original proposal and the final law.

To establish who actually originated the change, we would have to follow what happened in between. Was there a later request from the Executive? Did the House change the amount? What did the Senate do? What happened during bicam? What ultimately reached the President?

That may sound like splitting hairs, but it is important if we are going to accuse a particular person or institution of inserting money into the national budget.

The NEP and GAA give us two points on the timeline.

They do not automatically tell us everything that happened between them.

WHY THE 2027 NEP IS WORTH SAVING NOW

The 2027 NEP was submitted to Congress on August 11. That makes the document valuable precisely because the congressional process is only beginning.

It gives us the Executive’s starting position.

From here, we can eventually compare the NEP, the House version, the Senate version, the bicameral conference report, the bill sent to the President, presidential action and the final GAA.

After that comes another set of questions: how much was allotted, how much was obligated and how much was actually disbursed.

That gives ordinary people like me a much better way of looking at controversial budget items.

If a project appears in the final budget, I can first ask whether it was already in the President’s NEP. If it was not, I can look for the point where it first appeared and try to determine who proposed the change.

Even after finding that answer, I still have to ask whether the appropriation was actually released, committed and eventually spent.

That is considerably more work than looking at two numbers on Facebook and declaring that somebody stole or inserted the difference.

But it is also considerably more accurate.

I started this exercise thinking the national budget was basically one ₱7.2-trillion number that government would divide among agencies and then spend.

It is not.

The ₱7.2 trillion is an expenditure program made up of different kinds of spending authority. Some appropriations require fresh annual authorization, some already have authority under existing laws, some are conditional, and the amount government is legally allowed to commit is not necessarily the same as the cash it will actually pay during the year.

I still would not pretend that I now understand every corner of the Philippine national budget. If anything, reading the documents made me realize how dangerous it is to become confident after learning only one part of the process.

But I understand enough now to know what questions I should be asking.

An amount appearing in the GAA does not automatically tell me who put it there.

An appropriation does not automatically tell me how much was released.

A release does not automatically tell me how much was eventually spent.

And the ₱7.2-trillion headline does not describe one giant pile of money waiting for politicians to divide.

The NEP does something much more useful for those of us who want to follow what happens to public money.

It tells us where to start looking.

Sources

TRYING TO UNDERSTAND MANNY BONOAN’S “LEADERSHIP FUND”

Gino Borlado — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 07:48:20 GMT

I started reading about former DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan’s testimony because of the number that was everywhere: ₱500 million per senator.

Naturally, that catches your attention. Twenty-four senators multiplied by hundreds of millions of pesos sounds like pork barrel all over again. But after reading more of Bonoan’s testimony, his judicial affidavit, his earlier statements before the Senate, and some of the budget records, I realized I was asking the wrong question.

The question is not simply: Did senators get ₱500 million each?

First, because Bonoan was not saying that senators were handed ₱500 million in cash. Second, because the system he described appears to be much larger and more complicated than that number.

So I went back and tried to understand exactly what Bonoan was saying.

FIRST: NOBODY IS SAYING SENATORS WERE HANDED ₱500 MILLION IN CASH

This has to be separated from everything else immediately because the shorthand can easily become misleading.

Bonoan testified that senators had allocations for priority infrastructure projects under what DPWH internally called the “Senate Leadership Fund.” According to him, each senator had at least ₱500 million available for these projects, while the Senate president and chairpersons of major committees could have allocations of at least ₱1 billion.

That is not the same as saying a senator personally received ₱500 million.

There are separate allegations in the larger flood-control scandal involving commissions, kickbacks, cash deliveries and ghost projects. Those have to be proven separately. We cannot take Bonoan’s description of a project-allocation mechanism and automatically turn that into proof that every senator received money personally.

What Bonoan is describing here is budget space: billions of pesos worth of projects associated with lawmakers.

That is already serious enough without making it something it is not.

SO WHAT EXACTLY WAS THE “LEADERSHIP FUND”?

This is where I became more interested.

Normally, when we hear about congressional insertions, we think about Congress changing the budget after the Executive sends the National Expenditure Program, or NEP, to Congress.

The NEP is the President’s proposed national budget.

But Bonoan described something happening before that stage.

Back in September 2025, during a Senate investigation into anomalous flood-control projects, Senator Ping Lacson asked Bonoan how projects associated with legislators could already be appearing in the NEP, the Executive’s own budget proposal, before Congress had even begun deliberating on it.

Bonoan answered that DPWH consolidated lawmakers’ requested projects and included them in the NEP, including through what he called the Senate “leadership fund.”

So the existence of a leadership fund is actually not a brand-new revelation. Bonoan had already admitted it publicly in September 2025.

What is new is how much more detail he has now provided under oath.

According to his judicial affidavit, DPWH deliberately created the system so senators’ priority infrastructure projects could already be accommodated in the department’s proposed budget.

Think about what that means.

Before Congress formally receives the President’s budget proposal, the priority projects of individual legislators may already be inside it.

That was the part I wanted to understand.

WHY WOULD DPWH DO THAT?

Bonoan actually gave an explanation.

According to him, the problem began with what Congress did to DPWH’s proposed budget for 2023.

He specifically cited foreign-assisted projects. DPWH had proposed approximately ₱70.71 billion for these projects. After congressional action, according to Bonoan, only about ₱7.938 billion remained.

That is an approximately 88.8 percent reduction.

I checked this particular number because an almost 89-percent reduction sounded extraordinary. The figures reported from Bonoan’s affidavit correspond to the government budget records cited in subsequent reporting.

Bonoan said he brought the reductions to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who was alarmed that infrastructure programs connected with the administration’s socioeconomic agenda could be derailed. According to Bonoan, Marcos instructed that government resources should be allocated more equitably, including support for poorer and underserved provinces.

But there is an important line here that we should not cross.

Bonoan did not say, based on the affidavit made public so far, that President Marcos ordered him to create a ₱24-billion Senate Leadership Fund.

What he said was that DPWH itself later came up with what he called an “innovative way” of dealing with future congressional cuts: accommodate senators’ priority projects early, inside DPWH’s proposed budget, in the hope that legislators would then stop cutting or rearranging DPWH’s own programs.

Put simply, the idea seems to have been:

We make room for your projects now, and hopefully you leave our projects alone later.

According to Bonoan himself, it did not work.

He said congressional initiatives and insertions continued, and even increased, in succeeding budgets.

THEN WE GET TO THE ₱24 BILLION

For the proposed FY2024 DPWH budget, Bonoan says the system had an internal allocated limit of ₱24 billion.

This is where another confusing detail needs sorting out.

The ₱24 billion was apparently not an amount that automatically had to be spent. Bonoan described it as the internal ceiling for the system.

According to his affidavit, the minimum allocation was ₱500 million per senator, while the Senate president and chairpersons of major committees had at least ₱1 billion.

For FY2024, Bonoan says actual Senate “availment” reached ₱13.29 billion.

For FY2025, he says it reached approximately ₱21 billion.

Those are Bonoan’s figures.

I have not seen the complete DPWH allocation matrix that would allow me to independently add every project and reproduce the ₱13.29-billion and ₱21-billion totals myself.

That is where attribution becomes necessary.

Bonoan says DPWH records show those amounts.

Show us the records.

THEN HE SAID ALL THE SENATORS AVAILED OF IT

This is probably the statement that generated the biggest headlines.
Asked how many senators availed themselves of the leadership fund for the FY2025 budget, Bonoan said all senators did. Reports on his judicial affidavit likewise say ₱24 billion had been set aside for senators under the mechanism.
Again, I would be careful about translating that into:
“All senators received ₱500 million.”
What Bonoan is asserting is that DPWH records show all senators availed themselves of the mechanism for priority projects.
Those are different statements.
And if those DPWH records exist, this should actually be fairly straightforward to examine.
Which senator?
Which project?
How much?
Where?
When was it inserted into the NEP?
Was it eventually included in the General Appropriations Act?
Was it constructed?
How much did it cost?
Who was the contractor?
That is the trail I want to see.

ZUBIRI, ESCUDERO AND THE SENATE PRESIDENT’S ROLE

Bonoan also placed Senate leadership directly into his description of the process.

For FY2024, he said he met then Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri and informed him about the leadership fund and its guidelines. According to Bonoan, amounts were not fixed because allocations could be subject to the Senate president’s discretion.

Zubiri disputes Bonoan’s portrayal of his role.

He has said that he refused to handle such lists and that proposed budget amendments did not pass through his office.

Those statements need to be placed beside each other rather than choosing one simply because it fits a preferred conclusion.

Bonoan says he met Zubiri and explained the mechanism.

Zubiri says he did not handle senators’ project lists.

Those are not even necessarily exact opposites. There may have been a meeting without Zubiri personally processing individual requests.

This is why documents matter more than political statements.

For FY2025, Bonoan said he similarly met then Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero. According to DPWH records cited by Bonoan, Senate availment for that fiscal year reached roughly ₱21 billion.

Again: where are the records?

WHO IN THE EXECUTIVE KNEW ABOUT THIS?

Then Bonoan said something that, for me, deserves at least as much attention as the ₱500-million figure.

According to his affidavit, the initiative was “in principle acknowledged by members of the Cabinet Economic Team” when DPWH began preparing its proposed FY2024 budget.

I am being very careful with those words because they are Bonoan’s words.

He did not say, at least in the publicly reported portion of the affidavit, which members acknowledged it.

He did not explain exactly what “acknowledged in principle” meant.

He did not identify a Cabinet resolution or memorandum formally approving the ₱24-billion ceiling.

Malacañang, meanwhile, said President Marcos did not know about the leadership fund.

That does not automatically contradict Bonoan’s account.

Bonoan says Marcos knew about the enormous cuts to DPWH’s 2023 proposed budget because Bonoan personally raised the issue with him. Bonoan does not appear to say that Marcos personally approved or was even told about the subsequent leadership-fund mechanism.

Those are two separate things.

But Bonoan’s statement about members of the Cabinet Economic Team raises obvious questions.

Who were they?

What were they told?

Who approved the ₱24-billion internal limit?

Was DBM aware that portions of the DPWH NEP represented individual senators’ priority projects?

Was there a spreadsheet? A memorandum? An email? A project list?

An arrangement involving tens of billions of pesos should leave paperwork somewhere.

AND APPARENTLY THERE WAS A HOUSE VERSION TOO

This is where the issue becomes even wider.

Bonoan’s affidavit did not describe only the Senate.

He said DPWH also consulted then House Speaker Martin Romualdez, then House Appropriations chair Zaldy Co and other House leaders regarding infrastructure allocations for legislative districts.

According to Bonoan, regular congressional districts had a ₱500-million baseline allocation, calculated using a formula that considered population, land area, contribution to GDP, vulnerability to disasters, existing infrastructure, the poorest provinces and implementation performance.

Party-list representatives, according to Bonoan, had ₱120 million for priority projects in FY2023 and FY2024, increasing to ₱150 million in FY2025.

Now the question changes again.

We are no longer looking only at a mysterious “fund” supposedly associated with senators.

Bonoan is describing an entire budgeting practice in which the infrastructure priorities of legislators were considered while DPWH itself was preparing the Executive’s proposed budget.

Whether every part of that arrangement was improper is a separate legal question.

But the arrangement itself deserves examination.

IS THIS PDAF ALL OVER AGAIN?

My first reaction was probably the same as many people’s:

Wasn’t pork barrel already declared unconstitutional?

Yes, but this is where I had to slow down again.

In the 2013 Belgica v. Ochoa decision, the Supreme Court struck down the PDAF system and similar arrangements that allowed legislators to exercise post-enactment authority over project identification, releases, realignments and implementation after Congress had already passed the budget. The Court found that kind of legislative intervention in budget execution incompatible with the separation of powers.

Bonoan is describing something somewhat different.

The priority projects he is talking about were supposedly being placed into the budget before enactment, even before the Executive transmitted the NEP to Congress.

Does that automatically make the system constitutional? I cannot say that.

Does Belgica automatically make it unconstitutional? I cannot honestly say that either.

Lacson himself has described the leadership fund as improper, but not necessarily illegal.

That legal question should probably be answered by constitutional lawyers and, eventually, perhaps by the courts.

But there is a separate institutional question that ordinary citizens are perfectly capable of asking:

If legislators are already being allotted hundreds of millions or billions of pesos worth of priority projects while the Executive is preparing its own proposed budget, then where exactly does Executive budget preparation end and congressional influence begin?

I would like an answer to that.

THEN THERE IS BONOAN’S ₱292.715 BILLION CLAIM

Bonoan also made an even bigger allegation.

According to his affidavit, reductions from DPWH’s original FY2023 proposal, together with additional budget allocations, totaled ₱292.715 billion and were converted into 8,075 newly inserted projects shared between the House and Senate.

That number is staggering.

But this is one of the claims I am not yet prepared to repeat as independently established fact.

Bonoan said it under oath.

That gives the claim weight.

It does not relieve us of the responsibility to check it.

I have been able to confirm the massive reduction Bonoan cited involving foreign-assisted projects, from roughly ₱70.71 billion to ₱7.938 billion.

I have not yet independently reconstructed all 8,075 projects and reproduced Bonoan’s ₱292.715-billion total from the budget documents.

Until that is done, I would describe it exactly as what it currently is:

Bonoan’s sworn claim.

AND WE ALSO HAVE TO REMEMBER WHO BONOAN IS

Bonoan is not standing outside this scandal giving us an academic explanation of how DPWH worked.

He is himself facing plunder and graft charges arising from the infrastructure investigations, and prosecutors have expressed interest in using him as a state witness. His latest testimony was given as a prosecution witness in former Senator Bong Revilla’s ₱92.8-million malversation case involving an allegedly anomalous flood-control project.

That does not make his testimony false.

Neither does being under oath automatically make everything he says true.

An insider who participated in a system may be one of the best people to explain how it operated. An implicated insider may also have reasons to minimize his own role, emphasize the responsibility of others or cooperate with prosecutors.

So I am interested in Bonoan’s testimony, but I am more interested in the records that can corroborate it.

SO WHAT DID BONOAN ACTUALLY REVEAL?

After going through all of this, I no longer think the most interesting question is whether Senator X had ₱500 million or Senator Y had ₱1 billion.
The larger issue is the system Bonoan says DPWH created.
According to the former DPWH secretary himself, the department deliberately accommodated legislators’ priority infrastructure projects inside its proposed budget before that budget reached Congress. It did this because congressional alterations had previously gutted portions of DPWH’s program, and officials hoped that giving lawmakers room for their priorities early would prevent more cuts later. Bonoan says members of the Cabinet Economic Team acknowledged the initiative in principle, Senate presidents were briefed, billions were actually availed of, and similar arrangements existed on the House side.
If his account is accurate, that is bigger than a catchy ₱500-million headline.
It describes a way of building the national infrastructure budget.
It does not prove that every senator was corrupt.
It does not prove that every priority project was anomalous.
It does not prove that every legislator received a kickback.
And it certainly does not mean ₱500 million was handed personally to every senator.
Those require separate evidence.
But Bonoan says the records exist.
Then let us see them.
Show the FY2024 and FY2025 leadership-fund matrices.
Show which legislators recommended which projects.
Show how much each project received.
Show where those projects were located.
Show which projects were eventually included in the GAA.
Show which ones were completed.
Show the contractors.
And if DPWH really recorded approximately ₱13.29 billion in Senate availments for FY2024 and about ₱21 billion for FY2025, show us how those totals were reached.
Because right now, much of the public argument is happening around one number: ₱500 million.
After reading Bonoan’s testimony, I am beginning to think that number may actually be the least complicated part of the story.
The harder question is how this system was allowed to operate in the first place, and exactly who knew how it worked.

Sources

CASE TRACKER: SARA DUTERTE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL, DAY 15

Gino Borlado — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 07:00:00 GMT

ARTICLE I: ALLEGED MISUSE AND MISAPPROPRIATION OF CONFIDENTIAL FUNDS

Proceeding: Senate sitting as an impeachment court

Respondent: Vice President Sara Duterte

Presiding officer: Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero

Article under consideration: Article I, involving the alleged misuse and misappropriation of ₱612.5 million in confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education

Witness: Xylene Mae Del Campo of the Commission on Audit’s Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office

Stage of testimony: Continued cross-examination by the defense, followed by questions from senator-judges

A NOTE ON THIS TRACKER

This is a reconstruction of the August 12 hearing from reports by Philippine news organizations, official government material and the applicable rules of evidence. It is not an official transcript of the impeachment court.

The account separates testimony from arguments made by lawyers. It also separates evidence from courtroom exchanges that affected the hearing but did not prove or disprove any allegation under Article I.

I. WHERE THE CASE STOOD AT THE START OF DAY 15

The impeachment court remained on Article I, which covers the alleged misuse and misappropriation of ₱612.5 million in confidential funds. Official House material and contemporaneous reports describe the amount as ₱500 million in OVP confidential funds and ₱112.5 million in DepEd confidential funds.

Part of the prosecution’s case concerns alleged defects in the liquidation documents submitted for those expenses. House investigators previously questioned acknowledgment receipts carrying names that they said could not be matched with Philippine Statistics Authority civil-registry records.

Those allegations still have to be proved in the impeachment trial. A failed PSA search may raise a serious question about a payee’s identity, but it does not by itself establish who received the money, whether the listed person never existed or whether the transaction was fraudulent.

Most of Day 15 was devoted to the defense cross-examination of COA auditor Xylene Mae Del Campo. The questioning repeatedly returned to three subjects: COA’s audit process, the activities that may legally be charged to confidential funds and the acknowledgment receipts used to support the expenses.

II. THE ₱125-MILLION OVP CONFIDENTIAL-FUND EXPENDITURE

One of the central portions of Del Campo’s testimony concerned ₱125 million in OVP confidential funds made available for the period from December 21 to 31, 2022.

During questioning, Del Campo confirmed that the documents available to COA at the relevant stage were insufficient for the auditors to determine whether the ₱125 million had been personally used or properly used for authorized purposes. COA therefore requested additional supporting documents.

Her answer did not establish that Duterte personally took the money. It established a narrower point: the records then available to the auditors were not enough to verify the expenditure.

For an ordinary taxpayer, the difference is straightforward. Missing or inadequate records are a serious accountability problem because public money must be traceable. They are not, on their own, proof of personal theft. The remaining evidence must show where the money went, who received it and whether the expenditure was authorized.

UNUSED FUNDS AND RETURN TO THE TREASURY

Del Campo also confirmed the rule that confidential funds left unused after the authorized period must be returned to the Treasury.

That statement explains the rule. It does not establish that a particular amount from the ₱125 million remained unused. The unresolved factual questions are whether any money remained at the end of the authorized period, how much remained and whether it was returned.

III. WHAT MAY BE PAID FOR WITH CONFIDENTIAL FUNDS

The defense questioned Del Campo about Joint Circular No. 2015-01, which governs the entitlement, release, use, reporting and audit of confidential and intelligence funds. The questioning included surveillance and information-gathering activities that may fall within confidential operations.
Two issues must be examined separately:
Whether the stated activity is legally chargeable to confidential funds.
Whether the records prove that the particular activity took place and that the money was spent for it.
An activity may fall within an authorized category while the expense supporting it remains inadequately documented. Conversely, incomplete documents do not allow the court to assume, without more evidence, that no operation occurred. The trial must examine the rules and the proof for each questioned transaction.

IV. THE DOCUMENTS USED DURING CROSS-EXAMINATION

Defense counsel Kristine Ferrer and private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan clashed over documents used while Del Campo was being questioned. The dispute concerned whether particular documents could properly be shown to or identified through that witness.

The fact that a document has been marked or previously presented does not necessarily mean that every witness can authenticate it or testify about its contents. That depends on the witness’s knowledge and the purpose for which the document is being offered.

This was a procedural dispute over how evidence could be introduced and tested. The argument itself did not prove that the contents of the disputed documents were true or false.

V. ACKNOWLEDGMENT RECEIPTS AND QUESTIONED PAYEE NAMES

The cross-examination again dealt with names appearing on acknowledgment receipts connected to confidential-fund expenses. The prosecution has relied on records involving Mary Grace Piattos and other listed recipients that investigators said could not be matched with PSA civil-registry records.

Ferrer challenged the suggestion that an unusual or humorous-sounding name was enough to establish that the person was fictitious. Kapunan objected, arguing that the prosecution’s position was based on documents and PSA searches rather than the sound of the names alone. Escudero allowed the defense to continue questioning Del Campo.

The exchange exposed the correct evidentiary question. A strange name proves nothing by itself. The court must examine the acknowledgment receipt, the PSA search, signatures, supporting records and any evidence connecting the name or alias to a real recipient and a real confidential operation.

For the public, this is where the issue leaves political entertainment and returns to accountability. The question is whether government records can identify who received public money and demonstrate the authorized purpose for which it was spent.

VI. LEADING AND MISLEADING QUESTIONS

One widely shared exchange began when Kapunan objected that a question was misleading. She said misleading questions were not allowed. Ferrer responded that they were allowed.
Rule 132, Section 10 of the Rules of Evidence distinguishes the two forms of questioning:
A leading question suggests the answer the examining lawyer wants. Leading questions are generally permitted during cross-examination.
A misleading question assumes as true a fact that the witness has not testified to, or a fact contrary to the witness’s testimony. Misleading questions are not allowed.
The Supreme Court Benchbook makes the same distinction. The rule concerns the proper examination of a witness. It does not decide whether any allegation under Article I is true.

VII. THE ARGUMENT OVER “YES” OR “NO” ANSWERS

Another dispute arose when Ferrer pressed for a yes-or-no answer while Del Campo sought to explain her response. Kapunan objected and later said that the witness had already answered. Escudero directed Ferrer to modify or reformulate the question.

Cross-examination permits firm questioning, but the presiding officer retains authority to stop questions that are misleading, vague, repetitive or argumentative. A lawyer may test a witness’s answer. The lawyer cannot force a categorical answer when the form of the question would make that answer incomplete or misleading.

The episode showed Escudero exercising control over the examination. It did not add evidence about the use of confidential funds.

VIII. THE FERRER-KAPUNAN CONFRONTATION

The disagreement became personal when Kapunan said she was preventing herself from giving Ferrer “a spanking.” Escudero intervened and referred to a possible generational divide. Ferrer later asked the court to stop side comments directed at counsel. Reports said Kapunan withdrew the remark.

The confrontation consumed time and disrupted the cross-examination. It had no evidentiary value under Article I. Neither the remark nor the lawyers’ reactions proved anything about the questioned transactions.

IX. BAM AQUINO’S QUESTION ABOUT A POSSIBLE FRAUD AUDIT

Sen. Bam Aquino asked Del Campo whether COA could conduct a fraud investigation or fraud audit into the unusual names or aliases in the confidential-fund records.

Del Campo said no fraud audit had yet been conducted because the issue was still being studied. She also confirmed that COA could conduct one if necessary.

The testimony therefore did not establish that COA had found fraud. It also did not clear the transactions. It established only that this particular type of audit had not yet been completed and remained possible.

If COA conducts a fraud audit, the resulting report could give the public a more complete answer about the identities, documents and transactions under question. Until then, “fraud” remains an allegation rather than a COA finding arising from such an audit.

X. ROBIN PADILLA’S SECURITY LINE OF QUESTIONING

Sen. Robin Padilla questioned Del Campo in the context of alleged communist or terrorist infiltration involving alternative schools and Lumad schools in Davao, where Duterte previously served as mayor.

The reports reviewed for this tracker did not preserve enough of Del Campo’s complete answer to support a reliable conclusion from that exchange. Padilla’s questions may be recorded as part of the hearing, but they cannot be presented as confirmation or rejection by COA of his security argument.

XI. THE SOCIAL-MEDIA POST RAISED BY THE DEFENSE

Prosecution lawyer Amando Virgil Ligutan posted during the hearing that misleading questions are not allowed even on cross-examination. Defense lead counsel Sheila Sison later raised the post before the court and argued that it was improper under Rule XVIII of the impeachment rules.

The safe conclusion is limited: Sison made the objection and cited Rule XVIII. Unless the impeachment court rules on it, the tracker should not state as fact that Ligutan violated the rule.

The legal proposition in Ligutan’s post is separately supported by Rule 132, Section 10. The dispute over his public comment remains separate from the evidence concerning the confidential funds.

XII. WHAT DAY 15 ADDED TO THE RECORD

Day 15 added or clarified the following points:
COA did not have enough documentation at the relevant audit stage to determine whether the ₱125-million expenditure had been personally or properly used, so it requested additional records.
Confidential funds left unused after the authorized period must be returned to the Treasury, although Day 15 did not establish that any particular amount remained unused.
The defense challenged the treatment of unusual names and aliases on acknowledgment receipts.
The prosecution maintained that its concern rested on documents and PSA searches, not merely on names sounding unusual.
COA had not yet conducted the fraud audit discussed by Aquino, although Del Campo said one could be conducted if necessary.
The parties continued to dispute what counts as a confidential activity and whether the claimed activities were adequately documented.
The parties also disputed which documents Del Campo could properly identify or address during cross-examination.

XIII. WHAT DAY 15 DID NOT ESTABLISH

The testimony and exchanges on August 12 did not, by themselves, establish that:
Duterte personally pocketed the ₱125 million.
All of the ₱125 million was improperly spent.
Any specific amount remained unused and should have been returned.
Every listed recipient without a PSA match was fictitious.
An unusual name was proof that its bearer did not exist.
COA had completed a fraud audit and found fraud.
Every claimed surveillance or information-gathering activity was legitimate.
Every claimed operation was illegitimate.
Ligutan violated Rule XVIII.
Article I had been resolved.

XIV. QUESTIONS THAT REMAIN OPEN

The ₱125-million fund

What documents did the OVP originally submit to account for the expenditure?
What additional records did COA request?
Which requested records were later submitted?
Was COA eventually able to trace the full amount?
Did any amount remain unused, and was it returned to the Treasury?

Acknowledgment receipts

What evidence identifies each questioned recipient beyond the name on the receipt?
Which names produced no match in the PSA search?
If aliases or operational names were used, what underlying records connect them to real recipients or assets?
Who prepared and signed the receipts?
What do the handwriting, signatures and related documents show?

Claimed confidential operations

What operations did the OVP say it funded?
Which activities are permitted under Joint Circular No. 2015-01?
What proof was required for each expense, and what proof was submitted?
Which expenses were accepted, suspended, questioned or disallowed by COA, and on what grounds?

Audit status

What did the regular confidential-funds audit conclude?
Were any findings changed on review or appeal?
Has COA ordered or begun a fraud audit?
If it does, what transactions and periods will it cover?
These questions return the case to the public-accountability issue: where the money went, what it paid for and whether the records can prove both.

XV. BOTTOM LINE

Day 15 showed that COA had been unable, from the documents available at the relevant stage, to verify whether the ₱125-million OVP confidential-fund expenditure was properly used. The defense continued to challenge COA’s audit approach, the treatment of questioned payee names and the documentary basis of the prosecution’s case.

The hearing also produced arguments between counsel that drew public attention but did not prove the allegations. Article I remained unresolved. The next useful evidence will be the additional records requested by COA, testimony explaining the questioned receipts and any later audit findings capable of tracing the money to identified recipients and authorized operations.

Sources

IS THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL BECOMING CHIZ ESCUDERO’S REDEMPTION STORY?

Gino Borlado — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 05:17:48 GMT

I have been watching Chiz Escudero closely during the impeachment trial, and I have to give him this: he is doing a good job as presiding officer. He comes prepared. He follows the testimony. He remembers previous rulings and discussions. He seems to know where the lawyers are going with their questions, and when an objection comes up, he can usually identify the issue without requiring another fifteen minutes of argument from everybody. He also manages the traffic inside that courtroom reasonably well, which is not easy when you have prosecutors, defense lawyers, witnesses, and 24 politicians who are also supposed to behave like judges.

Considering my previous criticism of Escudero, I find myself asking an uncomfortable question: is being presiding officer becoming his saving grace?

Maybe.

Or perhaps the better question is: is this impeachment trial becoming his redemption story? Because hanging over Escudero is still what happened in 2025. I have not forgotten the first Sara Duterte impeachment, the arguments over when the Senate should act, and that one word in the Constitution that became almost impossible to separate from Escudero:

“Forthwith.”

The House transmitted the Articles of Impeachment on February 5, 2025. Escudero maintained that the Senate could not convene as an impeachment court while Congress was in recess. When Congress resumed, the presentation of the Articles was again moved while the Senate attended to legislative business. Then, when the Senate finally convened as an impeachment court, it voted to return the Articles to the House for certifications and clarifications instead of proceeding directly to trial. I remember the frustration then. Every time it looked as though the impeachment might finally move forward, another procedural question seemed to appear.

Now, fairness requires acknowledging what happened afterward. In April 2026, the Supreme Court said “forthwith” did not require the Senate to begin the trial instantaneously. It treated the timing and preparation of an impeachment trial as matters within the Senate's discretion and found no grave abuse in the Senate's failure to convene immediately. The Court also dismissed the petition as moot because the 2025 Articles of Impeachment had already been nullified. So no, I am not going to pretend that Escudero ultimately lost that legal argument. He did not. But the political memory of 2025 did not disappear with the Supreme Court decision.

For me, that remains the sword of Damocles hanging above him as he presides over this trial. Which is why his performance now has caught my attention. The Chiz Escudero I am watching today looks different from the Chiz Escudero I remember from that impeachment. But there is one area where he still needs work. He is very good at policing the people standing before the impeachment court. I am not yet convinced that he is equally willing to police the people sitting on it.

And now that he is preparing a ruling on Rule 18 and the out-of-court statements being made by lawyers from both camps, that question becomes harder to avoid. Escudero said on Wednesday, August 12, that he was preparing a ruling, warning, and order after defense counsel Sheila Sison complained about a Facebook post by private prosecutor Amando Ligutan. He also said the impeachment court had already been monitoring public statements and that some participants had crossed the line more than once. Okay. Fair enough.

Lawyers appearing before an impeachment court should observe decorum. If Escudero believes lawyers from either side have been publicly discussing the merits of the case in violation of the rules, then rule on it. Warn them. Reprimand them. If warranted and legally supported, cite them for contempt. But I went back and read Rule 18.

WHO EXACTLY IS RULE 18 FOR?

Rule XVIII does not begin with the prosecution. It does not begin with the defense. It does not even begin with the witnesses. It begins with the presiding officer and the members of the Senate. They are the first people instructed to refrain from publicly commenting on the merits of a pending impeachment trial. The prosecutors, respondent, lawyers, and witnesses come afterward. Senator-judges are expressly covered by the rule. The same impeachment rules require senators to observe political neutrality during the trial, and every senator-judge took an oath to render impartial justice.

So if Escudero is going to issue a ruling on Monday, August 17, defining what lawyers may or may not say outside the courtroom, there is another question he needs to answer: What about the senator-judges? Because we already have examples. Remember Robin Padilla publicly discussing the authenticity of the video evidence after questioning a witness about essentially the same issue? The impeachment court's own spokesperson later reminded everyone that senator-judges themselves are bound by Rule 18. Then there is Pia Cayetano.

She reposted an edited video of Chel Diokno that made it appear that Diokno had admitted the prosecution was simply fishing for evidence. When the entire exchange was examined, the missing context showed otherwise. Diokno had been explaining what would constitute a fishing expedition and why, in his view, the prosecution's request did not fall into that category. That was not some anonymous Facebook account posting it. Pia Cayetano was sitting as a senator-judge in the same impeachment trial. An ethics complaint was subsequently filed against her.

So, ano na?

I am not saying Escudero personally has the authority to decide Pia Cayetano's ethics complaint. He does not. That belongs to the proper Senate process. But Rule 18 is an impeachment rule. If the impeachment court is now examining whether lawyers have violated it, then the conduct of senator-judges covered by the exact same rule should not suddenly become invisible. And this is part of the test for Escudero now.

If this really is becoming his redemption story, then competence alone will not be enough. He will also have to show that the rules remain rules even when the people testing them happen to be his fellow senators.

THEN THERE WAS IMEE MARCOS AND WAMIL

I have already written about this particular exchange, so some of you may remember it. During Imee Marcos's questioning of former COA auditor Roderick Wamil, Marcos clearly had an angle she wanted Wamil to go to. She was trying to establish that responsibility for the confidential funds rested principally with the special disbursing officer rather than with Vice President Sara Duterte as head of the agency. Wamil would not go there.

He disagreed with Marcos's interpretation and explained why. His position was that the governing rules also imposed responsibilities upon the head of the agency. Marcos kept trying to reduce the issue to the answer she wanted, while Wamil kept explaining why it was not as simple as the yes-or-no answer she was demanding. Gladly, Wamil stood his ground. A witness can disagree with the senator asking the question without becoming argumentative. If the senator puts forward a proposition that the witness believes is wrong, particularly when that witness is there because of his professional expertise, he has to be allowed to say so.

Marcos eventually complained that Wamil was always “fighting” with her. Then Escudero intervened and told Wamil to avoid arguing with the senator-judges. If Wamil was becoming argumentative, then by all means tell Wamil to stop arguing. But Marcos was not simply asking a question and waiting for an answer. She was driving toward a conclusion she appeared to want the witness to accept, and when he would not accept it, she kept pressing him. So why was only Wamil corrected? Why not tell Marcos, “Senator, please allow the witness to explain his answer”? Because otherwise the rule becomes absurd.

A senator-judge may argue with a witness, but the witness may not argue back. Worse, “do not argue with the senator-judge” can very quickly become “do not contradict the senator-judge.” And I will hazard a guess here. This is an inference from watching the questioning, not something I can prove. I would not have been surprised if Marcos was hoping Wamil would eventually make a mistake and give her one clean answer that could be isolated from everything else he had said. One careless yes. One badly worded sentence. Something that could later be repeated without the qualifications that came before and after it.

We have already seen how this works. Chel Diokno gave a longer explanation about what constitutes a fishing expedition. One fragment was pulled out, the context disappeared, and the circulating clip made it look as though he had admitted something he had actually denied. This is a tactic we have repeatedly seen from Duterte-aligned social-media pages: isolate the useful sentence, remove the surrounding explanation, then circulate the shortened version until that becomes the version people remember. That is why I was glad Wamil refused to be pushed into an answer he did not believe was accurate.

A loaded question can become content by itself. A reluctant “yes” can become a headline. The witness's explanation immediately afterward may never make it into the Facebook reel. I cannot say that this was Marcos's purpose. I do not know what was in her head. But I can say that she appeared to have a prepared proposition she wanted Wamil to validate, and Wamil refused to give her the uncomplicated answer she was looking for.

Good for him.

POLITE WARNINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS ENOUGH

This also goes to Escudero's courtroom style. He is almost unfailingly polite, and usually that is a good quality. But sometimes I find myself wishing he would use the damn gavel. There have been repeated instances of lawyers interrupting each other, continuing to argue after a ruling, speaking over witnesses, or turning what should have been a simple objection into another round of oral arguments. Escudero often responds by nicely asking them to stop. Then they do it again. At some point, a presiding officer has to establish that an instruction is not a suggestion.

You do not have to scream. You do not have to embarrass anybody for sport. But there are occasions when counsel should be called to the bench and reprimanded, on the record, so everybody understands that the next warning will not sound exactly like the previous five warnings. Personally, I would probably prescribe something more memorable for repeat offenders, but apparently public bitch-slapping and 40 lashes are not recognized sanctions under the Senate impeachment rules.

Sayang.

There are, however, real sanctions available. Rule 18 itself does not provide an automatic punishment. It tells the covered persons what they must not do but does not attach a specific fine, jail term, or other penalty to a violation. The impeachment court does have contempt powers. Rule V authorizes the Senate to preserve order and punish contempt of, or disobedience to, its authority and orders. That does not make contempt automatic for every Rule 18 dispute. It means the court has stronger tools available if warnings and reprimands fail and the legal requirements for contempt are met.

So whatever standard Escudero announces on August 17 should answer more than what a prosecutor or defense lawyer is allowed to post on Facebook. It should tell us whether Rule 18 is actually a rule of the impeachment court or merely a rule for people who do not have Senate seats.

ROBIN PADILLA AND THE QUESTION BEHIND THE QUESTION

Robin Padilla raises another version of the same problem. I cannot prove that Padilla asks certain questions specifically so trolls can cut them into clips and circulate them online, so I will not state that as fact. But I can watch what his questions do. When a senator-judge asks a question containing an accusation or political proposition, the question itself can become the clip. The witness's explanation afterward may never make it onto Facebook or TikTok. We have already seen Padilla publicly discuss an evidentiary issue after questioning a witness about that same issue.

We have also heard him tell the prosecution that he hoped it would not be “one-sided.” But of course the prosecution is one-sided. It is the prosecution. The defense is also one-sided. That is why we have senator-judges. They are supposed to be the ones who are not. If a senator-judge starts using his questioning to establish his own preferred conclusion rather than to clarify testimony, the presiding officer cannot treat that as something completely beyond his concern.

The same goes for questions that seem designed to force a witness into a particular formulation. The senator may call it questioning. The witness may experience it as being pushed toward an answer. And once again, one badly worded answer can leave the courtroom and take on a completely different life online.

WHO POLICES THE SENATOR-JUDGES?

Escudero's responsibility goes beyond keeping the prosecution and defense in their lanes. He also has to protect the integrity of the tribunal itself. I am not suggesting that Chiz can simply suspend Imee Marcos, Robin Padilla, or Pia Cayetano whenever he believes one of them has misbehaved. The powers of a presiding officer are not unlimited. Formal disciplinary proceedings against senators have their own constitutional and Senate processes. But he can call them out. He can enforce courtroom rules evenly. He can remind a senator-judge that a witness is entitled to complete an answer.

He can make it clear that argumentative questioning is still argumentative questioning even when the person doing it is sitting behind the bench. And if Rule 18 applies to senator-judges, and the language of Rule 18 says that it does, then any interpretation he announces should not magically stop at the edge of the senators' table. That is what I mean when I say Escudero has to police his own ranks. His authority over fellow senators has limits, but he cannot demand discipline from everybody below the dais while treating everything happening on the dais as somebody else's problem.

If Escudero reprimands prosecutors when they cross the line, good. If he reprimands defense counsel when they cross the line, good. If he corrects a witness who becomes argumentative, good. But when a senator-judge crosses the line, there cannot suddenly be silence. And this is where I come back to 2025. Because if I am going to call this a redemption story, then I have to be fair about what redemption actually means.

Escudero does not need redemption because he was legally proven wrong about every procedural position he took in 2025. He wasn't. The Supreme Court later gave substantial support to the Senate's discretion over the timing and preparation of an impeachment trial, while dismissing the petition against it as moot. What he has to overcome is the political and institutional impression left by that episode: that when confronted with an impeachment of Sara Duterte, procedure seemed to become a series of brakes. This time, he is presiding over the actual trial. He is prepared. He is following the evidence. He is making rulings.

He is keeping the proceeding moving. And, yes, I am noticing. That is why I think being presiding officer may indeed be becoming Chiz Escudero's redemption story. But redemption is not completed by competence alone. The harder test is what happens when enforcing the rules becomes uncomfortable. It is easy enough to correct a lawyer. It is easy enough to admonish a witness. It is considerably harder to look at somebody sitting beside you, another senator and another senator-judge, and say: you crossed the line too. That is where Escudero is now. The August 17 Rule 18 ruling could become part of that answer.

If he establishes a standard and applies it consistently to everyone expressly covered by the rule, including the senator-judges, then perhaps we really are watching Chiz Escudero put some distance between himself and the impeachment controversy of 2025. If the rules are strict for lawyers and witnesses but somehow become softer when they reach the senators' table, then the sword is still hanging there. So, is the impeachment trial becoming Chiz Escudero's redemption story?

Maybe.

So far, he is giving me reason to think it could be. But the story is not finished yet.

Sources

WHY IS APOLLO QUIBOLOY STILL HERE?

Gino Borlado — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 12:14:05 GMT

The United States has formally asked the Philippines to extradite Apollo Quiboloy. The request was sent through the Department of Foreign Affairs to the Department of Justice in July.

Quiboloy is already in Philippine custody. He is being tried here on human trafficking and child abuse charges, which he has denied. That leaves the government with a difficult question: should the Philippine cases finish first, or should it ask the courts to let the United States prosecute him temporarily?

I first assumed that his local cases settled the issue. Then I read Article 11 of the extradition treaty between the Philippines and the United States. It gives the Philippines two possible routes when a person is already being prosecuted here.

The government may postpone extradition until the Philippine prosecution is finished and any sentence has been served. If the extradition request is granted, it may also temporarily surrender the accused for prosecution in the United States, under conditions agreed upon by both countries, and require his return afterward.

The treaty does not make temporary surrender automatic. The legal process still has to be completed, and the Philippine courts handling Quiboloy's cases have a role. It does mean that pending cases here do not end the discussion by themselves.

THE PHILIPPINE CASES CANNOT BE BRUSHED ASIDE

There are complainants in the Philippines, cases filed under Philippine law and courts already hearing them. Sending Quiboloy abroad could affect schedules, witnesses and the progress of those trials. Filipino complainants should not be pushed to the back of the line simply because another country also wants to prosecute him.

That was the government's position in September 2024. The Department of Justice said Quiboloy should be tried here first and, if convicted, serve his sentence before any US extradition request was granted. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. also said the Philippine cases had to come first.

There was no formal US request before the government at the time. There is one now, so the administration must decide whether to keep the same sequence or consider temporary surrender.

For ordinary Filipinos, this is about whether the justice system can protect complainants here while following the legal process agreed upon with the United States. A clear explanation would allow the public to judge whether the order of prosecution follows the law and the needs of the cases.

THE 2025 CONFUSION STILL NEEDS AN EXPLANATION

The public heard conflicting accounts about the request last year. In August 2025, Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez said documents had already been sent. The Department of Justice and the Department of Foreign Affairs said they had not received a formal request. Romualdez later said the formal request was still forthcoming.

Those statements can all be true if the 2025 papers were drafts, supporting documents or preliminary communications that had not yet become the formal diplomatic request required by the extradition process. The problem is that the government never clearly told the public what those documents actually were.

The request transmitted in July 2026 is different: it is the formal request. It is now before the DOJ and the Philippine courts that are trying Quiboloy's local cases.

A REQUEST DOES NOT PUT HIM ON A PLANE

The existence of the request does not mean Quiboloy can be transferred immediately. The DOJ must review it, the legal requirements must be tested and the courts handling his Philippine cases must approve the next steps. The Associated Press reported, citing two senior Philippine officials, that approval is needed from both courts trying his local cases.

Quiboloy can contest the process through his lawyers. Disputes over the treaty, his local cases and his rights could delay any transfer even if the government supports it.

Those stages are not interchangeable. A DOJ review means the executive branch is still checking the request. A court filing places the next decision before a judge. A defense challenge means Quiboloy is using the remedies available to him. A decision to finish the Philippine trials first would be a policy choice allowed by the treaty.

THE ANSWER WE HAVE SO FAR

For now, he remains here because his Philippine cases are still being tried, the courts have not approved his transfer and the government has not publicly said that it will pursue temporary surrender.

That answer may change as the DOJ reviews the formal request. The treaty provides a choice. The government now has to say whether it will seek temporary surrender or defer extradition until the Philippine cases are finished, and identify the next legal step.

WHAT THE AUGUST 4 IMPEACHMENT HEARING ACTUALLY SHOWED

Gino Borlado — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 22:45:00 GMT

The twelfth day of Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial focused on a basic accountability question: Can the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education show where their confidential funds went and why the expenses were allowed?

Former Commission on Audit state auditor Roderick Wamil testified that more than ₱200 million in confidential-fund expenses reported by the two offices lacked the supporting documents required under government audit rules.

His testimony strengthened the prosecution’s case that large amounts were poorly documented and that some expenses may not have been allowable uses of confidential funds.

It did not establish that Duterte personally received or pocketed the money.

₱129 MILLION IN OVP EXPENSES WAS FLAGGED

Wamil testified that at least ₱129 million from the OVP’s confidential funds for the first two quarters of 2023 lacked attachments supporting the reported expenses.

The amount included:

• ₱82 million reported as medical and food assistance;

• ₱27 million in reward payments; and

• ₱20 million in travel incentives connected with confidential operations.

According to Wamil, the OVP did not submit documents showing who received the medical and food assistance or how the payments were connected to confidential operations.

He also said medical and food assistance and travel incentives were not among the authorized confidential-fund expenses listed under Joint Circular No. 2015-01.

Reward payments can be charged to confidential funds, but Wamil said they must be connected to successful information-gathering or surveillance activities. He testified that the OVP did not submit documents showing the intelligence activities or results behind the reported ₱27 million in rewards.

This does not prove that every transaction was fictitious. It means the documents submitted to COA were insufficient, according to Wamil, to verify that the expenses were legitimate and allowable.

DEPED’S ₱112.5 MILLION HAD SIMILAR DOCUMENTATION PROBLEMS

The Department of Education received ₱112.5 million in confidential funds during the first three quarters of 2023. The money was divided into three allocations of ₱37.5 million.

The plans listed four broad programs:

• counter-insurgency;

• prevention and control of abuse in schools;

• operations against illegal activities; and

• anti-extremism and anti-terrorism.

Wamil testified that the plans did not identify the specific confidential operations that would be conducted.

DepEd later submitted accomplishment reports, but Wamil said the documents did not identify the schools, locations, organizations, individuals or operations covered by the reported activities.

One program supposedly involved preventing the recruitment of teachers and students by communist or leftist groups. Wamil said DepEd did not submit a list of the groups involved, the schools covered or the activities conducted.

The problem was not merely that the programs were confidential. According to Wamil, the reports did not contain enough information to connect the expenses to identifiable operations and results.

DEPED’S DISBURSEMENT VOUCHERS WERE NOT APPROVED BY DUTERTE

Wamil also testified that three DepEd disbursement vouchers were approved by then-Finance Undersecretary Annalyn Sevilla instead of Duterte, who was then the education secretary.

He considered this a violation of the joint circular because the rules assign responsibility for approving confidential-fund cash advances to the head of the agency.

The defense may still dispute Wamil’s interpretation or argue that Sevilla had sufficient authority. But his testimony gave the prosecution another compliance issue beyond the missing attachments.

DUTERTE’S SIGNATURES APPEARED ON KEY DOCUMENTS

The prosecution repeatedly asked Wamil to identify the signatures appearing on the OVP and DepEd records.

Wamil identified Duterte’s signature on several documents, including OVP disbursement vouchers, liquidation reports and DepEd physical and financial plans.

Some documents contained certifications that the expenses were necessary and lawful, were incurred under her direct supervision or that the purpose of the cash advance had been accomplished.

The signatures connect Duterte to the approval and certification process. They make it more difficult for her to separate herself completely from how the funds were reported and liquidated.

But a signature does not, on its own, prove that Duterte prepared the acknowledgment receipts, invented any recipient, personally received the funds or knowingly certified a fabricated transaction.

Those connections still require evidence.

COA ISSUED TWO AUDIT OBSERVATION MEMORANDA

The OVP submitted its liquidation report for the 2022 confidential-fund allocation in January 2023.

COA issued its first Audit Observation Memorandum, or AOM, on September 14, 2023. A second AOM followed on October 3, 2023.

The defense emphasized that an AOM is not a final Notice of Disallowance, a criminal ruling or a judgment by the impeachment court.

An AOM informs a government office that auditors have found deficiencies. The office is then given an opportunity to explain the transactions, correct the records or submit additional documents.

Wamil confirmed that the OVP responded to the audit observations. He maintained, however, that the explanations and records submitted did not satisfy the requirements of the joint circular.

The existence of two AOMs is important to the timeline, but neither memorandum should be described as a final finding that Duterte stole or personally used the money.

OVP AND DEPED OFFICIALS ASKED FOR AN “AUDIT QUERY”

Wamil also testified about a September 2023 meeting involving OVP Chief of Staff Zuleika Lopez, then-DepEd official Michael Poa and COA officials.

According to Wamil, Lopez and Poa asked whether COA could issue an “audit query” instead of an AOM if the auditors found problems with the liquidation documents.

COA rejected the request because an audit query was not among the procedures provided under Joint Circular No. 2015-01.

During cross-examination, Wamil described the request as effectively seeking an exemption from the procedure required under the circular.

The prosecution may use this testimony to argue that OVP and DepEd officials wanted the findings handled through a less formal process.

The hearing, however, did not establish why Lopez and Poa made the request. Asking for a different audit procedure does not by itself prove an attempt to hide fraud.

THE REPORTED 11-DAY SPENDING PERIOD WAS NOT ILLEGAL BY ITSELF

The defense secured an important concession from Wamil.

He acknowledged that no provision in the joint circular specifically prohibited the OVP from using its ₱125-million confidential-fund allocation within 11 days.

Wamil said the period was mentioned as a fact but was not itself included as an audit violation.

The 11-day description comes from COA’s accounting that the funds were reported as utilized between December 20 and December 31, 2022.

The OVP disputes that timeframe.

During congressional budget deliberations in 2023, then-Davao de Oro representative Maria Carmen Zamora, speaking as the OVP’s budget sponsor, said implementation began on December 13, when the Special Allotment Release Order was issued.

Under that calculation, the period was 19 days rather than 11.

The disagreement over whether the correct period was 11 or 19 days should be kept separate from the audit questions.

Under either calculation, Wamil acknowledged that the speed of utilization was not prohibited by itself.

The prosecution must still show that particular expenses were unauthorized, unsupported, fictitious or unrelated to legitimate confidential operations.

The short period may raise questions about how the money was used so quickly. It is not, standing alone, proof of an offense.

SARA DUTERTE WAS NOT THE FIRST VICE PRESIDENT WITH CONFIDENTIAL FUNDS

The defense presented a December 2014 Special Allotment Release Order from the Department of Budget and Management showing that the OVP under then-Vice President Jejomar Binay also received confidential funds.

This rebutted claims that Duterte was the first vice president in Philippine history to receive such an allocation.

Wamil clarified that Duterte was the only vice president whose confidential funds he had personally audited.

The Binay document provides useful historical context, but it does not answer whether Duterte’s own expenses were properly documented or authorized.

Binay’s allocation was also released before Joint Circular No. 2015-01 took effect.

THE DEFENSE INVOKED AN OLDER COA CIRCULAR

The defense showed Wamil a 1992 COA circular discussing the difficulty of requiring ordinary receipts for safehouses, meals, supplies and other covert expenses.

The circular recognized that identifying safehouse owners, informants or confidential agents through conventional receipts could expose operations or place people at risk.

The prosecution objected, arguing that the 2015 joint circular superseded the older issuance. It also questioned whether the defense had presented the proper original document.

Impeachment court presiding officer Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero noted the objection but did not prevent the defense from presenting the original later.

The issue remained unresolved.

Confidential operations may require protection from public disclosure. But even when ordinary commercial receipts are impractical, the question remains whether the agency must submit alternative records showing that the operation, informant, reward or safehouse actually existed.

THE “SCAM” REMARK WAS STRUCK FROM THE RECORD

Prosecution lawyer Lorna Kapunan described the confidential-fund arrangement as a “scam” during her questioning.

Poa objected.

Escudero sustained the objection and ordered the remark removed from the trial record.

The word was Kapunan’s characterization. It was not a conclusion made by Wamil, COA or the impeachment court.

Kapunan later defended her statement outside the proceedings, but it remains an argument from the prosecution rather than an established finding.

A SUBPOENA FOR “MARY GRACE PIATTOS” WAS STILL UNDER DISCUSSION

Kapunan also said the prosecution was discussing whether to ask the impeachment court to subpoena “Mary Grace Piattos,” one of the names appearing in acknowledgment receipts submitted for OVP confidential-fund expenses.

As of the August 4 hearing, no subpoena for Piattos had been issued.

Prosecutors also acknowledged that they had not located the supposed recipient.

The inability to locate the person adds to the questions surrounding the acknowledgment receipts.

It does not yet establish who created the name, whether the identity was fabricated or where the corresponding money went.

WHAT THE HEARING SHOWED

The prosecution presented substantial testimony that the OVP and DepEd reported confidential-fund expenses without the records that Wamil believed were required under Joint Circular No. 2015-01.

Wamil also testified that some reported OVP expenses did not fall within the allowable purposes of confidential funds.

Duterte’s signatures appeared on several approval and certification documents, connecting her to the official paper trail.

The prosecution therefore strengthened its case that there were serious documentation and compliance problems involving the funds.

WHAT THE HEARING DID NOT SHOW

The August 4 testimony did not establish that Duterte personally received the questioned money.

It did not establish that she personally invented recipients, prepared false acknowledgment receipts or ordered public funds converted for private use.

It also did not establish that the entire ₱612.5 million in OVP and DepEd confidential funds was stolen or improperly spent.

The AOMs discussed by Wamil were audit observations, not final judgments of liability.

The prosecution still has to connect the documentary deficiencies to Duterte’s knowledge, intent and personal responsibility.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The prosecution had a strong day on documentary accountability.

Wamil’s testimony placed more than ₱200 million in OVP and DepEd expenses under serious doubt because of allegedly missing, inadequate or noncompliant records.

Duterte’s signatures also connected her to several levels of approval and certification.

The defense prevented the prosecution from treating weak documentation as automatic proof of personal theft.

Its cross-examination established that the reported 11-day utilization period was not itself prohibited, that the OVP submitted liquidation reports and responses, that the audit observations were not final rulings, and that a Binay-era OVP had also received confidential funds.

But the central question remains unanswered:

Where is the reliable documentation showing what the questioned confidential funds actually paid for?

Until the defense produces records or testimony capable of answering that question, the documentary gaps identified by Wamil will remain one of the prosecution’s strongest arguments under Article I.

Sources

THE NAMES BEHIND SARA DUTERTE’S INSULT TO FISCAL TRANSPARENCY

Gino Borlado — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 09:03:48 GMT

Mary Grace Piattos, Xiaome Ocho, Mico Harina, Patty Ting, Ralph Josh Bacon, Sala Casim, Jay Kamote, and Miggy Mango appeared in records presented as part of the accounting for confidential funds handled by offices under Sara Duterte.

One name sounded like a café mixed with chips. Another resembled a Xiaomi Mi 8 phone. The others brought flour, burger ingredients, pork, sweet potatoes, mangoes, and a trip through the grocery aisle to mind.

These records were connected to our money, spent through offices we were asked to trust even though we could not inspect the claimed operations ourselves. The names visible in the paper trail looked like somebody had been amusing himself while filling out forms.

That makes me angry.

For me, those names are Sara Duterte’s insult to fiscal transparency.

Available evidence does not show that Duterte personally invented the names or wrote them on the receipts. I will not accuse her of an act the public record has not established.

She led the offices that used the funds, and the spending happened under her authority. Once those names became public, she owed us a convincing explanation of how they entered official records and how her offices verified the people behind them.

We still do not have one.

THE PAPERWORK LOOKED RIDICULOUS

Mary Grace Piattos became famous because almost anyone could hear the apparent combination: Mary Grace Café and Piattos chips. Then came Renan Piatos and Pia Piatos-Lim, carrying nearly the same surname with a slightly different spelling.

Xiaome Ocho sounded close enough to Xiaomi Mi 8 that lawmakers immediately pointed out the resemblance. More names followed from records attributed to the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education.

House lawmakers disclosed Jay Kamote, Miggy Mango, Beverly Claire Pampano, Mico Harina, Patty Ting, Ralph Josh Bacon, and Sala Casim. Other reported names included Amoy Liu, Fernan Amuy, and Joug De Asim.

Every one of them could still turn out to be an alias for a real person. Even under that generous reading, we are left with a government office whose records looked ridiculous on sight.

Somebody prepared those documents, and other people handled, reviewed, or submitted them. Yet the names survived the process and ended up in records connected to large cash disbursements.

That is an embarrassing standard for any government office. Coming from offices led by the vice president, it is infuriating.

Officials knew the Commission on Audit could examine the documents. They also knew confidential funds already attracted suspicion because we could not see who received the money or what happened during the reported operations.

That situation called for extreme care. We got Mary Grace Piattos and Xiaome Ocho.

A government demanding our trust should never hand us records that invite disbelief before we even reach the amounts, dates, signatures, and supporting documents.

THE JOKE WAS PAID FOR BY US

We laughed because the names were funny. Social media turned Mary Grace Piattos into a character, made Xiaome Ocho a mobile-phone joke, and produced countless other names that had nothing to do with the real records.

The humor made the controversy easy to share, but it also softened the offense underneath it. Every verified name stood on a document meant to support the use of public money.

A real recipient should have existed behind each alias. A payment should have taken place, and an allowed confidential activity should have justified it.

We were not asking for gossip about informants. We wanted proof that our money went where the government claimed it went.

The visible records answered with names resembling chips, flour, bacon, pork, fruit, vegetables, and a phone. That is insulting.

We spent days laughing while the people responsible for the documents continued to owe us answers. We still needed to know how each alias was linked to a real person, who verified the recipient, and what proof the Office of the Vice President provided to COA.

Those questions can be answered without exposing a genuine source. The office could explain its procedures, safeguards, and internal checks while keeping protected identities secret.

Instead, the response kept returning to confidentiality.

CONFIDENTIALITY CANNOT ERASE ACCOUNTABILITY

Confidential funds exist because some government work cannot be disclosed publicly. Informants can be endangered, investigations can be damaged, and criminal targets can disappear after learning that authorities are watching them.

We do not need the names of genuine intelligence sources published online. We do need authorized auditors to know that those people exist and that the payments attributed to them were real.

COA cannot approve secret spending through faith alone. Auditors need enough information to confirm that money reached a real recipient and served a purpose allowed under confidential-fund rules.

We may be excluded from sensitive details. The government institutions assigned to check our money still need access to reliable proof.

Duterte’s offices received the power to spend beyond ordinary public view. That power carried a heavier duty to keep dependable records because we could not examine the spending ourselves.

The visible paperwork weakened trust. Then we were repeatedly told that the identities and activities could not be explained because they were confidential.

Confidentiality can protect a source from public exposure. It cannot explain how names resembling food and consumer products passed through an official accounting process.

It cannot tell us how the recipients were verified. It cannot answer the audit findings or the large number of names that reportedly produced no matching birth records during checks by the Philippine Statistics Authority.

Repeating “confidential” should never end every question.

THE PSA CHECKS MADE THE NAMES HARDER TO DISMISS

Lawmakers reported that Philippine Statistics Authority searches found no matching birth records for 1,322 of the 1,992 names connected to Office of the Vice President confidential-fund receipts. For the Department of Education, 405 of 677 searched names reportedly produced no matching birth record.

A failed civil-registry search does not prove that each person was invented. Misspellings, incomplete information, delayed registration, and weaknesses in older records can cause a search to fail.

That caution deserves a place in the discussion. So does common sense.

A handful of missing records could be dismissed as clerical trouble. Hundreds require a serious explanation, especially when several names already look like wordplay.

The PSA results did not decide anyone’s guilt. They added weight to the doubt created by the receipts and made a detailed account from Duterte’s offices even more necessary.

We should have received an explanation of how those recipients were checked internally and why government records could not confirm so many names. We got no such account.

COA FOUND MORE THAN FUNNY NAMES

The controversy did not end with strange aliases and failed PSA searches. The Commission on Audit found problems involving large amounts of money and the documents used to support the spending.

COA disallowed ₱73.287 million from the Office of the Vice President’s 2022 confidential funds. Reporting on the decision described missing or inadequate documents tied to rewards, information gathering, surveillance, and purchases charged to confidential funds.

The COA Commission Proper later upheld the disallowance. Separate audit notices covered three releases of ₱125 million each from 2023, totaling ₱375 million.

A notice of disallowance is an audit action, and the people held liable can challenge it through the proper legal process. It does not decide criminal guilt.

The findings are still severe. The government agency authorized to inspect the spending identified deficiencies involving amounts most of us will never earn in a lifetime.

That destroys the idea that our suspicion came only from politicians making jokes about aliases. The names drew our attention, while COA’s findings showed that the questions extended into the spending and its supporting records.

This is why I am pissed off.

Duterte’s offices asked us to trust a confidential-fund system already hidden from public view. Once part of it became visible, we found ridiculous names, failed registry searches, and audit findings covering hundreds of millions of pesos.

Apparently, we were still expected to remain polite.

THE KINDEST EXPLANATION IS STILL TERRIBLE

Every unusual name may have represented a genuine informant. Complete records may exist somewhere outside the documents shown publicly, and Duterte’s defense may eventually present an explanation that survives examination.

That possibility removes none of the terrible judgment shown in the visible paperwork. Officials handling secret public money used or accepted aliases that made serious records look fabricated.

Protecting an informant did not require names such as Mary Grace Piattos, Xiaome Ocho, Mico Harina, Ralph Josh Bacon, or Sala Casim. A controlled reference number or an ordinary alias could have protected an identity without making the paperwork look like a joke.

The records were already difficult for us to inspect. Filling them with names resembling products and food made trust even harder.

Duterte may eventually show that real people and valid activities existed behind every receipt. She would still need to explain why her offices handled the visible paper trail so poorly.

The more serious possibility, involving fabricated recipients or transactions, must be proven through evidence. The impeachment court, COA proceedings, and any criminal investigation must handle that question without anyone declaring guilt in advance.

My anger does not depend on a premature criminal judgment. The verified names and audit findings already show how poorly our trust was treated.

DUTERTE OWNS THE EXPLANATION

Duterte has argued that acknowledgment receipts were prepared lower in the organizational structure. She may be correct that she did not physically write the names.

Leadership cannot disappear down an organizational chart whenever the paperwork becomes embarrassing.

She headed the Office of the Vice President while its confidential funds were spent. She also led the Department of Education during the period connected to another set of questioned records.

The authority belonged to offices she controlled. The procedures and safeguards were supposed to function under her leadership.

Duterte does not need to admit that she invented Mary Grace Piattos because no evidence presented here proves that she did. She needs to explain how Mary Grace Piattos entered her office’s records and survived whatever review happened before the documents were submitted.

She also needs to tell us who verified the recipient, what proof connected the alias to a real person, and how the reported payment was tied to a valid confidential activity. The same questions apply to Xiaome Ocho and the other names.

Blaming lower-ranking employees would make the control problem look even worse. Hundreds of millions of pesos should never depend on paperwork that senior officials can later claim they barely knew about.

A vice president cannot enjoy the authority attached to confidential funds while pushing responsibility for the accounting downward after the records are questioned. The explanation belongs to her.

AND NOW SHE WANTS TO BE PRESIDENT

Sara Duterte has announced that she plans to seek the presidency in 2028.

She is asking us to consider giving her control over the entire executive branch while she has yet to provide a convincing answer about the confidential funds handled by the offices she already led.

That should bother anyone who believes the presidency requires accountability before ambition. A person asking for greater power should first explain how the power already entrusted to her was used.

We are being asked to imagine Sara Duterte overseeing every executive department, the national budget, the armed forces, law enforcement agencies, and the government’s vast intelligence apparatus. Yet she has not adequately explained how names such as Mary Grace Piattos and Xiaome Ocho entered records used to account for secret spending under her own offices.

She wants us to trust her with a much larger government. She has not settled the questions surrounding the money already placed under her authority.

No campaign speech can erase that.

THE INSULT WAS THE EXPECTATION THAT WE WOULD ACCEPT IT

Fiscal transparency faces its hardest test when we cannot see the spending ourselves. We had no access to the operations used to justify these payments, could not know the recipients, and could not inspect the original proof.

We had to rely on internal controls and government auditors. That arrangement required records worthy of trust.

The portion that became visible gave us names resembling products, ingredients, and punch lines. PSA searches reportedly failed to locate birth records for large numbers of listed recipients, while COA found deficiencies and issued disallowances covering substantial amounts.

Through all of this, Duterte’s camp leaned on confidentiality and promised that the aliases would be explained at the proper time.

The proper time arrived when we learned that hundreds of millions of pesos had been accounted for using names like Mary Grace Piattos.

We never asked Duterte to endanger legitimate informants. We asked for a credible explanation of how our money was handled and how her offices proved that the recipients and transactions were real.

We were entitled to records prepared with care, controls that worked, and answers that treated us like adults. Her offices gave us what looked like a grocery list.

That is Sara Duterte’s insult to fiscal transparency.

Sources

DAY 11: COA AUDITOR FLAGS PROBLEMS IN OVP CONFIDENTIAL-FUND RECORDS

Gino Borlado — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 11:00:00 GMT

The Senate impeachment court began examining the audit records behind Article I of the case against Vice President Sara Duterte on Monday.

Article I accuses Duterte of misusing ₱612.5 million in confidential funds. The amount covers ₱500 million released to the Office of the Vice President and ₱112.5 million released to the Department of Education while she headed both offices.

Monday’s testimony focused on the first ₱125-million OVP cash advance, released in December 2022. Roderick Wamil, a prosecution witness, served in the Commission on Audit’s Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office from September 2014 to February 2024.

The court adjourned at about 2:30 p.m. while the prosecution was still questioning Wamil. His direct examination will continue on Tuesday, and the defense has yet to cross-examine him.

THE DEFENSE REFUSED TO ACCEPT THE 11-DAY TIMELINE

Prosecutor Lorna Kapunan asked the defense to agree that the OVP received the ₱125 million on December 20, 2022 and disbursed it from December 21 to December 31.

Defense lawyer Michael Poa answered, “No stipulation.” He agreed that the OVP received a ₱125-million confidential-fund allocation in 2022, then added that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had approved its release.

Kapunan accepted that addition. The stipulation placed the presidential approval for the fund release on the record.

The 11-day figure became public during House budget deliberations in September 2023. Then-Representative Stella Quimbo said it came from the liquidation report submitted by the OVP to COA.

COA later issued a Notice of Disallowance covering ₱73.28 million from the cash advance. The OVP has disputed the description that it spent the entire ₱125 million within 11 days.

The defense’s refusal means the prosecution must establish the timeline through the documents and Wamil’s testimony. The senator-judges have made no ruling on that dispute.

WAMIL SAID THE OVP PLAN DID NOT LIST SPECIFIC CONFIDENTIAL ACTIVITIES

Wamil testified that the OVP’s physical and financial plan failed to identify the confidential programs, activities, and projects for which the money would be used.

Item 4.2 of Joint Circular No. 2015-01 requires the plan to show the proposed allocation for each program, activity, and project. Wamil said the missing entries left no identified confidential activity against which the proposed disbursements could be checked.

The plan was dated December 13, 2022 and carried Duterte’s signature under “approved by.” Wamil said the notation showed that the signer approved the contents of the document.

He also identified a date discrepancy in a separate OVP certification. It was dated January 2022, even though it concerned the fourth-quarter 2022 cash advance, and it was notarized in January 2023.

WAMIL’S TABULATION SHOWED ₱150,000 MORE IN RECEIPTS THAN THE CASH ADVANCE

Wamil testified that his 19-page tabulation of the acknowledgment receipts reached ₱125.15 million. That was ₱150,000 higher than the ₱125 million stated in the OVP accomplishment report.

The annex to COA’s Notice of Suspension showed ₱25.66 million supported by acknowledgment receipts dated December 2023, one year after the covered period. Another ₱3.27 million was supported by receipts carrying no date.

Among the documents presented was a ₱70,000 acknowledgment receipt under the name “Mary Grace Piattos” for medicines. Wamil also identified a ₱85,000 receipt under “Nova Santos” for various goods.

Several other receipts carried December 2023 dates even though they were submitted in support of the December 2022 cash advance. Wamil said the dates fell outside the period covered by that cash advance.

WAMIL SAID SOME EXPENSES WERE NOT ALLOWED UNDER THE RULES

Wamil identified ₱40 million in medical and food assistance and ₱10 million in incentives or travel connected with confidential operations.

He testified that these entries were outside the confidential expenses allowed under Item 4.8 of the joint circular. Wamil also said the OVP did not submit records showing that rewards paid to informers led to successful information-gathering or surveillance work.

Wamil also discussed ₱3.5 million spent on tables, chairs, desktop computers, and printers. He said the submitted records did not connect those purchases to confidential operations.

CONFIDENTIAL FUNDS STILL REQUIRE SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS

Wamil said the OVP submitted acknowledgment receipts for several transactions without sales invoices, official receipts, or other supporting records.

He explained that secrecy applies to the confidential activity for which the money is used. In his audit reading, it does not automatically conceal an ordinary supplier’s identity or remove the accounting requirements for public funds.

Poa asked the court to strike part of that answer, arguing that Wamil was not competent to give it. Presiding officer Francis Escudero overruled the objection and allowed Wamil to explain how he assessed the records as the auditor who reviewed them.

DUTERTE SIGNED THE PLAN, LIQUIDATION REPORT, AND CERTIFICATION

Wamil identified Duterte’s signature on the physical and financial plan and the liquidation report for the ₱125-million cash advance.

A separate OVP certification carried her signature beneath the word “attested.” Wamil said the notation indicated that the signer was confirming or verifying the certification’s contents.

The prosecution used the signatures to connect Duterte to the approval and certification of the documents presented in court. The senator-judges made no finding that the signatures proved she prepared every receipt, knew about each alleged defect, or committed an impeachable offense.

WAMIL SAID DUTERTE WAS THE ONLY VP HE AUDITED WITH CONFIDENTIAL FUNDS

Wamil testified that Duterte was the only vice president with a confidential-fund appropriation during his assignment at COA’s specialized audit office.

He said former vice presidents Jejomar Binay and Leni Robredo had no confidential-fund appropriations during the years covered by his service from 2014 to 2024. Duterte was also the only education secretary whose department had confidential funds during that period, according to Wamil.

Poa stressed that the testimony covered only Wamil’s own tenure at the audit office. It was not presented as a complete history of confidential-fund appropriations before 2014.

ESCUDERO CONFIRMED THAT THE BIR RECORDS ARRIVED ON JULY 30

Escudero informed the senator-judges that the Bureau of Internal Revenue had submitted the tax records of Duterte and her husband, Manases Carpio, after receiving the presidential authorization required under the National Internal Revenue Code.

The Clerk of Court received the submission on July 30. Escudero said copies would be made available to the parties after the submission was completed.

Those records concern a later article involving the allegation of unexplained wealth and were not part of Wamil’s testimony on Monday. Escudero also gave BDO Unibank and Security Bank until August 13 to complete parts of their responses to the court’s subpoenas.

THE SENATE HAS NOT YET RULED ON ARTICLE I

Monday’s hearing placed the OVP’s planning, liquidation, and supporting documents before the impeachment court through the confidential-fund auditor who reviewed them.

Wamil identified missing activity descriptions, receipts with dates outside the covered period, undated receipts, expenses he considered unsupported or outside the allowed list, and a ₱150,000 difference between the receipts and the accomplishment report.

His statements remain prosecution testimony. The defense will have its opportunity to challenge his reading of the joint circular, the records he examined, and the conclusions he drew from them.

The impeachment court has made no finding that Duterte misused the funds or committed an impeachable offense. Wamil’s direct examination is scheduled to continue when the trial resumes at 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

Sources

GOD IS GOOD, UNTIL HE ISN’T

Gino Borlado — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 01:31:23 GMT

I saw it on my feed this morning, wedged between a gym selfie and somebody’s kid having the time of his life in a swimming pool.

Bong Revilla was surrounded by family and smiling wide. Written across the image were three words:

“God is good.”

I felt uncomfortable looking at it, although I could not immediately explain why.

His family was happy because someone they loved had come home. Anyone who has watched a relative go through detention and a criminal case would understand the relief in that photograph.

Still, something about the post bothered me.

Former senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. was granted bail by the Sandiganbayan in a malversation case involving an alleged ₱92.8-million ghost flood-control project in Pandi, Bulacan.

He posted ₱1 million bail and was released while the criminal case continues.

The bail ruling did not acquit Revilla. For purposes of the bail hearing, the court found that the prosecution had failed to show that the evidence of guilt was strong enough to keep him detained during the trial.

That legal distinction deserves respect.

The Constitution protects the presumption of innocence. Courts cannot keep an accused person in jail because the public is angry, suspicious, or convinced of guilt before the trial has been completed.

Due process must apply even when the person asking for it is powerful, unpopular, or difficult to trust.

So why did the photograph bother me?

I had no problem with the family reunion. I also had no problem with anyone thanking God after receiving good news.

The discomfort came from what those three words could suggest once the photograph left the family circle and entered a public feed.

“God is good” can make a favorable legal ruling feel like something larger. The post can be read as vindication, even though the court had ruled only on bail.

Temporary release starts looking like proof that the accusations were false. A legal remedy begins to carry the weight of divine approval.

The court never said any of that.

It answered a limited question about detention while the criminal case proceeds. The allegations remain before the Sandiganbayan, and the prosecution still has the burden of proving them at trial.

The ruling did not explain where the allegedly misused public funds went. It did not end the case or remove every question surrounding the project.

Yet a smiling photograph and a religious message can easily give that impression.

Religious language carries power in a country where faith is woven into everyday life. People may hesitate to question a celebration once it has been framed as a blessing.

Anyone who continues asking about the case can then appear bitter or cruel. Criticism may even look like an attack on a family’s faith.

Public money still requires an explanation, regardless of the words placed on a photograph.

The allegations involve funds collected from Filipinos. Workers paid taxes before receiving their salaries. Families paid value-added tax on food, medicine, fuel, clothes, and school supplies. Small businesses handed part of their earnings to the government.

Government officials handle money that belongs to all of them.

Questions about that money are part of public accountability. They do not attack anyone’s religion or deny a family the right to feel relieved.

The older pork-barrel case also belongs in this discussion.

Revilla was acquitted of plunder in 2018 after several years in detention. His acquittal forms part of the public record and should be acknowledged without qualification.

The Sandiganbayan also ordered him to pay ₱124.5 million in civil liability. In 2026, the Office of the Ombudsman said the amount had yet to be returned.

The unpaid ₱124.5-million civil liability comes from a court ruling. It is a concrete public obligation, and it remains relevant whenever Revilla’s legal history is presented as a finished story.

An amount that large can become difficult to picture. It looks like digits on a screen until we compare it with the needs Filipinos see around them every day.

₱124.5 million could pay for medicines, classroom repairs, rural health services, drainage projects, or flood-control work in communities that regularly end up underwater.

Ordinary Filipinos understand unpaid obligations on a much smaller scale.

A missed loan payment brings calls from the bank. Unpaid rent brings reminders from the landlord. Hospital balances follow families long after the patient has gone home.

The government should pursue money owed under a court ruling with the same persistence.

That unfinished obligation changes how I see the family photograph.

Revilla was allowed to go home after posting bail in a new criminal case. An older civil liability reportedly remains unpaid years after the court ordered payment.

A complete account of his situation has to include both.

His family’s happiness does not settle the obligation. A religious message cannot substitute for payment, an explanation, or the completion of a criminal trial.

Politicians often invoke God when events favor them.

We hear expressions of gratitude after election victories, favorable court decisions, dismissed complaints, and successful bail petitions. The language becomes quieter when audit findings are released or public funds remain unaccounted for.

That may be the real source of my discomfort.

The photograph placed the celebration where everyone could see it. The unresolved obligation stayed outside the frame.

Revilla should not be denied bail merely to satisfy public anger. The court had to apply the law, and he had every right to seek the remedies available to any accused person.

He may challenge the evidence, confront the witnesses, and defend himself during the trial.

The public retains the right to remember his full record.

Accepting the bail ruling does not require anyone to treat the criminal case as finished. Understanding his family’s relief does not require the public to join the celebration.

Faith also does not require silence about ₱124.5 million that the Ombudsman said remained unpaid.

The family photograph was never the real problem for me. My discomfort came from the suggestion, intended or otherwise, that release on bail had already settled the larger questions.

It had not.

Revilla remains free while his criminal case continues, and the presumption of innocence protects him throughout that process.

The same public record still contains allegations that have to be tested in court and a civil liability that the government says has not been paid.

A photograph cannot close either issue.

Perhaps gratitude should come with action.

Revilla can pay whatever the court has ordered him to pay. He can answer the current charges through the trial and allow the evidence to be examined.

Only then will the public have a fuller basis for deciding what the latest court ruling truly means.

Until that happens, “God is good” sounds less like the end of the story and more like an attempt to place a period where the public record still has a question mark.

Sources

THE PUBLIC IS FOLLOWING THE MONEY IN SARA DUTERTE’S IMPEACHMENT CASE

Gino Borlado — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:06:00 GMT

The OCTA Research graphic looked simple. Bribery was first at 43%, followed by misuse of confidential funds at 28%, while unexplained wealth and grave threats each received 10%.

I thought that was the whole story until I added 43, 28, and 10. Those three choices add up to 81%.

OCTA did not group them together. I did, because bribery, misuse of confidential funds, and unexplained wealth all involve money, assets, public funds, or possible financial gain.

The poll did not ask whether people believed Sara Duterte was guilty. It asked which allegation they considered the most serious or thought should receive priority.

Still, 81% chose one of the three allegations tied to money. That changed how I read the survey.

THE 81% BEHIND THE 43%

Bribery deserves the headline because it finished first by a wide margin. It led misuse of confidential funds by 15 points nationwide, far beyond the survey’s reported national error margin of plus or minus three points.

Once the three financial choices are placed side by side, most respondents had put a money-related accusation first. Grave threats received 10%.

The three accusations have their own facts, evidence, and legal questions. I am grouping them for one reason: all three send us back to money, assets, or public funds.

My reading is that the financial evidence will receive the closest public attention. People will want to know where the funds went, who approved the releases, what records exist, and whether the documents match the transactions being described.

OCTA did not ask those follow-up questions, so I cannot claim that every respondent had them in mind. The numbers still suggest that the money trail will be easier for many people to follow than arguments built mainly around constitutional language.

A threat can be grave, yet judging it may require a long discussion about the words used, the setting, the intended meaning, and the charge attached to it. Money leaves records that can be checked.

There may be vouchers, signatures, bank entries, sworn statements, property records, and named recipients. That could help explain why the financial accusations drew so much attention, although the survey did not ask respondents to explain their choice.

EIGHT IN TEN ACROSS THE COUNTRY

The numbers line up across all four large areas in the poll. At least eight in ten chose bribery, confidential-fund misuse, or unexplained wealth.

The total was 84% in the National Capital Region, 80% in Balance Luzon, 85% in the Visayas, and 80% in Mindanao. Different parts of the country did not always agree on which financial allegation came first, but the overall choice barely changed.

Balance Luzon is a good example. Bribery received 38% while misuse of confidential funds received 33%.

OCTA reported an error margin of plus or minus six points for each large area, so a five-point gap is too close for me to call a clear lead. Balance Luzon was almost divided between bribery and confidential-fund misuse, while 80% still chose one of the three financial allegations.

The detailed regional table needs more care because some of its biggest percentages came from very small groups. The Cordillera Administrative Region showed 75% for bribery, but that figure came from 10 respondents and carried an error margin of plus or minus 31 points.

MIMAROPA had 20 respondents, Region II had 25, and Caraga had 30. Ten people cannot tell us what an entire region thinks, so those percentages should not be turned into firm regional claims.

THE BURIED MINDANAO NUMBER IS 16%

Mindanao is where I expected to find the clearest regional difference. Sara Duterte’s family has deep political roots there, so it would have been easy to assume that the region would play down the accusations against her.

The broad numbers do not show that. Bribery received 43% in Mindanao, exactly the same as the national result.

Misuse of confidential funds received 23%, while unexplained wealth received 14%. Together, the three financial allegations account for 80% of Mindanao’s answers.

Grave threats received only 3%. The number that stands out is the 16% who answered “don’t know” or “can’t say.”

That was twice the national figure of 8%. The unsure group was 8% in the National Capital Region, 6% in Balance Luzon, and 5% in the Visayas.

OCTA did not ask why Mindanao had more people who would not choose. The table cannot tell us whether the reason was limited knowledge of the charges, discomfort with the question, political loyalty, or something else.

What we can say is simple. Mindanao still placed the financial accusations far ahead of grave threats, while a larger group remained unsure.

That is more useful than assuming the region will automatically defend any Duterte. The numbers show concern and hesitation at the same time.

ARE PEOPLE USING DIFFERENT WORDS FOR THE SAME CONCERN?

I also wonder whether every respondent understood the four choices in the same way. “Bribery” is a familiar word, usually understood as money or some other benefit given in exchange for a favor, an official act, or protection.

“Misuse of confidential funds” is more technical. It brings in budgets, liquidation papers, audit rules, certifications, and the special secrecy allowed for some government spending.

Bribery may have served as the everyday word for corruption, especially for people already thinking about confidential funds. Another group could have kept the charges separate and picked the one they understood best.

OCTA did not ask people to explain their choice, so we cannot tell which reading is closer. A few of its tables still make the question worth asking.

Among respondents aged 18 to 24, bribery and confidential-fund misuse were almost tied at 38% and 35%. College and postgraduate respondents were also close, with bribery at 40% and confidential-fund misuse at 35%.

Respondents with vocational education went the other way, choosing confidential-fund misuse at 41% and bribery at 28%. OCTA did not publish the number of respondents inside those smaller groups, so we do not know how much weight each percentage can carry.

I would not use these figures to declare that one age group or education group thinks a certain way. I would ask whether people disagree about corruption itself or are choosing different names for the part of the case that worries them.

THE QUESTION MIXED SERIOUSNESS WITH PRIORITY

OCTA asked which allegation was “the most serious or should be prioritized.” A person can answer those two ideas differently.

A respondent could see grave threats as the gravest accusation and still want the Senate to hear the financial evidence first. Bribery may also feel easier to prove because it could come with documents and witnesses.

The poll folded both ideas into one question. We cannot tell whether a respondent picked an answer because it felt more serious or because that person wanted it heard first.

The survey also required one choice, so a respondent who selected bribery may still believe the threats deserve close attention. The 10% for grave threats only tells us that 10% placed it ahead of the other three choices.

A follow-up poll could ask people to rate every allegation on its own, then ask which one the Senate should hear first. That would give us a clearer picture of how Filipinos see the case.

For now, OCTA has given us a ranking. Bribery is first, and money-related accusations take up most of the answers.

THE MONEY TRAIL STILL HAS TO BE PROVEN

The poll was conducted from July 4 to 11 through face-to-face interviews with 1,200 respondents. OCTA reported a national error margin of plus or minus three points.

None of those percentages proves an allegation. A survey cannot replace documents, testimony, questioning, or the Senate’s duty to judge the case from the evidence placed before it.

The 81% still shows where public attention is likely to go. Financial claims are easier to follow when people can see the dates, amounts, approvals, and records behind them.

The prosecution now has to show the path of the money clearly enough for its claims to be checked. Any records placed before the court will also have to be answered by the defense.

The Senate has to put the evidence on the table and test every explanation against it. Only then will Filipinos know where the money went and whether the accusations can be proven.

Sources

THE ₱50 MILLION QUESTION IN DASMARIÑAS

Gino Borlado — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 11:26:00 GMT

Dasmariñas will hold a special congressional election on August 29. Comelec says the exercise may cost close to ₱200 million, and the city government has already provided ₱50 million to help pay for it.

The mayor of Dasmariñas, Jennifer Austria-Barzaga, is one of the five candidates. Her son, Vice Mayor Elpidio “Third” Barzaga III, represented the city government during the turnover of the funds.

Comelec says the financial assistance is lawful and will mainly help pay the teachers and other personnel who will serve during the election. The public record I reviewed contains no proof that the payment bought influence, changed a vote, or gave any candidate control over the count.

Even so, the arrangement raises a fair question.

Should a constitutional commission accept money from a city government led by the immediate family of someone running in the election?

WHERE THIS STARTED

The special election became necessary after the House expelled Cavite 4th District Rep. Francisco “Kiko” Barzaga on June 2, 2026.

The House voted 265-14, with eight abstentions, after repeated disciplinary action against him. He had already served two separate 60-day suspensions over conduct that the House said violated its rules and code of conduct.

Comelec later confirmed that expulsion did not permanently bar Kiko from seeking public office. He could still have filed for the seat he lost.

He never did.

Five candidates completed the filing process: Jennifer Austria-Barzaga, former vice mayor Rex Mangubat, Marvin Opamin Dupal-ag, Leysander Aguilar, and Jacinto Bautista Frani Jr.

Jennifer is the only Barzaga on the ballot. The family connection still surrounds the race because the vacant seat and the two highest elective offices in Dasmariñas have all been held by members of the same immediate family.

THE BARZAGA HOLD ON DASMARIÑAS

Jennifer’s husband, Elpidio “Pidi” Barzaga Jr., served as both mayor of Dasmariñas and representative of the city’s congressional district. He died on April 27, 2024, following complications from heart surgery.

Jennifer was already serving as mayor at the time of his death. Their son Kiko later won the congressional seat in the 2025 elections, while Third became vice mayor.

That placed the district’s House seat, the mayoralty, and the vice mayoralty within one household.

Kiko’s expulsion opened the congressional seat again. Jennifer then filed her candidacy for the special election, while Third remained vice mayor and represented the city government during the ₱50 million turnover to Comelec.

None of that makes the transfer illegal on its own. It does explain why the transaction cannot be treated as an ordinary contribution from an LGU with no direct political connection to the race.

Jennifer is the incumbent mayor. Her son is vice mayor. The city government they lead is helping pay for the election she is trying to win.

WHY COMELEC NEEDED HELP

Comelec’s explanations about the election budget changed as preparations moved forward.

Malacañang initially said the commission had enough money to conduct the special election. Comelec had placed the estimated cost at around ₱191 million, while later reports put it closer to ₱198 million.

The commission then acknowledged that funding was a problem.

The national budget reportedly contained only around ₱11 million for special elections. Comelec Chairman George Garcia said the commission would need savings, budget realignments, and help from the Dasmariñas city government to cover the full cost.

The city agreed to provide ₱50 million. Garcia said the money would be used mainly to pay teachers and other electoral board members serving during the special election.

Comelec and the city government signed a memorandum of agreement during the turnover in July. Third Barzaga represented city hall at the event.

Days later, an ABS-CBN News report said a Comelec official was seeking ₱191.89 million from the national Contingent Fund for the same election.

That request needs a fuller explanation.

The ₱191.89 million figure is close to Comelec’s original estimate for the entire special election. Public reporting does not clearly show whether the national request already accounts for the ₱50 million from Dasmariñas or whether the city contribution would remain separate.

The two sources of money may cover different expenses. The Contingent Fund request may also replace money Comelec initially planned to obtain through internal savings and realignments.

Those possibilities are reasonable. The public should not have to work them out from scattered statements and news reports.

Comelec should release one funding plan showing the total cost of the election, the amount coming from the national government, the city’s ₱50 million contribution, and the expenses assigned to each source.

THE “LEGAL BRIBERY” ACCUSATION

A Facebook page called Calabarzon Connect described the city’s ₱50 million assistance as “legal bribery in broad daylight.”

Comelec rejected the accusation. The commission said bribery could never be legal and defended the transfer as legitimate financial assistance from the local government.

The phrase made an accusation that the available evidence does not prove.

I found no document, testimony, or credible report showing that Comelec accepted the money in exchange for favoring Jennifer Barzaga. There is also no evidence that the city government gained control over the ballots, electoral boards, canvassing, or vote count.

City hall does not administer the election. Comelec does.

The controversy remains because Comelec answered the most extreme accusation without publishing enough information about the transaction itself.

The public still needs to see the authority for the transfer, the complete memorandum of agreement, and the rules governing the use of the money.

WHERE IS THE PAPERWORK?

A written agreement exists. Comelec and the Dasmariñas city government publicly signed a memorandum of agreement during the turnover ceremony.

I have not found the full document in the public sources I reviewed.

That agreement should show which expenses may be charged to the ₱50 million, who controls the account, which officials may approve payments, and what happens to any unused balance after the election.

The city government should also publish the ordinance, resolution, appropriation record, or other authority used to release the funds.

The ₱50 million did not come from the private bank account of the Barzaga family. It came from the city government and belongs to the public.

Taxpayers should be able to see how the expenditure was approved and what conditions were attached to it.

The presence of city council members during the turnover does not replace the need for formal records. A public ceremony shows that the transaction happened. It does not show the legal and budgetary steps that came before it.

THE APPEARANCE PROBLEM

Comelec is an independent constitutional commission. It should have enough national funding to conduct an election without relying on the city government whose mayor is running in it.

The ₱50 million arrangement may have been accepted because the election had to be organized quickly. It may also have been the most practical way to pay teachers and other election workers on time.

Practical convenience cannot remove the need for distance between the election administrator and the local political interests competing for the seat.

The other four candidates are running against the incumbent mayor. Her administration has supplied a large amount of money for the conduct of their election.

Comelec may retain full control over every peso. The candidates may all receive equal treatment. Election workers may perform their duties without interference from city hall.

Those safeguards should be visible rather than assumed.

Public trust is easier to protect when the election body does not depend financially on the local government controlled by a candidate’s immediate family. Once that distance disappears, full disclosure becomes the minimum response.

Comelec’s denial of bribery does not answer how the money will be handled, audited, liquidated, or returned if part of it remains unspent.

WHAT COMELEC SHOULD RELEASE

Comelec should publish the complete memorandum of agreement before August 29.

It should also release a consolidated election budget showing how the ₱50 million city contribution fits with the reported ₱191.89 million Contingent Fund request and the commission’s other available funds.

The city government should publish the local measure authorizing the transfer. That document should identify the source of the appropriation and the officials responsible for releasing it.

After the election, Comelec should release a full liquidation report. Voters should be able to see how much was spent on electoral board honoraria, logistics, printing, security, transport, and other election expenses.

Any unused balance should be identified and returned or handled according to the published agreement and applicable audit rules.

These disclosures would not interfere with the election. They would help protect it.

THE QUESTION THAT REMAINS

On August 29, Dasmariñas voters will choose among five candidates for Congress.

One of those candidates is the mayor. Her son is vice mayor, and the city government they lead has provided Comelec with ₱50 million for the election.

No criminal exchange appears in the public record I reviewed. The arrangement still places Comelec in a position where voters are being asked to trust safeguards they have not been allowed to inspect.

The commission can answer the criticism through documents rather than another press statement.

Release the memorandum of agreement. Show the authority for the transfer. Explain how the national and local funds fit together. Publish the liquidation report after the election.

The ₱50 million may have been spent properly from beginning to end.

The public should not have to take that on faith.

I leave you with this question: Is it normal for Comelec to accept financial assistance from a local government led by a candidate in the election it is administering?

Sources

FACT-CHECKING THE “BUGAW” PLOT ALLEGATIONS AGAINST REP. LEANDRO LEVISTE

Gino Borlado — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 11:56:55 GMT

I normally don’t spend much time chasing stories like this. Political tsismis is everywhere, and most of it goes nowhere.

This one landed in my inbox because someone asked whether there was any truth to it. Since people were already asking, I figured it was worth looking into.

I also want to acknowledge something.

I deleted my earlier post about this story because there were mistakes in it. After going back through the reporting and verifying the facts again, I also found additional information that should have been included.

Rather than quietly editing the old post, I’d rather publish a corrected and more complete version. If I get something wrong, I’ll correct it. That’s how Morning Coffee Thoughts should work.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has said it will subpoena Batangas Rep. Leandro Leviste and former Rep. Jing Paras after an arrested talent manager alleged the two were connected to a plan to fabricate accusations against Executive Secretary Ralph Recto.

What follows separates what the NBI has publicly alleged, what has been independently reported, what remains disputed, and what still has little or no credible evidence behind it.

THE CORE ALLEGATION

According to NBI Director Melvin Matibag, an arrested talent manager told investigators that former Rep. Jing Paras asked him to recruit four women to sign false affidavits accusing Executive Secretary Ralph Recto of forcing them to use illegal drugs and have sex with him.

Matibag said the women were allegedly promised a total of ₱5 million. The payment was reportedly divided into three parts: 30 percent after signing the affidavits, 40 percent after a case had been filed, and the remaining balance while the case stayed active.

Matibag also identified Leviste as the alleged financier of the operation.

These are allegations disclosed by the NBI during an ongoing investigation. They have not been tested in court, and neither Leviste nor Paras has been found guilty of any offense.

WHAT THE NBI SAYS IT FOUND

The NBI said investigators recovered Viber conversations from the talent manager’s phone and linked the messages to a phone number confirmed to belong to Paras.

Investigators also said they were able to recover deleted messages through digital forensic examination.

According to Matibag, those conversations indicated the alleged operation was being planned after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s State of the Nation Address.

The NBI has not publicly released the complete conversations, so independent examination of the messages is not yet possible.

CLAIMS OF A WIDER OPERATION

Matibag also said a cyber warrant executed on the talent manager’s phone uncovered conversations involving other unnamed personalities.

He said investigators were looking into the possibility that the operation formed part of a broader politically motivated effort.

Matibag further said other Cabinet officials and senators could have become targets if the alleged plan had succeeded.

At this point, however, the NBI has not publicly identified those supposed targets or presented evidence showing that specific individuals had already been selected.

THE CONFLICTING ₱25 MILLION VERSION

A different version of the story has also circulated online.

According to that version, five women were each promised ₱5 million, bringing the total to ₱25 million. It also claims Recto had supposedly been warned in advance by a showbiz writer.

Those details do not appear in the NBI’s public statements and currently rely on anonymous sourcing.

Because they conflict with the version publicly attributed to the NBI, they should be treated as unverified unless independent evidence emerges.

Recto has said he is leaving the investigation to the NBI.

THE ARREST

NBI-NCR agents arrested the talent manager during an operation at a five-star hotel in Malate, Manila.

The bureau said five female artists were found during the operation and are being treated as possible victims.

Different news organizations have referred to the arrested man as a talent manager, a pimp, or a suspect. Those reports appear to be referring to the same individual.

WHAT THE SUBPOENAS MEAN

A subpoena is not a criminal charge.

It simply requires a person to appear or provide information as part of an investigation.

As of the latest reporting, neither Leviste nor Paras has been criminally charged in connection with these allegations.

Leviste has publicly denied any involvement.

NAMES CIRCULATING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Several social media posts have attempted to connect other public officials to this case.

One frequently mentioned name is Benhur Abalos, who now serves as Cabinet Secretary after previously serving as Secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG). Other posts refer to a supposed “Secretary Jonri.”

So far, no official NBI statement or credible news report has linked Abalos, current DILG Secretary Juanito Victor “Jonvic” Remulla Jr., the Office of the Ombudsman, or any Cabinet official using the name “Jonri” to this investigation.

At least based on the information currently available to the public, those claims remain unsupported.

THE BACKGROUND

The allegations surfaced against the backdrop of an existing political dispute between Leviste and Recto.

The May 2026 plunder complaints involving the transfer of approximately ₱60 billion from PhilHealth and ₱107 billion from the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation to the national treasury were filed by health reform advocate Tony Leachon, not by Leviste.

Recto suggested that Leviste or opposition figures may have been behind the complaints. Leviste denied this and instead claimed that disgruntled people inside the administration were responsible. Recto rejected the accusations and maintained that the fund transfers were legal.

That dispute explains why the two men were already in conflict. It does not, by itself, establish that Leviste participated in the alleged operation now under investigation.

WHERE THE CASE STANDS

Several facts are already on the public record.

The NBI arrested a talent manager. The bureau says it recovered digital evidence from his phone. It has announced that Leviste and Paras will be subpoenaed. Leviste has denied any involvement.

Beyond that, much of the case remains exactly where it should be, inside an ongoing investigation.

Whether the allegations eventually lead to criminal charges, or ultimately fail for lack of evidence, will depend on what investigators are able to prove, not on what is currently circulating on social media.

Sources

WHO REALLY WINS IN PAX SILICA

Gino Borlado — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 00:31:59 GMT

Sara Duterte, gusto mo maging presidente, di ba? Puwes, read up.

A supporter asked her about Pax Silica while she was in The Hague.

Her answer began with confusion over the name, followed by, “Wala, no. I cannot comment on that.”

The confusion was embarrassing.

Her silence after learning what Pax Silica is should concern us more, because this is one of the largest foreign-backed industrial projects the Philippine government is now negotiating.

Duterte referred to Pax Silica again the following day and joked with a supporter about losing sleep over it.

She has since shown that she knows the name, yet the public still has no idea what she thinks of the project, what terms she would reject, or how she would handle it as president.

That gap in knowledge deserves attention because Pax Silica is much larger than the viral clip that introduced many Filipinos to it.

For years, New Clark City was better known for wide roads, new government buildings, and plans that seemed far removed from ordinary life.

The Bases Conversion and Development Authority promoted it as a disaster-resilient alternative to overcrowded Metro Manila, but much of the site remained more promise than functioning city.

The government now wants New Clark City to become the Philippine entry point into advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, semiconductor production, and critical-mineral processing.

The proposed Pax Silica hub would cover about 4,000 acres and connect the country to a US-led group built around secure technology supply chains.

The Philippines signed the Pax Silica Declaration in April 2026. That document is only the beginning, because the operating terms for the New Clark City hub are still being negotiated.

Government officials hope to complete the main agreement within the year.

Construction could begin in 2028, while full development may take more than ten to fifteen years.

That timeline changes how the public should read every large number attached to the project.

The Sales Pitch And The Unsigned Terms

BCDA has projected between 130,000 and 190,000 direct jobs once the hub reaches full development.

Officials have also cited up to ₱180 billion in yearly public revenue, with Foxconn among the companies considering the site.

Those figures explain the enthusiasm in Malacañang.

A country that has spent decades exporting engineers, technicians, and factory workers would gain a rare chance to bring higher-value production here.

Yet the projected jobs belong to a development period that could outlast several presidents.

Voters hearing those numbers before the 2028 election should know that full employment will not arrive with the groundbreaking ceremony.

The Philippine government and the United States have also left major operating terms unfinished.

The two-page declaration has no enforcement provisions, while a separate supplemental agreement is expected to define how the hub will operate.

BCDA President Joshua Bingcang said Washington asked for US common law and protections resembling diplomatic immunity inside the zone, which BCDA rejected.

US Under Secretary of State Jacob Helberg disputed that description and said Washington sought certainty for investors rather than immunity.

No public document has resolved the contradiction between the two officials.

The declaration and BCDA proposal letter do not grant immunity, while the separate agreement that could address jurisdiction has not been signed.

The lease proposal raises a different set of questions.

BCDA offered a two-year rent-free period, while the rate after the second year remains open for negotiation.

Renewal would require written consent from both governments, and permanent improvements would return to the Philippines when the agreement ends without renewal.

The often-repeated 99-year figure does not appear in the BCDA proposal letter.

That number comes from Republic Act 12252, which permits longer leases within the Luzon Economic Corridor.

It describes what the law allows and does not prove that Washington has already secured a 99-year term for Pax Silica.

Those distinctions are important because critics can weaken a valid sovereignty argument when they treat every alarming claim as settled.

The public record already contains enough unanswered questions without adding terms that do not appear in the available documents.

The Best Case For Fox Sili-Ano

A fair reading has to acknowledge why the government wants this project. The Philippines has spent years trying to move beyond assembly work and call-center services.

Semiconductor manufacturing is already one of the country’s major export industries, but much of the higher-value research, design, equipment, and intellectual property remains abroad.

Pax Silica could attract companies that would otherwise choose Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, or another country competing for the same investments.

A large industrial site near Clark airport, Subic, expressways, and existing economic zones offers logistical advantages that are difficult to reproduce elsewhere.

The long development period is also normal for a project of this scale.

Factories, power facilities, water systems, transport links, worker housing, laboratories, and supplier networks cannot appear within one election cycle.

Government negotiations do not have to be fully public at every stage.

Releasing every bargaining position too early can weaken the Philippine side, especially when several countries want the same companies and capital.

Walking away also has a price.

The global technology supply chain is being reorganized now, and countries that secure factories, training programs, and supplier contracts early may keep those advantages for decades.

New Clark City needs productive activity after years of public spending.

A hub that creates skilled work, raises local tax income, develops Filipino suppliers, and gives engineers a reason to stay could justify the cost.

That is the strongest argument for Pax Silica. It deserves to be taken seriously.

The government still has to prove that Filipinos will receive those gains through binding commitments rather than projections presented during speeches.

The Map Behind The Deal

Pax Silica also belongs to a much larger contest between the United States and China.

The initiative seeks supply chains that are less dependent on Chinese minerals, processing, manufacturing, and technology infrastructure.

Washington has openly described critical minerals as essential to its defense industries, including aircraft, submarines, missiles, drones, and communications equipment.

[Note: there is a moral and ethical issue around this but it’s murky, so let’s talk about that some other time.]

The 2026 US National Defense Strategy places deterring Chinese dominance in the Indo-Pacific near the center of American policy.

It also calls for deeper contributions from allies and a stronger defensive position along the First Island Chain, the chain of territories that includes the Philippines.

Pax Silica is presented as an economic project led largely by private companies.

Its products and location still carry strategic value because advanced chips, mineral processing, batteries, robotics, and communication systems serve civilian industries and defense production.

The Philippines enters this arrangement while facing constant pressure in the West Philippine Sea.

Chinese coast guard vessels used water cannons against Philippine government ships near Scarborough Shoal in July, the third confrontation reported within one week.

During the same period, Philippine, US, and Japanese forces conducted another multilateral maritime activity in the West Philippine Sea.

Those events show how economic policy, alliance politics, and maritime security now overlap.

A successful technology hub could increase the Philippines’ value to its allies. Governments have stronger reasons to protect stability in a country that hosts factories and suppliers needed by their own industries.

That possibility may give Manila more influence.

Greater involvement, however, could expose the Philippines to Chinese economic pressure, cyber operations, trade restrictions, or diplomatic retaliation.

The risk should not be exaggerated into a claim that Pax Silica is a military base. The public documents describe an industrial and economic security zone, while no available record turns the site into an armed facility.

Still, the hub would place Philippine infrastructure inside a US-led effort designed to reduce Chinese control over vital industries. Beijing is unlikely to view that as politically neutral.

This leaves a strategic question the government has barely discussed in public.

Will the Philippines become an industrial partner with its own technology, suppliers, and bargaining power, or will it provide space, workers, minerals, utilities, and access while foreign companies control the valuable parts?

[Note: The long and short of this is having an American-led initiative is supposed to deter Chinese aggression of whatever form, but at this point, this is an assumption.]

Who Receives The Firm Benefits

Washington’s purpose is already easy to identify. It wants dependable access to minerals, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, and data infrastructure outside Chinese control.

The Philippine benefits remain projections tied to a development period of more than a decade.

Jobs and public revenue could be enormous, but the final lease rate, operating rules, environmental demands, and jurisdiction provisions remain unsettled.

Water and electricity are part of that uncertainty.

One academic risk estimate cited by the Inquirer placed possible demand at 130 million liters of water each day and three gigawatts of power, around 16 percent of Luzon’s grid.

BCDA disputes the assumptions behind that estimate.

It says the site will rely mainly on collected rainwater and impounding facilities, while the Department of Trade and Industry says manufacturing will be the priority rather than giant data centers.

Both claims need to be tested through a public environmental study based on the facilities that investors actually plan to build.

General promises about rainwater cannot replace figures showing supply, demand, drought scenarios, power sources, and effects on nearby communities.

The displacement claims are even further apart.

Kalikasan and allied groups have cited estimates ranging from 20,000 Aeta residents to a combined claim of 20,000 Indigenous people and 15,000 farmers.

BCDA says no ancestral domain title covers the proposed site and fewer than ten farmers would be directly affected. It has promised livelihood support and urban farming programs for those displaced.

A gap that large cannot be left to dueling press statements.

The government should publish a map of the proposed site, a household count, proof of occupancy and tenure, the consultation record, and the compensation plan before the agreement is signed.

The people who live and work there should not have to prove their existence after investors have already received certainty.

Their status, rights, and compensation belong in the agreement from the beginning.

My Position On Pax Silica

I do not think the available record supports rejecting Pax Silica outright.

The economic goal is defensible. The Philippines needs advanced manufacturing, better technical jobs, stronger exports, and a larger role in industries that will shape the next several decades.

The strategic goal can also serve Philippine interests.

Reducing dependence on China while strengthening ties with countries that support Manila in the West Philippine Sea is a rational choice. Support for that direction cannot become a blank check.

The November agreement should proceed only after the government publishes the jurisdiction rules, lease terms, environmental requirements, resource plans, community count, compensation system, and Philippine commitments on training, local suppliers, technology transfer, and skilled employment.

The government is already presenting the largest benefits as though they are within reach. It should offer the same clarity on the costs and obligations that Filipinos will carry.

Pax Silica has the potential to become the industrial opening the Philippines has waited for. A weak agreement would leave the country providing space, utilities, workers, and strategic access while foreign companies retain the technology and most of the control.

The difference will be written into documents that are still unfinished.

The Position Sara Duterte Still Owes The Country

Sara Duterte does not need to know every lease clause that has yet to be negotiated. She should know the project and tell Filipinos where she draws the line.

Would she keep the Philippines inside a US-led technology supply chain that reduces dependence on China? She also needs to say whether Philippine courts would retain authority over crimes committed here.

Environmental studies and verified community counts should have a clear place in her position.

So should the price she would demand from foreign investors in exchange for access to Philippine workers, utilities, minerals, and public property.

Those are presidential questions.

They also reach directly into the foreign-policy inheritance of her father, whose administration pursued closer relations with Beijing and regularly questioned Philippine reliance on Washington.

Pax Silica moves the country in another direction.

A Duterte presidency in 2028 could inherit a project designed around that choice, with construction beginning, investors arriving, and long-term terms already in force.

Her first answer was confusion. Days later, the country still has no serious answer from her.

A person asking Filipinos for the presidency cannot wait until the oath to study an agreement of this size.

She has to tell us now which opportunities she would pursue, which risks she would accept, and which Philippine interests she would refuse to bargain away.

Otherwise, we may be looking at a president who does not understand a deal she could later abandon in favor of a more China-friendly policy.

Sources

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ANC, Sara Duterte asked about Pax Silica in The Hague https://www.facebook.com/ANCalerts/videos/in-an-interview-by-a-supporter-at-the-hague-vice-president-sara-duterte-was-aske/1560338335547528/
Manila Bulletin, VP Sara refers again to Pax Silica after no-comment issue https://mb.com.ph/2026/07/30/vp-sara-revives-pax-silica-buzz-tells-supporter-not-to-stress-after-cannot-comment-issue
Rappler, Sara Duterte has no position on Pax Silica https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/inside-track/sara-duterte-pax-silica-july-2026/
Philippine Daily Inquirer, Palace gives no comment on Sara Duterte’s unfamiliarity with Pax Silica https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2274308/castro-on-vp-dutertes-unfamiliarity-with-pax-silica-no-comment

SARA DUTERTE: A WASTE OF THE VICE PRESIDENCY

Gino Borlado — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 10:24:43 GMT

I could not publish an article about what I think of Bongbong Marcos without writing one about Sara Duterte too.

They ran and won under the banner of unity. UniTeam promised to end political division, even as the campaign that carried them to power benefited from an online environment saturated with misinformation, historical distortion, fake news, and trolls.

Marcos was the clearest beneficiary of the rewriting of his family’s history, but Sara was not standing outside that machinery. She was half of the ticket.

She brought the Duterte name and her father’s political base, and she benefited from an online political culture that had spent years attacking critics, journalists, human-rights advocates, opposition figures, and many of those who challenged the family.

They asked Filipinos to judge them as a team in 2022. It would be dishonest to scrutinize Marcos while giving Sara a pass simply because she is now fighting the administration she helped put in power.

Besides, Sara Duterte received even more votes than Marcos did.

The question is what she did with them.

THE BENEFICIARY-NUMBER ILLUSION

Sara Duterte received 32,208,417 votes in 2022. She entered office with a huge national mandate, a Cabinet seat, control of the Department of Education, support from Congress, and the political machinery of two powerful families behind her.

Four years later, the Office of the Vice President points to assistance programs as proof that she used that mandate well.

Its 2024 accomplishment report counted 1,780,079 beneficiaries. More than one million were reported under Libreng Sakay, while the rest included medical and burial aid, disaster relief, rice bags, school kits, livelihood grants, and other services.

The number looks impressive until you examine what went into it.

The total mixes reported Libreng Sakay passengers or users with food packs, school kits, medical-aid payments, burial grants, disaster assistance, rice distributions, and livelihood releases.

It combines different kinds of services, different kinds of recipients, and possibly repeat users.

The report proves that the office was busy, but the published figures do not establish that 1.78 million separate Filipinos were helped or that their lives improved after the distribution ended.

A taxpayer-funded office should be judged on more than whether it remained busy.

People who needed assistance should never be mocked for accepting it. Medical and burial aid can keep a struggling family from sinking deeper into debt. Free rides can help workers and students. Food packs matter when people are hungry.

My problem is with the political culture that gives an elected official personal credit for releasing money that already belonged to the public.

Any government office with a budget can distribute cash, bags, rice, rides, and relief packs. The harder work begins after the cameras leave.

Did the livelihood survive? Are children learning better? Did families become less vulnerable? Will the same people need the same ayuda again next year?

The OVP’s own budget document lists the number of people receiving services as an outcome indicator, along with partnerships, requests processed on time, projects completed as planned, satisfaction ratings, and official engagements.

Those figures can show activity. They cannot show whether the programs solved anything.

A politician can spend millions distributing school bags and count every child who received one. A serious evaluation would examine attendance, learning, household expenses, and whether those children were still unable to afford basic school supplies the following year.

I found no published independent evaluation showing that the OVP’s main assistance programs produced lasting gains across the people it counted.

More than half of the OVP’s reported 2024 beneficiaries came from Libreng Sakay.

Counting passengers or users does not prove that Sara fixed transportation, reduced household costs over time, or built a service that would survive her term. It proves that government vehicles carried people.

If this is already a high bar for someone preparing to become President, then we are fucked as a nation.

WHEN AUDITORS ASKED WHAT CHANGED

The OVP’s Mag Negosyo Ta ’Day livelihood program offers a clearer test because livelihood aid is supposed to create income, not merely provide temporary relief.

The Commission on Audit found that ₱3.42 million had been released to 138 beneficiaries from January through September 2024.

Auditors flagged questionable beneficiary selection, weak evaluation of business proposals, delayed liquidation, missing documents, and poor monitoring.

None of the proposals had been reviewed by the Department of Trade and Industry or the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation, even though the program manual assigned them a role.

Among 83 sampled beneficiaries, only 11 were visited or monitored within the prescribed period. Fourteen were not visited at all.

Auditors could not determine whether the grants created sustainable income or improved the recipients’ economic condition.

That finding captures the weakness of Sara’s record. The OVP could count every grant, but its files could not show whether the businesses survived.

Giving an individual recipient ₱15,000 and adding another name to an accomplishment report is easy. Returning months later to check whether the business is still alive takes planning, staff, records, and discipline.

Sara Duterte wants to govern an entire country. Her office struggled to show what happened after releasing a few million pesos through one livelihood program.

Her supporters point to the unmodified audit opinion the OVP received for its 2024 financial statements.

That opinion means the statements fairly presented the office’s financial position in all material respects.

It does not certify that every transaction was proper, every program was effective, or every peso produced a meaningful result.

The same audit period still contained findings about the livelihood program. An unmodified opinion is not a blanket certificate of clean and effective government.

DEPED WAS THE REAL TEST

The Constitution gives a vice president little independent executive power. Sara lost that excuse when she accepted the Department of Education.

DepEd gave her control over one of the country’s largest bureaucracies and placed her directly over a crisis affecting millions of children. She could work on literacy, classroom shortages, teacher workload, learning materials, nutrition, school safety, and the damage left by years of disruption.

This was her chance to prove that the Duterte brand could produce more than fear, loyalty, family power, and distribution politics.

Her DepEd tenure produced several serious policies. The MATATAG curriculum reduced overloaded content and emphasized foundational learning. Her department also introduced Catch-Up Fridays and ordered the removal of administrative work from teachers.

MATATAG deserves real credit.

A later study commissioned by the Second Congressional Commission on Education examined 70 public schools in seven regions and found large, statistically significant gains among Grade 2 pupils in reading, mathematics, and values education during the first year of the pilot.

The research also found selective gains in some higher-grade subjects. At the same time, it recorded delayed learning materials, uneven teacher training, longer planning demands, and declining physiological well-being among teachers covered by the study.

MATATAG may eventually become Sara Duterte’s strongest public legacy. Other officials, however, had to continue, adjust, fund, and implement it after she left DepEd.

The order removing administrative work from teachers also addressed a real problem, but later research found that 56.2 percent of teachers were still doing administrative tasks.

Schools lacked enough non-teaching personnel, while some of the work was simply transferred to already overburdened principals and administrative officers.

The policy identified the right problem. The execution lacked the staffing and money needed to fix it.

Catch-Up Fridays faced separate questions about its design, teacher preparation, and whether it delivered proper reading intervention to students who needed different levels of help.

The National Learning Camps had a participation problem. DepEd estimated that only about 10 percent of students requiring intervention attended.

Classroom construction remained dismal. As of January 2024, DepEd estimated that the country needed 165,443 additional classrooms. The Commission on Audit found that only 192 of the 6,379 classrooms targeted for completion in 2023 had been built.

Sara did not create that backlog, and DepEd was not the only agency responsible for construction. She nevertheless accepted the job, announced faster delivery, and left without breaking the bottleneck.

THEN SHE LEFT

Sara resigned as Education secretary on June 19, 2024, with her departure taking effect a month later.

Malacañang said she gave Marcos no reason. Sara linked the decision to concern for teachers and young people, but she did not explain which education policy, funding decision, or presidential interference made her resignation necessary.

Her departure came as the Marcos-Duterte alliance was collapsing.

She left before MATATAG’s national rollout, while teacher-workload reforms still lacked enough support staff, Catch-Up Fridays had not proved itself, and the classroom backlog remained massive.

Resignation was her right, but the unfinished work became part of the record the public must judge. A leader preparing for the presidency should be able to explain why walking away served the country better than finishing the work.

Maybe she had valid policy reasons. She did not properly explain them to the public, so from the outside, the country’s education crisis looked like collateral damage in a political divorce.

SECRET MONEY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

The other major choice was confidential spending.

The OVP spent ₱125 million in confidential funds in December 2022. The Commission on Audit later disallowed ₱73.287 million.

In April 2026, COA denied the petition asking it to review that ruling. The denial left Sara and the other officials identified in the decision obligated to return the disallowed amount, although her camp disputes the ruling and may still pursue available administrative or judicial remedies.

A disallowance requires repayment under audit rules. It is not the same as a criminal conviction.

The impeachment case contains wider accusations involving ₱612.5 million in confidential funds used by the OVP and DepEd. Those allegations remain unresolved and should not be described as proven theft.

My judgment does not depend on a future conviction.

Sara had more than 32 million votes, control of DepEd, Cabinet access, congressional support, and a chance to attach her name to a serious national reform.

She chose to make secret spending a major feature of both the OVP and the education department.

That choice consumed hearings, audits, investigations, and eventually impeachment proceedings.

Filipinos learned more about acknowledgment receipts, special disbursing officers, confidential expenses, names that government records could not verify and that prosecutors allege were fictitious, and questioned recipients than about any national project Sara completed.

The House was already at war with the Dutertes when it cut the proposed 2025 OVP budget from approximately ₱2 billion to ₱733 million.

Given the timing and the open conflict between the two camps, political punishment is a reasonable part of the explanation for the aggression of Marcos-aligned lawmakers.

Sara still had a duty to answer questions about the money she wanted from taxpayers.

She resisted detailed scrutiny during the first budget hearing, while she and OVP representatives did not attend some subsequent House hearings and the plenary budget deliberation.

A hostile Congress does not make oversight optional.

An official asking taxpayers for billions still owes answers, even when the lawmakers asking are hypocrites, rivals, opportunists, or obvious political operators.

Both things can be true.

The House may have weaponized oversight against a presidential rival, while Sara may also have failed the basic duty to explain how she used public money.

A vice president who wants credit for every bag, food pack, and free ride cannot suddenly demand that the public stop asking questions when the spending becomes secret.

TEMPERAMENT, FAMILY, AND 2028

In November 2024, Sara said she had instructed someone to kill Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and Martin Romualdez if she herself were killed.

She later said the remarks had been taken out of context and described them as a conditional act of revenge rather than an active threat.

The statement should not be inflated into a proven assassination plot, but it still came from the Vice President, the first person in line to assume the presidency.

Someone holding that position is judged on more than criminal liability.

Judgment, restraint, emotional control, and the ability to speak without creating a national security crisis are also part of readiness.

Sara’s defenders can call it anger, context, dark humor, or political exaggeration. None of those explanations makes the behavior presidential.

She formally announced in February 2026 that she would run for President in 2028.

She blamed Marcos for corruption, inflation, and failures in healthcare, then apologized for helping elect him.

Some of her criticism is deserved. Marcos has much to answer for.

What remains thin, in my view, is her own governing program.

She left the department where she could have proved her management ability.

Her most visible work afterward increasingly centered on the war with Marcos, the defense of her father, the impeachment case, and the preservation of the Duterte political base.

After Rodrigo Duterte was arrested and transferred to the International Criminal Court, Sara traveled to the Netherlands to help organize his legal support.

Defending her father was understandable personally, but voters were still entitled to ask what their Vice President was building for the country while her public role became tied to her family’s political and legal survival.

Her 2028 campaign tells us who she blames. It gives us far less detail about how she would repair healthcare, reduce prices, fight corruption, fund education, or govern Filipinos outside the Duterte political camp.

THE PREDECESSOR SHE COULD NOT IGNORE

Comparing Sara Duterte with Leni Robredo may sound unfair. They governed under different conditions and faced different crises.

The comparison is still unavoidable because Sara inherited an office whose previous occupant had already shown that its constitutional limits did not make it useless.

Robredo had a smaller mandate, little cooperation from Malacañang, and no lasting Cabinet role. Yet she used the OVP primarily as a convening platform.

Through Angat Buhay, her office worked with civil-society groups, private companies, donors, volunteers, local governments, and communities to direct outside resources toward education, health, nutrition, housing, rural development, and disaster response.

Robredo’s record should not be romanticized. Her reports also counted beneficiaries and projects, and those figures did not automatically prove lasting socioeconomic improvement.

The important difference was the institutional model.

Robredo tried to make a weak office larger by bringing other organizations and outside resources into the work.

Angat Buhay continued as a nongovernment organization after her term, showing that the network itself did not depend entirely on her remaining Vice President.

Sara began with much more: 32 million votes, the President’s support, congressional allies, a Cabinet portfolio, and control of DepEd.

Yet her vice-presidential record became dominated by direct, publicly funded assistance, confidential spending, political warfare, and preparation for 2028.

She did not need to copy Robredo. She could have chosen literacy, teacher welfare, child nutrition, classroom construction, Mindanao peace, or disaster preparedness as the defining cause of her vice presidency.

Her predecessor had already removed the excuse that the office was too weak to matter.

I cannot prove what Sara privately intended when she accepted the position. Her record suggests that she treated the vice presidency less as an institution to build and more as a political position to preserve.

The problem is not that she failed to become Leni Robredo. The problem is that someone before her had already demonstrated how partnerships, transparency, and a clear purpose could stretch the limits of the office, while Sara arrived with far more power and built far less of an institution.

THE WASTE

The OVP helped people. Many recipients undoubtedly valued the transportation, food, school supplies, medical aid, and burial assistance they received.

The problem begins when distribution becomes the main proof that a national leader performed well.

Politicians have trained Filipinos to experience government through favors. People line up, receive a fraction of public money through an official’s branded program, and are expected to remember who “gave” it.

The money came from the public, not Sara Duterte’s pocket.

A country with higher expectations would ask how many recipients no longer needed help the following year. It would demand evidence of better learning, stable income, improved health, stronger communities, and reduced dependence.

We received beneficiary totals instead.

When publicly funded assistance is branded around a politician, celebrated mainly through distribution counts, and left without proof of lasting impact, it begins to look like patronage with an accomplishment report.

Sara Duterte’s vice presidency has been busy, costly, visible, and politically useful to her. The waste lies in what she did with an opportunity few politicians will ever receive.

More than 32 million Filipinos gave her a national mandate. Marcos gave her DepEd. Congress initially gave her money and room to work. The UniTeam alliance protected her from serious political opposition.

MATATAG shows that she was capable of beginning serious reform. Her decision to leave before its larger test says just as much about her leadership.

She spent the remaining political capital defending secret funds, fighting the administration she helped elect, protecting the Duterte name, and preparing for the next presidential election.

Ilang red flags pa ba ang kailangan natin bago natin aminin that popularity is not proof of competence, and that anger is not a governing program?

The vice presidency should have shown what Sara Duterte would build with national power. Four years later, her record is crowded with distributions, unfinished education policies, audit disputes, threats, family warfare, and campaign positioning.

Sara Duterte may still become President in 2028. That possibility makes the waste even more troubling because the vice presidency was her chance to show us what she could build, yet we now know far more about who she is fighting than what she intends to fix.

Sources

Dalawang bagay ang napansin ko sa naging reaksiyon ni Sara Duterte tungkol sa Pax Silica.

Gino Borlado — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 04:27:48 GMT

Una, nang sabihin niyang hindi muna siya magko-comment dahil hindi pa niya alam o hindi pa niya lubos na naiintindihan ang isyu.

Sa totoo lang, wala akong problema roon.

Iyan ang tamang gawin. Mas mabuti nang umaming hindi mo alam kaysa magbigay ng opinyon sa isang bagay na hindi mo pa naiintindihan.

Ang ikalawang bahagi ang nakakaalarma.

Mukhang genuine ang pagkagulat niya nang marinig ang tungkol sa Pax Silica.

Doon ako napatanong.

Paano nangyari iyon?

Isang taong gustong maging Pangulo ng Pilipinas ang hindi pamilyar sa isang usaping ilang linggo nang laman ng balita, pinag-uusapan sa social media, at tinatalakay maging sa international press?

Hindi ako senador. Hindi ako cabinet secretary. Hindi ako opisyal ng gobyerno.

Isa lang akong blogger.

Pero dalawang beses na akong nagsaliksik at nagsulat tungkol sa Pax Silica. Alam na rin ito ng maraming MCT followers dahil pinag-usapan na natin ito noon.

Kung ako, na walang access sa intelligence briefings at government resources, ay kayang maintindihan ang isyu, bakit ikaw na gustong mamuno sa buong bansa ay tila ngayon mo lang narinig?

Saang kuweba ka ba nakasuksok at hindi mo alam ang kaganapan sa paligid mo?

Ang trabaho ng isang lider ay hindi lang kumontra. Hindi lang magbitaw ng platitudes. Hindi lang maghintay ng pagkakataong bumatikos.

Kailangan mong maintindihan ang mga isyung nakaaapekto sa bansa at sa mundo.

Kung sa mga pangunahing usaping pang-internasyonal ay nahuhuli ka na, bakit namin ipagkakatiwala sa iyo ang direksiyon ng Pilipinas?

IS MARCOS MANAGING HIS IMAGE MORE THAN THE COUNTRY?

Gino Borlado — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 03:01:32 GMT

THE SPEECH THAT SOUNDED STRONGER THAN THE RECORD

In his fifth State of the Nation Address, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told Congress that the flood-control investigation was moving even toward his cousin, former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

It was one of the strongest moments of the speech. Marcos presented himself as a President willing to choose the Filipino people over family and friends.

I wanted to believe that part.

But I also found it difficult to accept at face value because much of the proof still rests on what the government says will happen next. Cases are nearing filing. More money will be recovered. More officials will be charged. More laws will be passed. More programs will be completed.

Ang dating sa akin: may masabi lang na may ginagawa ako.

That was my first reaction. But I did not want to stop there because Marcos has taken real action in several areas. It would be dishonest to erase those decisions simply because I dislike him.

The harder question is whether those actions show steady leadership, or whether he becomes firm only after the political danger has already become manageable.

I AM NOT NEUTRAL ABOUT MARCOS

I am not a Marcos fan.

I cannot, for the life of me, forget who he is, what his family did, and where he stood while his father was in power.

Marcos Jr. was already an adult and governor of Ilocos Norte when his family fled Malacañang in 1986. Years later, the Supreme Court declared hundreds of millions of dollars in Marcos Swiss deposits ill-gotten wealth and ordered the money forfeited to the Philippine government.

That history is burned into my memory.

His performance as a local official and senator never convinced me that he would become a strong national manager. Four years as President have not erased those doubts.

But dislike is not an excuse for lazy analysis. Marcos has made decisions worth recognizing. His West Philippine Sea policy deserves credit. The flood-control investigation has produced actual cases. His government has also taken concrete action against misinformation, although I have serious doubts about how evenly that action is being applied.

I can admit when he gets something right without forgetting the man, the family, and the history behind him, because being honest about the record does not mean forgiving any of it.

THE QUESTION I WANTED TO TEST

I looked closely at four areas: the West Philippine Sea, flood-control corruption, Sara Duterte’s impeachment, and misinformation.

The research quickly ruled out the easiest accusation.

Marcos does not simply sit there and do nothing. He can make a clear choice, use presidential power, and stay with a policy.

The West Philippine Sea proves that.

The pattern becomes less clear in domestic controversies, especially when a decision could damage powerful allies, relatives, political arrangements, or the Marcos name itself.

In those cases, action often arrives in stages. Another institution carries the confrontation first. Congress moves. An agency investigates. A court intervenes. Public pressure grows. Then the President takes a stronger position while keeping enough distance from the ugliest part of the conflict.

That does not prove what Marcos is thinking.

There is no document saying he delays a decision to protect his image. There is no written instruction telling agencies to shield his relatives. There is no direct proof that every cautious move is motivated by political survival.

But timelines still matter.

They show us when he acts, how far he goes, how long he waits, and how much political danger he appears willing to accept.

THE WEST PHILIPPINE SEA SHOWS HE CAN CHOOSE

The West Philippine Sea is probably Marcos’s strongest case.

His administration expanded defense access with the United States, strengthened security ties with Japan and Australia, signed the Philippine Maritime Zones Act, and kept the 2016 arbitral ruling at the center of Philippine policy.

The Japan-Philippines Reciprocal Access Agreement also entered into force in September 2025, making joint training and defense cooperation easier.

These are not empty speeches.

They are actual diplomatic, legal, and military decisions. China opposed several of them, which means Marcos cannot be accused of choosing a completely risk-free position.

Compared with Rodrigo Duterte’s constant effort to accommodate Beijing, the change is obvious and commendable.

But the policy remains unfinished where ordinary Filipinos feel it most.

A decade after the arbitral ruling, fishermen from Masinloc still report being driven away from Scarborough Shoal. Chinese ships continue to block Philippine vessels, use water cannons, and create dangerous encounters at sea.

In July 2026, new confrontations were reported near Second Thomas Shoal and Scarborough Shoal. A Filipino sailor was injured, while Chinese Coast Guard vessels again used water cannons against Philippine government boats.

This is where I understand the caution.

Marcos refuses to turn every confrontation into a naval showdown. China is a much larger military power, and a careless decision could cost Filipino lives. Caution in this case can be responsible leadership.

But the limits are still there.

Philippine law is clearer. Our alliances are stronger. The government now speaks more forcefully about our rights. But Filipino fishermen are still asking what all of those gains have changed for them on the water.

So yes, I give Marcos credit for choosing the right strategic direction.

I just cannot pretend that the job is finished.

The policy is commendable, but the execution remains incomplete. The direction is clear, but the actual protection reaching fishermen is still nowhere near enough.

FLOOD CONTROL SHOWS THE LIMITS OF THE SPEECH

The flood-control scandal gives us a different picture.

Marcos publicly exposed the scale of the problem in 2025. His administration reviewed projects, created the Independent Commission for Infrastructure through Executive Order No. 94, opened a public complaints portal, reduced the public-works budget, froze assets, and referred cases for prosecution.

Those were concrete actions.

As of July 2026, GMA News Research found 45 individuals charged in 26 court cases.

That is not nothing.

But the same review found that only two of the 15 contractors earlier identified as receiving a large share of flood-control spending had been charged. That leaves a very long distance between the size of the scandal and the reach of the cases filed so far.

The money tells the same story.

Marcos said nearly ₱25 billion in assets had been recovered, frozen, seized, or preserved. More than ₱800 million had actually been returned to the National Treasury.

Those categories do not mean the same thing.

A frozen property remains subject to legal proceedings. A preserved asset is not yet money restored to taxpayers. A filed case is not a conviction. An investigation is not the same as accountability completed.

The administration has done more than issue press releases. That much is clear.

But the rhetoric continues to move faster than the completed result.

In November 2025, Marcos vowed that people implicated in the scandal would be jailed before the end of the year. He said they would not have a merry Christmas.

That line created an image of fast punishment.

The legal process moved more slowly, as legal cases often do.

His cousin, Martin Romualdez, appeared near the center of the presidential speech only about a year after the crackdown began. That sequence can reasonably raise questions about political caution.

It cannot prove that Marcos protected Romualdez.

Cases involving senior political figures can take longer to build. Evidence has to be gathered. Financial links have to be traced. Individual participation has to be established. Romualdez also denies wrongdoing.

Still, the public has the right to notice the order in which things happened.

The investigation moved first through officials and contractors. The President’s cousin became a central subject of his rhetoric much later.

Maybe that was simply how the evidence developed.

Maybe the political ground had also become safer.

At this point, we can prove the timeline. We cannot prove the motive.

What we can also measure is the distance between the force of the language and the proof available to the public.

Marcos used the power of the presidency to promise accountability. He still has to show that the process will reach the most powerful people involved, survive political pressure, produce actual judgments, and recover far more than the government has recovered so far.

THE USEFUL DISTANCE OF THE IMPEACHMENT PROCESS

Sara Duterte’s impeachment shows another feature of Marcos’s leadership.

In 2023, he said she did not deserve to be impeached. In November 2024, he described the growing impeachment effort as a distraction that would not improve Filipino lives.

After the House process advanced, his public position became procedural.

In February 2025, he said the executive branch had no role in impeachment.

Legally, he was correct.

The House impeaches. The Senate conducts the trial. A President should not claim a constitutional power that the executive branch does not have.

But the position was also politically useful.

Congress could carry the confrontation against his former running mate while Marcos stayed outside the formal process. He did not have to publicly demand her conviction. He did not have to defend her. He did not have to accept direct responsibility for whatever happened next.

The Supreme Court later voided the first impeachment case under the Constitution’s one-year rule. The Court also made clear that its ruling did not absolve Duterte of the allegations against her.

The House impeached her again on May 11, 2026, with 257 voting yes, 25 voting no, and nine abstaining.

There is no verified evidence that Marcos secretly ordered those votes.

The overwhelming House tally does not automatically prove a private presidential command. Congress has its own political interests, alliances, ambitions, and reasons for moving against Duterte.

The observable part is simpler.

Marcos first opposed impeachment. When the process acquired enough support to move without him, he emphasized his constitutional distance from it.

That may be clever politics.

It may even be the proper constitutional posture.

But it also allows a major confrontation to happen around the President while his personal responsibility remains difficult to pin down.

This is one of the patterns I keep seeing.

Marcos benefits from the decision, but another institution absorbs much of the political cost.

FAKE NEWS AND THE STANDARD HE HAS NOT YET PROVED

Misinformation is where my distrust of this administration runs deepest.

The factual record shows that the government has taken action.

In 2023, the administration launched a media and information literacy campaign. In 2025, the Presidential Communications Office signed an agreement with the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center.

In 2026, it launched Oplan Kontra Fake News, created a reporting desk, coordinated with the justice and information departments, pressed Meta to act, and endorsed complaints for investigation.

The House also approved the proposed Digital Media Anti-False Information Act. The measure would require online platforms to maintain a legal presence in the Philippines and impose heavy fines and possible imprisonment for deliberately spreading false information that causes verified harm.

Even some supporters of stronger regulation have warned that the safeguards must be tightened so that legitimate journalism, criticism, satire, and dissent are not punished.

This is already far beyond simply telling people to check their sources.

But it also raises a harder question.

Why did the urgency become so visible only later?

Government action in 2026 moved quickly against false reports about Marcos’s health, claims involving an energy emergency, and posts the administration said could create panic or threaten public order.

The Presidential Communications Office also praised the National Bureau of Investigation after the arrest of a former broadcaster accused of spreading false information about the President’s health.

Now compare that speed with the years of false claims that helped clean the Marcos family’s history.

Researchers, journalists, and election fact-checkers documented how online falsehoods before the 2022 election overwhelmingly favored Marcos and attacked his opponents.

Many of those narratives claimed that Martial Law was a golden age, that human-rights abuses were invented or exaggerated, and that court cases involving ill-gotten wealth had already cleared the Marcos family.

Marcos did not need to create those lies personally to benefit from them.

The available evidence does not prove that he ordered, financed, or directly controlled the networks that spread them.

But what remains missing is an equally forceful presidential campaign against falsehoods that help his own name.

In 2023, the Department of Education confirmed that officials had considered changing the term “Diktadurang Marcos” to the more general “Diktadura” in a draft curriculum.

DepEd said the proposal was still under review. It also said the lessons on Martial Law and the Marcos dictatorship would remain. At the time, Sara Duterte headed the department, and there is no evidence that Marcos personally ordered the proposed wording change.

Still, the episode captures my problem with this administration.

Its officials can speak forcefully about the danger of fake news while education officials under the same government consider removing the Marcos name from the specific term used to describe the Marcos dictatorship.

The distinction may look small.

It is not.

A dictatorship was not some weather event that simply appeared. It had a name. It had a family at its center. It had officials, victims, stolen wealth, imprisoned critics, tortured activists, silenced journalists, and people who disappeared.

Removing the name makes the history easier to soften.

That is my opinion, but it is an opinion based on what that specific language does.

A fair anti-disinformation policy has to apply the same pressure in every direction. It cannot become urgent only when a lie damages the President, scares investors, embarrasses an agency, or threatens the administration.

The government has already shown how fast it can act when a false post concerns Marcos’s health.

It has not shown the same appetite for confronting the historical lies that helped return his family to Malacañang.

THE POLITICAL SAFETY OF PARTIAL ACTION

Across these four cases, Marcos does not look powerless.

He looks careful about where he spends political capital.

He can stand firmly on the West Philippine Sea because the Armed Forces, diplomats, international partners, and much of the public support a tougher position. Even there, he avoids moves that could trigger an open conflict, which I understand.

The pattern looks different when the issue comes closer to home.

Flood-control accountability becomes more complicated when investigations approach lawmakers, major contractors, and his own cousin.

Sara Duterte’s impeachment proceeds through Congress while Marcos takes the legally accurate but politically convenient position that the executive has no formal role.

Anti-fake-news enforcement becomes visibly aggressive against harmful claims affecting the administration, while historical distortion favorable to the Marcos name receives far less direct presidential attention.

None of this proves a hidden plan.

But in the cases I examined, the pattern suggests a President who prefers room to retreat.

He lets agencies, lawmakers, courts, and allies test the political ground. Stronger action often comes after pressure has grown, after another institution has taken the first risk, or after the safer political direction has become clearer.

Sometimes that protects the country from reckless decision-making.

Sometimes it protects the President.

The problem is that we cannot always tell where one ends and the other begins.

That approach can also weaken government command.

Agencies wait for a clearer signal. Allies learn that accountability may depend on timing. Announcements start counting as accomplishments long before the public receives the result. Responsibility for delay is spread so widely across the bureaucracy that no one fully owns the failure.

This is where, in my view, image management begins to affect actual management.

Marcos maintains the appearance of calm. He avoids Duterte’s constant aggression. He rarely sounds rattled. He allows other people to fight while he stays presidential.

That political style may help him preserve alliances, protect the Marcos brand, and retain influence over whoever comes after him in 2028.

It may also be exactly what makes him weaker as a manager and leader.

WHAT FOUR YEARS NOW SHOW

Marcos has had good moments.

His West Philippine Sea stance is the clearest one, even with its operational limits. The flood-control investigation has gone farther than empty posturing, and I will acknowledge that if the cases continue toward the most powerful people involved.

His government has also built a real anti-misinformation response.

The question is whether it will apply that response honestly, including against lies that benefit Marcos himself.

I still cannot forget the man, the family, and the dictatorship that came before this presidency.

Recognition of a good policy does not require political amnesia.

Four years have also given us enough time to judge the habit behind the speeches.

Marcos acts, but the firmness of his actions often seems to depend on how politically dangerous full commitment would be.

Where the personal cost is higher, he leaves himself distance. He chooses partial steps. He lets another institution move first. He promises what the government still has to finish.

That may protect his calm and moderate image. It may help him preserve alliances and influence over the political future after 2028.

For the country, the cost is a presidency that often sounds more complete than its actual work.

Marcos still has two years to prove that his actions can become larger than his rhetoric.

At this point, another strong speech will not do it.

Sources

THE HEADLINE NUMBERS AREN’T THE STORY

Gino Borlado — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:25:56 GMT

This should have gone up yesterday, but my migraine had other plans. I tried looking at the numbers anyway, hoping my brain would eventually cooperate, but after a while I gave up and went back to bed.

Maybe the delay helped. When I opened the OCTA Research report again this morning, I spent more time looking at the regional and income-class tables instead of the national ratings everyone had already reported.

Regular readers probably know this habit of mine by now. I rarely stop at the headline number because the more interesting story is often buried underneath it.

The headline was simple. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio both fell below majority trust and performance ratings in OCTA’s latest survey.

Marcos’ trust rating went from 54% in March to 49% in July. Satisfaction with his performance fell from 55% to 47%.

Duterte-Carpio’s trust rating dropped from 55% to 47%. Her performance rating fell from 50% to 45%, the lowest OCTA has recorded for her in the survey series available in the report.

Those numbers matter, of course. But once I looked at how the ratings moved across regions and income classes, it became clear that Marcos and Duterte-Carpio did not arrive below 50% in the same way.

SARA DUTERTE’S NATIONAL MAJORITY WAS NEVER EVENLY SPREAD

Sara Duterte-Carpio lost 8 points in national trust, from 55% to 47%. Read only that number and it looks like support for her fell everywhere at roughly the same time.

That is not what happened.

Her trust rating in Mindanao barely moved, from 90% in March to 89% in July. Her performance rating there actually rose from 83% to 90%.

Nine out of ten respondents in Mindanao still trusted her. Nine out of ten also said they were satisfied with her performance.

The damage came mostly from somewhere else.

Her trust rating in Metro Manila fell from 40% to 28%. Balance Luzon dropped from 40% to 27%. The Visayas went from 62% to 58%, a smaller decline that still left her with majority trust there.

Her performance numbers in Metro Manila were even worse. Satisfaction fell from 37% to 22%, while dissatisfaction rose from 40% to 61%.

That made me look at her old national majority differently.

In March, Duterte-Carpio had 90% trust in Mindanao, but only 40% in Metro Manila and 40% in Balance Luzon. The Visayas gave her 62%.

Put all those regions together and she ended up with a national trust rating of 55%. The national number looked healthy, but it was being pulled upward by extraordinary support from Mindanao.

Once Metro Manila and Balance Luzon fell even further, that national majority disappeared.

This does not mean her decline was fake. It means the national number was hiding how uneven her support had already become.

Mindanao remained firmly behind her. Metro Manila and Balance Luzon were not.

That difference tells us more than the phrase “record low” ever could.

THE DROP ALSO CROSSED EVERY INCOME CLASS

Duterte-Carpio’s trust rating fell by almost the same amount across all income groups.

Class ABC dropped from 55% to 46%. Class D went from 54% to 45%. Class E fell from 65% to 56%.

Each group lost around 9 points.

That caught my attention because rising prices and government assistance do not affect every income class in exactly the same way. Wealthier households, working-class families, and the poorest Filipinos do not carry the same financial burden or receive the same kind of help.

Yet the drop was almost identical.

The most obvious thing happening during the survey was the opening of Duterte-Carpio’s impeachment trial. OCTA conducted its fieldwork from July 4 to July 11, and the trial formally opened on July 6.

The proceedings were all over the news. Senator Rodante Marcoleta, one of Duterte-Carpio’s political allies, was also arrested that day.

Did the impeachment trial cause the drop? I cannot say that because OCTA did not ask respondents why their opinion changed.

Still, the timing makes it difficult not to wonder.

Her trust rating fell across every income class, but Mindanao stayed almost completely loyal. The way I see it, that looks less like a reaction limited to one economic group and more like a national political event that moved people who were not already firmly inside her base.

That is still an interpretation, not something the survey proved. But it is a reasonable question raised by the pattern.

MARCOS’ NUMBERS MOVED IN A MUCH MESSIER WAY

Marcos also fell below majority trust, but his decline looked different.

His national trust rating went from 54% to 49%. Satisfaction with his performance fell from 55% to 47%.

His biggest regional losses came from Mindanao and the Visayas.

Trust in Mindanao fell by 19 points, from 45% to 26%. Satisfaction with his performance dropped even further, from 51% to 26%.

In the Visayas, both trust and performance fell by 11 points. Metro Manila also moved downward, though the losses were smaller.

Balance Luzon went the other way. Trust rose from 59% to 63%, while satisfaction increased from 57% to 60%.

So Marcos did not lose support everywhere. He suffered badly in Mindanao and the Visayas while improving in Balance Luzon.

The income-class tables made the picture even stranger.

Class D gave him the biggest losses. Trust fell from 55% to 47%, while satisfaction dropped from 56% to 45%.

Class ABC barely moved in trust, falling only 1 point. Class E became more positive, with trust rising from 49% to 55% and satisfaction going from 48% to 52%.

That is an odd split.

The poorest group became more positive toward Marcos while Class D moved sharply against him.

Class D includes many families who are not officially among the poorest but are still one emergency, price increase, or lost paycheck away from serious trouble. They may earn too much to qualify for some forms of assistance, but not enough to feel financially secure.

During OCTA’s fieldwork, fuel prices were rising. Electricity rates had gone up, and the latest inflation report had just been released.

My first thought was that government aid may have softened the pressure for some Class E households while many Class D families carried the same higher costs without getting the same help.

But that is only one possible explanation.

OCTA did not ask respondents whether they received government assistance. It also did not ask whether fuel, electricity, food prices, or household expenses changed their view of the President.

So I cannot say that aid explains why Class E improved while Class D fell.

What I can say is that the difference is there, and it deserves more attention. Marcos lost the most ground not among the poorest respondents, but among the large group sitting just above them.

You do not need to be classified as poor to feel that your income is no longer enough.

MINDANAO IS THE BIG QUESTION FOR MARCOS

Marcos’ collapse in Mindanao is too large to ignore.

His trust rating fell from 45% to 26%. Satisfaction with his performance dropped from 51% to 26%.

The easiest explanation would be the worsening political war between the Marcos and Duterte camps. Mindanao remained overwhelmingly loyal to Sara Duterte-Carpio while Marcos’ ratings there collapsed.

That reading makes sense. It is also not something OCTA directly tested.

Respondents were not asked whether the impeachment trial, the conflict between the two families, economic problems, disaster response, or something else changed their opinion of Marcos.

I also wondered about the flooding and landslides that affected parts of the Visayas and Mindanao near the end of the survey period. But the overlap in timing is not enough to make disaster response a serious explanation yet.

For now, all I know is that Marcos’ Mindanao numbers fell hard while Duterte-Carpio’s stayed almost untouched.

That may be a sign that the political breakup between their camps is now showing up more clearly in public opinion. It may also be part of a wider regional dissatisfaction with the administration.

We need another survey round before pretending we already know the answer.

THREE POLLSTERS, THREE DIFFERENT NUMBERS

The OCTA result becomes more interesting when compared with Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations.

Pulse Asia placed Duterte-Carpio’s trust rating at 58% and her approval rating at 56%. It described both ratings as largely unchanged from March.

A Social Weather Stations survey commissioned by Stratbase Group placed her “much trust” rating at 57%, also unchanged from March.

OCTA had her at 47%.

That is a gap of around 10 points. OCTA found that she had fallen below majority trust, while Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations still placed her comfortably above it.

That does not mean one pollster must be lying or doing something wrong.

They use different questions, rating choices, fieldwork dates, sampling methods, and ways of counting responses. A trust rating from OCTA is not automatically the same thing as an approval rating from Pulse Asia or the “much trust” category used by Social Weather Stations.

But the gap is still too large to brush aside.

All three surveys were trying to tell us how Filipinos viewed the same Vice President during roughly the same period. Two found that her majority support remained stable. One found an 8-point drop to her lowest rating in its own series.

What does that tell us?

For me, it means Duterte-Carpio’s standing during that period cannot be reduced to a single percentage. The number changed considerably depending on which survey we looked at, how the question was asked, and when the interviews happened.

It also means the phrase “record low” needs context.

OCTA’s 47% was a record low for Duterte-Carpio in OCTA’s own survey series. It does not mean every major pollster saw the same collapse.

That difference deserved more attention than it got.

THE POLLSTERS AGREED MORE ABOUT MARCOS

Marcos also received very different ratings from OCTA, Pulse Asia, and Social Weather Stations.

OCTA placed his trust rating at 49%. Pulse Asia recorded 28% trust and 51% distrust, while Social Weather Stations placed his “much trust” rating at 34%.

The percentages cannot be lined up as though all three pollsters asked the same question in the same way. But the general direction is much easier to see.

All three showed Marcos struggling.

For Duterte-Carpio, the disagreement was about whether she had already fallen below majority support. For Marcos, the disagreement was mostly about how bad the situation had become.

That is an important difference.

WHAT THE NUMBERS SEEM TO BE SAYING

Sara Duterte-Carpio’s numbers are easier to read.

Mindanao remains her fortress. Trust there barely changed, performance satisfaction rose, and the large national drop came mainly from Metro Manila and Balance Luzon.

Her earlier national majority was real, but it was never spread evenly across the country. It depended heavily on Mindanao giving her numbers that no other region came close to matching.

Once support in Metro Manila and Balance Luzon fell further, even Mindanao’s overwhelming loyalty was no longer enough to keep her national trust rating above 50% in OCTA.

Marcos’ problem is harder to explain.

Mindanao and the Visayas moved sharply against him. Balance Luzon improved. Class D fell, while Class E went up.

There may be several things happening at once. Economic pressure may be hurting Class D. Government assistance may have helped some Class E households. The political war with the Dutertes may be damaging Marcos in Mindanao.

All of those explanations are possible. None of them can be proven using this survey alone.

And that may be the most useful thing I found after spending too much time staring at the tables.

Duterte-Carpio’s weakness is becoming easier to locate. She still has overwhelming support in Mindanao, but that support is carrying weaker numbers from Metro Manila and Balance Luzon.

Marcos’ weakness is harder to pin down because different regions and income classes moved in different directions.

One survey gave us a fairly clear picture of where Duterte-Carpio’s national rating was coming from.

For Marcos, it gave us more questions.

The next OCTA survey should tell us whether Duterte-Carpio’s fall below majority trust was the beginning of a lasting decline or whether this particular result was strongly affected by timing and survey design.

For Marcos, I will be watching Mindanao, the Visayas, and Class D. Those were the places where some of his biggest losses appeared.

The headline told us that both leaders fell below 50%.

The tables told us they did not get there the same way.

Sources

SONA 2026 HIGHLIGHTS — NOTES (PART 2)

Gino Borlado — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:38:51 GMT

These are the other major programs, targets, and claims presented during the SONA that were not included in Part 1.

Figures reported by the President should be treated as administration claims unless supported by independently audited records.

AGRICULTURE AND AGRARIAN REFORM

Marcos reported increased production in rice, corn, sugar, pork, and poultry.

• The government reportedly distributed nearly 40,000 agricultural machines.

• It also established 145 rice-processing systems and three large cold-storage facilities.

• Marcos said approximately 18 million coconut trees had already been planted.

• The government is targeting 100 million new coconut trees.

• He said the National Food Authority would strengthen rice procurement and buffer stocking.

• The government also plans to strengthen measures against avian flu and African swine fever.

• Marcos reported approximately ₱19 billion in agricultural insurance payouts.

• Agricultural insurance is being expanded to cover livestock, fisheries, equipment, facilities, vehicles, and the lives of farmers and fisherfolk.

• More than 400,000 agrarian-reform titles covering over 500,000 hectares had reportedly been distributed.

• Marcos said the government was targeting the completion of land-title distribution in 2027.

• He also said the condonation of qualified agrarian-reform debt would be completed this year.

• These production, distribution, and completion figures remain administration claims.

FOOD ASSISTANCE AND FOOD PRICES

Marcos highlighted programs intended to provide cheaper food and direct rice assistance.

• More than 26,000 tons of rice had reportedly been distributed to over 2.5 million families.

• The government is targeting eight million beneficiary families.

• Marcos said the Benteng Bigas Meron Na program had reached more than 12 million people.

• More than 800 KADIWA outlets were reportedly operating.

• Nearly two million farmers and fisherfolk had reportedly received assistance through PAFFF.

• The government also intervened to limit increases in the price of imported rice.

• The beneficiary totals and claimed effects on food prices still require independent verification.

HOUSING

Marcos reported that more than 500,000 homes had been built or financed under government housing programs.

• More than 100,000 were reportedly added during the previous year under the expanded 4PH program.

• The total combines homes that were built with units that were financed.

• The government’s housing approach includes new communities, Pag-IBIG acquired assets, community mortgages, rental housing, and resettlement.

• The Pag-IBIG housing-loan ceiling was increased to ₱10 million.

• The reported number should not be interpreted as 500,000 newly completed housing units.

PENSIONS AND SOCIAL PROTECTION

Marcos announced or reviewed changes involving pensions, insurance, and worker protection.

• Retired uniformed personnel were granted increased pensions and subsistence allowances.

• The scheduled 10 percent increase in SSS pensions was advanced from September to June.

• Marcos said around 44 million Filipinos were covered by SSS.

• More than 80,000 drivers, vendors, gig workers, job-order personnel, and other informal workers were reportedly added to social-insurance coverage.

• Government contract-of-service and job-order workers will receive additional compensation to help pay SSS, Pag-IBIG, and PhilHealth contributions.

• Almost seven million overseas Filipino workers were reportedly insured.

• The government is also promoting wider access to private microinsurance.

• These coverage figures should remain attributed to the administration.

JOBS, LOANS, AND FINANCIAL RELIEF

Marcos presented employment and financial-relief measures introduced during the economic crisis.

• Nearly 100 Labor Day job fairs reportedly offered around 300,000 vacancies.

• More than 6,000 applicants were reportedly hired on the spot.

• More than 100,000 DILEEP and TUPAD beneficiaries reportedly received wages.

• Some banks and e-wallet providers reduced or removed transaction fees.

• Borrowers were offered payment extensions of up to six months.

• Agricultural borrowers could receive extensions of up to one year.

• Payment relief was also provided through SSS, GSIS, Pag-IBIG, and the National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation.

• The Bureau of Internal Revenue introduced a one-time tax-abatement program for qualified microentrepreneurs.

• Marcos also promised tax-relief measures for the middle class, although the detailed proposal still requires legislation.

• Nearly ₱58 billion in additional funding was reportedly released to local governments for public services.

• This ₱58-billion release is separate from the more than ₱60 billion mentioned for national assistance and crisis-response programs in Part 1.

AI TRAINING AND DIGITAL READINESS

Marcos said the country must prepare students, workers, and industries for artificial intelligence.

• Government AI-readiness and digital-literacy programs had reportedly reached at least 1.8 million students, parents, teachers, and other participants.

• He connected the use of AI with critical thinking, creativity, education, productivity, and industrial development.

• The 1.8-million figure refers to people reportedly reached by training or awareness programs. It does not establish proficiency or employment outcomes.

PAX SILICA AND ADVANCED INDUSTRIES

Marcos highlighted the proposed Pax Silica Industrial Hub as part of the government’s effort to enter the global AI and advanced-technology supply chain.

• The proposed hub will occupy approximately 1,620 hectares in New Clark City.

• It is intended to support semiconductors, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, logistics, data infrastructure, critical minerals, and related industries.

• The project forms part of the US-led Pax Silica initiative and the Luzon Economic Corridor.

• The Philippines had already joined Pax Silica in April 2026.

• The industrial hub was therefore not announced for the first time during the SONA.

• The Bases Conversion and Development Authority estimated that the project could attract between US$40 billion and US$70 billion in investments.

• It is also projected to generate more than 130,000 jobs.

• These are projections—not investments already secured or jobs already created.

• The project remains proposed.

• Its investors, financing, environmental requirements, community safeguards, and final operating arrangements are still subject to negotiation and implementation.

ROCKET PROJECT AND PROPOSED CAGAYAN SPACEPORT

Marcos announced that Cagayan is being considered as the site of the country’s first spaceport.

• A sounding-rocket test launch is targeted for 2027.

• A sounding rocket is mainly used for scientific research, testing, and training.

• It is not the same as an orbital rocket designed to place a satellite into orbit.

• The planned test will involve South Korean aerospace company Perigee Aerospace.

• PhilSA, DICT, the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority, Ascend International Gateway, and Perigee Aerospace had already signed an agreement in March 2026.

• The agreement covers training, experimental rocket launches, and studies on the viability of a Philippine spaceport.

• The Philippines is not yet operating a commercial spaceport.

• The country is also not yet independently launching orbital rockets.

• The 2027 test remains a target.

• The final launch site, permits, safety standards, environmental safeguards, and operating arrangements still need to be completed.

TRADE, INVESTMENTS, AND ECONOMIC ZONES

Marcos presented the administration’s trade and investment agenda.

• He said the Philippines had 23 free-trade agreements that were either active or under negotiation.

• An economic partnership agreement with the United Arab Emirates was also being pursued.

• Marcos said more than ₱6 trillion in investments had been facilitated through the government’s Green Lanes.

• These were described as investments facilitated—not necessarily money already spent or projects already operating.

• The projects were projected to generate more than 400,000 jobs.

• New or proposed economic zones were mentioned in Dumaguete, Misamis Oriental, and Palawan.

• Marcos also called for further development of the halal industry.

• The investment and employment figures remain projections until the projects are financed, constructed, and operational.

PUBLIC-TRANSPORT MODERNIZATION

Marcos discussed the transition to electric and lower-emission transportation.

• Tariff-free treatment for electric vehicles will continue until 2028.

• The government is targeting electric vehicles to account for half of all vehicles in the country by 2040.

• Government agencies will prioritize electric vehicles when replacing official vehicles.

• Marcos mentioned electric Love Buses and electric articulated buses for Davao.

• He also highlighted the locally developed M/B Dalaray electric ferry.

• The government is studying the possible use of electric ferries along the Pasig River.

• The public-utility vehicle modernization program will continue.

• The 2040 EV figure is a policy target—not a guaranteed outcome.

OTHER TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS

Marcos also discussed bus systems, bridge repairs, right-of-way reforms, and temporary transport and freight relief.

• He cited the initial portion of the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit project.

• An Ilocos Norte bus rapid-transit system is targeted for inauguration next year.

• He highlighted the Accelerated and Reformed Right of Way Act as a way to address delays in public infrastructure.

• Bridges in San Juanico, Isabela, Cagayan, Samar, and Iligan were reportedly repaired or rehabilitated.

• The government also implemented reduced fees involving some airports, seaports, terminals, tollways, and agricultural freight.

• Cebu Port passengers were granted free terminal fees.

• Some airport passenger service charges were reduced.

• PITX terminal fees were temporarily suspended.

• Agricultural and food cargo received a reduced ₱1 Ro-Ro terminal fee.

• DA-accredited agricultural trucks received free expressway tolls.

• Some of these measures were temporary crisis responses and may no longer be active.

DISASTER RESPONSE AND PREPAREDNESS

Marcos described a nationwide network intended to deliver emergency assistance more quickly.

• More than 600,000 families affected by earthquakes in the Visayas and Mindanao reportedly received assistance.

• More than ₱3 billion in immediate assistance was reportedly released.

• The disaster-resource network includes three primary centers, 15 hubs, 76 spokes, and 919 last-mile facilities.

• Marcos said this system could deliver emergency supplies within 24 hours.

• That delivery-time claim will depend on the location, condition of roads, weather, logistics, and the scale of the emergency.

• The government is deploying Mobile Energy Systems to provide electricity during emergencies.

• It is also developing a Government Emergency Communications System.

• A private-sector satellite-to-mobile service was mentioned as part of emergency communication planning.

• Marcos also referred to the State of Imminent Disaster mechanism, which allows action before a disaster occurs.

FLOOD PREVENTION AND WASTE MANAGEMENT

Marcos discussed programs intended to address flooding, blocked waterways, and solid waste.

• Oplan Kontra Baha includes the cleaning of esteros, drainage systems, and other waterways.

• Cash-for-work operations reportedly covered more than 200 waterways.

• The government is considering waste-to-energy and modern waste-treatment systems.

• Marcos also promoted waste recovery, processing, and upcycling.

• The former Carmona landfill is being converted into an MMDA nature park and disaster-training facility.

• Proposed waste-to-energy projects will still require environmental, health, regulatory, and community safeguards.

EDUCATION, SKILLS, AND EMPLOYMENT

Marcos also discussed programs intended to connect education more directly with employment.

• More than 1,500 Senior High School graduates were reportedly hired on the spot through government-supported activities.

• Senior High School graduates may now qualify for some entry-level government positions.

• Work-immersion programs are being expanded.

• Marcos cited an 81 percent employment rate among graduates of technical-vocational programs.

• That rate requires clarification because placement rates may vary by course, region, and reporting period.

• He highlighted Tsuper Iskolar and En-TSUPER-neur for transport workers.

• More than 10,000 farmers and fisherfolk are targeted for skills training.

• The government is also implementing the ladderized Tech-Pro program and the TESDA Passport.

CHILD PROTECTION AND SCHOOL SAFETY

Marcos discussed threats facing children both online and inside schools.

• He cited fake news, pornography, online violence, hate culture, teenage pregnancy, and rising HIV cases.

• He called for stronger school security involving DepEd, barangays, local governments, and the Philippine National Police.

• Schools are expected to strengthen anti-bullying procedures and emergency-reporting systems.

• Teachers and principals will receive additional training in handling student conflicts.

ADDITIONAL HEALTHCARE PROGRAMS

Marcos mentioned several healthcare programs that were not included in Part 1.

• More than 2,000 medicines had reportedly been exempted from value-added tax.

• Additional blood tests and medicines are planned for kidney, liver, thyroid, and hepatitis B conditions.

• Marcos also mentioned PhilHealth benefits involving HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

• Under Project Aruga, additional support is being provided for children and families requiring specialized care.

• Marcos said nearly three million patients had benefited from zero-balance billing.

• More than eight million people had reportedly received assistance through MAIFIP.

• The government is introducing e-MAIFIP through the eGovPH application.

• Marcos also mentioned BUCAS centers, specialty centers, and VALOR Clinics for veterans.

• Medical scholarships tied to public service are being expanded.

• Beneficiary counts and zero-balance billing claims should remain attributed to the administration.

SPORTS

Marcos said government support for sports had been tripled.

• He specifically mentioned tennis player Alex Eala.

• He also recognized the Filipinas women’s national football team.

• The speech did not provide a detailed breakdown showing which sports programs received the additional funding.

ASEAN AND REGIONAL COOPERATION

Marcos outlined regional priorities connected to the Philippines’ ASEAN chairship.

• These included the ASEAN Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve.

• He also mentioned the proposed ASEAN Digital Economy Framework.

• Regional petroleum stockpiling and the ASEAN Power Grid were included in the energy-security agenda.

• Marcos called for greater regional cooperation and an end to armed conflicts.

• Many of these programs require agreements and implementation by several countries, not the Philippines alone.

PEACE PROCESS AND BARMM ELECTIONS

Marcos said the government was preparing to formally complete its peace agreement with the Cordillera Bodong Administration–Cordillera People’s Liberation Army.

• He also referred to the forthcoming first regular parliamentary elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

• The elections are to be conducted under Republic Act No. 12317.

• These developments were separate from the West Philippine Sea and international-security section discussed in Part 1.

(Note: This is not complete. Please refer to his actual speech if you want the complete list.)

SONA 2026 HIGHLIGHTS — NOTES (PART 1)

Gino Borlado — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 11:41:11 GMT

FLOOD-CONTROL INVESTIGATION

Marcos publicly acknowledged that the flood-control investigation had reached Leyte Representative and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

A complaint for preliminary investigation had already been filed with the Office of the Ombudsman before the SONA.

A preliminary investigation is not yet a criminal case filed in court and does not establish guilt.

Romualdez has denied wrongdoing.

Marcos said additional cases were nearing filing.

Marcos reported that nearly ₱25 billion in money and assets had been recovered, frozen, or preserved.

This does not mean that the entire ₱25 billion had already been recovered and returned to the government.

Marcos said more than ₱800 million had been returned to the National Treasury. This remains an administration figure.

FUEL PRICES AND HOUSEHOLD RELIEF

Marcos reviewed measures implemented by the government in response to the Middle East energy crisis and higher fuel prices.

The LPG and kerosene excise-tax suspension had already ended on July 8.

The 20 percent regular fare discount and combined 40 percent discount for priority passengers under the land-based Service Contracting Program had already ended on May 22.

Marcos said the 50 percent MRT-3 and LRT-2 fare discount remained in effect.

Qualified jeepney and UV Express units received a ₱10-per-liter diesel subsidy. This did not automatically cover every driver or vehicle.

Marcos said more than ₱60 billion had been allocated for several crisis-response and assistance programs through the end of the year.

UPLIFT is only one component of that broader assistance package.

The program targets around 7.5 million poor, near-poor, and low-income households.

Marcos also reported that more than 12,000 Filipinos had been repatriated, around 140,000 overseas Filipino workers had received assistance, and the country had fuel stocks sufficient for almost two months.

These remain administration figures.

ENERGY SECURITY

Marcos presented a pipeline of energy projects intended to increase the country’s power supply.

Around 200 projects could add nearly 10,000 megawatts by 2028.

Of these, 45 had reportedly been completed, 31 were targeted for completion in 2026, and 124 were targeted through 2028.

Another 1,700 megawatts could come from energy-storage projects.

These are targets and projections, not guaranteed delivered capacity.

The reported 222 billion cubic feet of additional Malampaya gas is an initial reserve estimate.

Initial production was being targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026.

The claim that it could supply electricity equivalent to the needs of 1.6 million households until 2034 is a projection.

Marcos said the country should reconsider nuclear energy, but he did not announce a specific plant, budget, or construction schedule.

He asked Congress to pass the proposed Sariling Kuryente Act.

The proposed measure is not yet law.

EDUCATION

Marcos announced and reviewed programs involving school counselors, teachers, classrooms, feeding, and scholarships.

The government had approved funding and standards for 10,000 School Counselor Associate positions.

Hiring and deployment were still underway. The 10,000 counselors were not all working in schools yet.

A total of 32,916 new teaching positions had been approved for School Year 2026–2027.

Approved positions do not automatically mean that all positions have already been filled.

Marcos reported that more than 80,000 teachers and school heads had been promoted.

A public-private partnership is expected to construct 16,459 classrooms in 1,095 schools in Luzon.

Construction is planned for 2027 to 2028. These classrooms have not yet been completed.

The school feeding program targets approximately 4.5 million to 4.6 million learners.

Under the Presidential Scholars program, five students from each barangay would receive ₱20,000 each.

The scholarship allocation is ₱100,000 for five students per barangay, not ₱100,000 for each scholar.

The scholarship program had already been announced before the SONA.

HEALTHCARE

Marcos highlighted existing health programs and announced planned benefit expansions.

Marcos said 25 million Filipinos had registered under YAKAP and 4.5 million had received consultations.

These figures should remain attributed to Marcos because published PhilHealth figures may use different definitions and coverage measurements.

Under GAMOT, qualified patients may receive up to ₱20,000 annually for medicines.

The program covers 75 medicine categories and had more than 2,000 accredited providers.

The existing developmental-disability benefit covers up to 90 therapy sessions.

Marcos announced that this would be increased to 150 sessions and that the benefit package would be doubled.

The increase was an announcement. It was not yet shown as an active benefit in a published PhilHealth circular at the time of the SONA.

The Philippine Virology and Vaccine Institute had already been created by law in 2025.

What remains is its implementation, development, staffing, facilities, and operations.

TRANSPORTATION

Marcos presented target dates for several railway and expressway projects.

The Malolos-to-Valenzuela section of the North-South Commuter Railway is targeted for partial operation around December 2027.

The railway connection to Clark is expected to open in phases.

These dates are government targets and may still change.

Twelve MRT-7 stations from North Avenue to Sacred Heart are targeted to operate by the second quarter of 2027.

Sacred Heart station is in Caloocan, not Quezon City.

For SLEX Toll Road 4, the December 2026 target covers the first three packages from Sto. Tomas to Tiaong.

This covers approximately 31.6 kilometers and does not represent completion of the entire 66.7-kilometer project.

DISASTER PREPAREDNESS

Marcos reported completed evacuation centers and announced additional disaster-preparedness measures.

He said 137 evacuation centers had been completed.

He announced planned Ligtas Pinoy Centers in Bicol, Eastern Samar, Bukidnon, and Davao de Oro.

The 137-center figure remains an administration report unless supported by a complete independently verified project list.

Marcos also called for updates to the National Building Code and the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act.

These were requests for legislative action, not completed legal changes.

WEST PHILIPPINE SEA

Marcos reaffirmed that the 2016 arbitral ruling is final and binding.

He said the Philippines would continue defending its rights through peaceful and legal means.

He said the country would not abandon the ruling because of foreign or domestic attempts to undermine it.

NOTABLE OMISSION

Marcos did not discuss the ongoing impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.

Malacañang had already said before the SONA that the impeachment proceedings would not be included.

ARE FILIPINO VOTERS GETTING DUMBER?

Gino Borlado — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 14:55:54 GMT

I know how harsh that question sounds. I did not start out wanting to ask it.

It came to me while looking at the surveys surrounding Vice President Sara Duterte and her impeachment trial. She faces serious allegations involving confidential funds, unexplained wealth, bribery, and threats against the President and other officials. She denies the accusations, and the Senate impeachment court exists to hear the case, examine the evidence, listen to the defense, and decide whether the charges have been proven.

Yet Duterte remains politically strong.

That is the part I have been trying to understand.

A voter does not have to dislike Sara Duterte to want answers. Distrusting the House does not prevent anyone from supporting a fair trial. You can even believe that the prosecution will eventually fail and still agree that allegations this serious against the Vice President deserve to be examined before anyone declares her innocent or guilty.

That should be ordinary citizenship.

And the surveys actually show that the Filipino public may be more complicated than either political camp wants to admit.

In June 2025, a Social Weather Stations survey found that 66 percent of respondents agreed that Duterte should face the impeachment court and answer the allegations against her. More recent polling, however, shows her maintaining strong public support and leading presidential preference surveys for 2028.

Those findings do not automatically contradict each other.

A person can support Duterte politically and still want her investigated. Someone can believe she is being treated unfairly while also believing she should answer the charges. A voter may even conclude that she committed wrongdoing and still prefer her over every other presidential candidate being offered.

That possibility changes the question.

Perhaps Filipinos are not refusing to think about the allegations. Perhaps political loyalty has become strong enough that allegations which would normally damage a politician no longer carry the same political cost.

And that, to me, is more worrying than the original question.

THE QUESTION GOT SWAPPED

One of the most common defenses of Duterte asks a simple question: What crime has she committed?

It sounds reasonable until you remember what impeachment is.

Article XI of the 1987 Constitution says public office is a public trust. It lists betrayal of public trust among the grounds for impeachment, alongside culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, and other high crimes.

An impeachment trial is therefore different from a criminal prosecution.

The Senate impeachment court does not decide whether Duterte should be sent to prison. Its job is to decide whether the charges against her justify removing her from office and, depending on the judgment, disqualifying her from holding public office. Any criminal prosecution supported by evidence would belong in the regular justice system.

So when someone asks, “What crime has she committed?” that question does not settle the impeachment case.

The prosecution still has to prove its case. Duterte has every right to challenge the evidence, attack weak arguments, question witnesses, and defend herself fully. But the absence of a criminal conviction does not automatically answer whether an impeachable offense occurred.

Somewhere along the way, however, these two questions started getting mixed together.

“No criminal conviction” becomes “no wrongdoing.”

“No final court judgment” becomes “nothing to answer.”

And before the Senate has even finished examining the case, some people have already reached a conclusion that the trial itself is proof of persecution.

That is where political loyalty begins interfering with the test that impeachment was created to perform.

THE POWER OF BEING THE VICTIM

Pulse Asia President Ronald Holmes has linked Duterte’s continued political strength to her camp’s repeated claim that she is being politically persecuted.

That should be treated as an interpretation of the polling, not proof that persecution messaging alone caused her numbers. Polls showing political preference cannot, by themselves, tell us exactly what is happening inside every voter’s head.

Still, the explanation deserves attention because political psychology has documented something very similar.

Once people become deeply attached to a political figure, allegations against that person can create an uncomfortable problem.

Imagine spending years defending someone. You argued for them online. You fought relatives over them. You called critics liars. You attached part of your political identity to that person’s success.

Then serious accusations appear.

Accepting that the accusations might be true now comes with a personal cost. You may have to admit that someone you trusted failed you. Worse, you may have to admit that the people you spent years attacking had a point.

Psychologists call part of this cognitive dissonance, the discomfort people feel when new information clashes with beliefs they already hold.

There is also confirmation bias. People naturally give more weight to information that supports what they already believe and become more skeptical when information threatens those beliefs.

Then there is belief perseverance, where an existing belief survives even after the evidence supporting it becomes weaker.

You do not need a psychology degree to recognize the pattern. Most of us have probably done some version of this in our own lives.

Politics simply gives it bigger consequences.

A loyal supporter confronted with damaging allegations has several choices. They can examine the evidence and risk changing their mind. They can admit the possibility that their preferred leader made serious mistakes. Or they can find a reason to reject the entire process before dealing with the evidence itself.

The persecution claim offers an easy escape.

Once you believe your leader is being targeted, every accusation can become further proof that the targeting is real.

An investigation looks like harassment. A subpoena looks like abuse. Another witness looks like another attacker. A damaging document can be dismissed as part of the campaign against her.

The accusation itself stops being the problem.

Now the people asking questions become the problem.

That is an extremely powerful political position because it can turn scrutiny into sympathy.

And Sara Duterte did not invent it.

Researchers have studied how political figures use claims of victimhood to strengthen loyalty and deepen distrust toward institutions. Political communication scholars have examined similar strategies involving leaders such as Viktor Orbán and Donald Trump, where scandal or investigation is presented to supporters as another attack by hostile political forces.

The names and countries change. The psychological appeal is familiar.

You no longer have to defeat every accusation individually if you can convince supporters that the entire system asking the questions cannot be trusted.

THE TRIAL STILL HAS TO DO ITS JOB

None of this means the impeachment process is automatically fair.

The House can act politically. Senators can have their own interests. Prosecutors can make mistakes. Procedures can be violated. Evidence can turn out to be weak. Witnesses can be unreliable.

Every one of those possibilities deserves scrutiny.

But legitimate questions about procedure should lead to better procedure. They should not erase the allegations themselves.

This distinction becomes especially important when senators raise legal or procedural objections during the trial. They have every right to do so, and some objections may be valid. The danger comes when the public hears so much about procedural disputes that the original accusations disappear from view.

A technical flaw in one part of the process does not tell us whether confidential funds were properly spent. A disagreement over procedure does not explain disputed financial records. It does not answer allegations involving threats or other conduct included in the impeachment case.

Those questions still need answers.

Due process protects the rights of the person accused while allowing the case to be tested fairly. Turning due process into a reason to stop asking questions defeats the purpose of having a process at all.

THE SAME STANDARD TEST

There is a simple way to test how much political loyalty influences our judgment.

Change the politician.

Take the allegations against Sara Duterte and imagine that the name attached to them belongs to someone you strongly dislike.

Would you still say there should be no impeachment trial because the politician claims persecution?

Would you accept strong survey numbers as evidence that the allegations should be ignored?

Would you demand a criminal conviction before agreeing that Congress should even examine possible betrayal of public trust?

You do not have to tell anyone your answer.

Just answer honestly.

That is the standard Filipinos should be worried about losing.

Political disagreement is normal. Different voters can look at the same evidence and reach different conclusions. One person may find a witness credible while another sees weaknesses. One voter may believe the prosecution proved its case while another thinks reasonable doubts remain.

The problem begins when the identity of the politician decides whether we are willing to look at the evidence in the first place.

Healthy skepticism asks hard questions about the prosecution and the defense. It demands documents. It checks testimony. It refuses to convict someone based only on political hatred.

Denial works differently. The conclusion comes first, and everything else is arranged around protecting it.

That difference is becoming harder to see in Philippine politics because almost everyone now claims to be skeptical.

THE POLL IS NOT A VERDICT

Duterte’s political strength deserves attention, but a survey cannot tell the Senate whether she committed an impeachable offense.

A presidential preference survey asks voters whom they currently prefer for president. It does not examine bank records, authenticate documents, cross-examine witnesses, or determine whether betrayal of public trust occurred.

This is why Duterte’s strong numbers and the earlier finding that 66 percent wanted her to answer the impeachment allegations can exist at the same time.

Some Filipinos may want accountability without abandoning political support.

Others may believe the charges are political but still want them tested.

Some may simply prefer Duterte over the available alternatives regardless of the impeachment case.

And yes, there will also be supporters who have already decided she is innocent without examining the evidence.

Those groups should not be treated as one identical block of voters.

Still, the political benefit of portraying Duterte as a victim cannot be ignored. A persecution claim gives supporters an emotionally satisfying explanation for every attack against their preferred leader. It requires far less effort than reading financial records, studying constitutional rules, or following hours of testimony.

Sympathy is easy.

Evidence takes work.

THE REWARD FOR NOT ASKING

Philippine politics has another problem feeding all of this: cynicism.

People have heard so many corruption allegations that some have stopped caring who is accused. Every politician is corrupt anyway, they say. Every investigation is political. Everyone steals. Everyone lies.

It sounds worldly and skeptical.

In practice, that attitude gives politicians more room to escape accountability.

Once voters decide that everyone is equally corrupt, evidence loses political value. The politician with the strongest following, the loudest machinery, or the most successful claim of victimhood gains an advantage because supporters no longer ask whether the allegations are true.

They only ask why their politician is the one being investigated.

That is a dangerous place for any democracy.

Selective accountability eventually becomes no accountability at all.

ARE WE GETTING DUMBER?

So, are Filipino voters getting dumber?

I do not think so.

Filipinos are perfectly capable of examining difficult information. We do it every day in our jobs, businesses, families, and personal lives. We calculate risks. We detect lies. We recognize when someone is trying to take advantage of us.

Politics seems to activate a different weakness.

We become strict investigators when the accused politician belongs to the other camp. When the politician is ours, suddenly we become defense lawyers.

The intelligence did not disappear.

The standard changed.

That is what worries me.

Sara Duterte may be innocent of the allegations against her. The prosecution may fail to prove its case. The Senate may eventually conclude that the evidence is insufficient.

Those are possible outcomes, and a fair process must leave room for them.

But innocence should come from the evidence surviving examination, not from popularity. Acquittal should follow a failed case, not a successful sympathy campaign. Political loyalty should never become a substitute for asking what actually happened.

Filipinos do not need to agree about Sara Duterte.

We do need to be willing to use the same standard when judging politicians we love and politicians we hate.

That is the real test.

Because the danger is not that Filipino voters suddenly lost the ability to think.

The danger is that we have become very good at thinking critically about everyone except our own side.

Sources

WHAT HAPPENS IF SARA DUTERTE RESIGNS BEFORE HER IMPEACHMENT TRIAL ENDS?

Gino Borlado — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:00:05 GMT

This started with a reader question, but I have been thinking about it since the trial began. What actually happens if Sara Duterte resigns before the Senate decides her case?

Conviction requires sixteen votes. The current Senate majority has thirteen members, which means even a unanimous majority vote would still fall three votes short. To convict Sara Duterte, at least three senators from the eleven-member minority would have to cross over and vote with them.

So the possibility that Sara walks away without an impeachment conviction is very real. The bigger question is what walking away would actually mean.

You can listen to this article here.

THE RESIGNATION QUESTION HAS NO CLEAN ANSWER

Former Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and constitutional lecturer Antonio La Viña have very different readings of what happens if Duterte resigns before the Senate votes.

Carpio has said the Senate would likely dismiss the case because there would no longer be a Vice President to remove. Under that reading, Duterte could leave office before conviction and avoid both removal and the disqualification that could follow an impeachment judgment. That would have obvious consequences for 2028.

It could also stop the impeachment trial before the Senate reaches a final judgment on allegations that have already led senator-judges to subpoena bank records and Anti-Money Laundering Council files tied to private transactions reportedly exceeding 110 million dollars.

La Viña sees the Constitution differently. He points to the command that an impeachment trial should proceed “forthwith” once the Articles are transmitted to the Senate. He also points to Article XI Section 3(7), which allows an impeachment judgment to include removal from office and disqualification from holding public office again.

Under his reading, resignation does not automatically erase the second question. The Senate could still decide whether Duterte should be barred from returning to public office even if she has already given up the vice presidency.

The problem is that the Philippines has never had to settle this exact question. There is no Philippine precedent telling us what the Senate must do when an impeached official resigns in the middle of trial.

That leaves two serious legal arguments heading toward each other, with Duterte's political future in between.

DOES IT MATTER WHEN SHE RESIGNS?

There is another question underneath all of this: does the exact timing change anything? What if Duterte resigns while prosecutors are still presenting evidence, after both sides have already finished, or while the senators are deliberating one day before the vote?

One legal reading is that all of those situations lead back to the same problem. As long as she resigns before conviction, the Senate can no longer remove her from an office she has already left. The fight over disqualification would remain.

That is where La Viña's argument becomes especially important. If the Senate believes disqualification can still be decided separately, the trial may have a reason to continue. If the Senate accepts Carpio's view that resignation ends the proceeding, then the exact day she resigns may change very little as long as the Senate has not yet convicted her.

After conviction, the situation is different. Once the Senate has already voted to convict and imposed its judgment, a resignation afterward cannot undo a decision that has already been made.

Again, none of this has been tested in the Philippines. So I would be careful with anyone claiming there is already a definite answer, because there isn't.

WHAT IF THE SUPREME COURT GETS INVOLVED?

Carpio has raised another possibility. If Duterte resigns and the Senate decides to continue the trial anyway, she could challenge the Senate's authority before the Supreme Court.

That does not mean the Supreme Court would take over the impeachment case. The Constitution gives the Senate the sole power to try and decide impeachment cases, and courts generally do not get to replace the Senate's judgment on whether an impeached official should be convicted or acquitted.

The Supreme Court can, however, examine whether constitutional limits were followed. We already saw that kind of fight when the one-year ban on repeated impeachment complaints became central to the earlier Duterte impeachment case.

A resignation case would likely raise a narrower question: after an impeached official leaves office, does the Senate still have constitutional authority to continue for the purpose of deciding disqualification? The Court could be asked to answer that without deciding whether the corruption, misuse of funds, or threat allegations against Duterte are true.

It could also be asked to stop the trial temporarily while that question is being resolved.

That would put the country in completely new territory.

ACQUITTAL AND DISMISSAL WOULD MEAN VERY DIFFERENT THINGS

This distinction is easy to lose. An acquittal means the Senate reached the end of the case and failed to produce the sixteen votes needed for conviction.

A dismissal after resignation could mean the Senate never reached the evidence on its merits because it decided it no longer had a case it could continue. Politically, those outcomes could be sold in very different ways.

Duterte and her supporters could present either result as proof that the impeachment failed. Her critics could argue that a dismissal settled nothing about whether the allegations were true because the Senate never completed the trial.

That difference becomes especially important if Duterte runs for President in 2028. A candidate who was acquitted can say the Senate heard the case and did not convict, while a candidate whose trial ended because she resigned faces a different question: why leave before the senators voted?

That is one reason I cannot see a carefully timed resignation as some simple act of humility. It would be a political gamble, with Duterte betting that leaving office and possibly ending the impeachment trial carries less risk than waiting for twenty-four senators to decide her fate.

WHY THE OTHER CASES KEEP MOVING

The impeachment trial gets the most attention because it is happening in public, but it is only one of several proceedings involving Duterte.

The Constitution itself separates impeachment from possible criminal liability. Article XI Section 3(7) says that a person convicted through impeachment can still face prosecution, trial, and punishment under ordinary law. Resigning does not give someone immunity from separate complaints or investigations already moving through other institutions.

The Ombudsman has plunder and graft complaints filed in December 2025 by civic and church groups involving roughly 612.5 million pesos in confidential funds. A second plunder complaint involving the same money was filed in January 2026.

Those complaints follow Duterte as a person. Leaving the vice presidency does not make them disappear. A conviction through that route could also carry consequences separate from impeachment, with the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act providing for perpetual disqualification from public office following conviction.

Carpio has pointed to this as another route that could affect Duterte's political future even without an impeachment conviction.

The Department of Justice is also reviewing sedition and grave threats complaints filed by the National Bureau of Investigation over the assassination remarks that became part of the impeachment case. Justice Secretary Fredderick Vida confirmed in July 2026 that the review remains active and separate from the Senate proceeding.

A resignation or Senate acquittal would not decide what the DOJ does with those complaints. Then there is the disbarment complaint filed before the Supreme Court in November 2024 by Presidential Adviser Larry Gadon over Duterte's remarks about exhuming the remains of former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

That case deals with whether she should remain a lawyer. Her position as Vice President does not decide that question.

So resignation could dramatically change the impeachment case while leaving the Ombudsman complaints, DOJ review, and disbarment proceeding alive.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE RECORDS AND EVIDENCE?

This needs more care than simply saying, “The paper trail stays.”

In July 2026, Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian said the impeachment court had begun publishing trial documents, pleadings, and evidence from both sides through a dedicated Senate website. He said the public should be able to see the material because Filipinos are the “ultimate judges” of the proceeding.

That gives the public access to parts of the trial record. It does not mean every document connected to a Senate subpoena automatically becomes public, and it does not mean everything accepted by the impeachment court can automatically be used in a criminal trial.

Those are separate questions. The Senate impeachment court follows its own rules on evidence and has wider freedom to receive testimony and documents it considers useful to the trial, while a criminal court works differently.

If Ombudsman prosecutors later pursue a plunder or graft case, they cannot assume that a document becomes admissible simply because senators saw it during impeachment. The same problem applies to any criminal case coming from the DOJ review.

Prosecutors may have to obtain the same bank or AMLC records through their own legal process. Documents may need separate authentication, and witnesses who testified before the Senate may have to testify again.

The impeachment record can still be extremely useful because it can show investigators where to look. It can reveal transactions, names, dates, documents, and possible witnesses that other agencies can pursue independently.

Think of it less as a ready-made criminal case and more as a map.

Even if resignation stops the impeachment proceeding, investigators and journalists do not suddenly forget what was revealed in public. Material already published remains available, and testimony already given remains part of the record.

For documents that were merely subpoenaed, however, the distinction remains important. A subpoena does not automatically tell us whether the Senate has received the document, whether it has been formally admitted, or whether it has been released publicly.

WHO TAKES OVER AS VICE PRESIDENT?

Nobody automatically becomes Vice President when the office becomes vacant. Under Article VII Section 9 of the 1987 Constitution, the President nominates a replacement from among the members of the Senate or House of Representatives.

The Senate and House must then confirm the nominee by majority vote, voting separately. That process is very different from presidential succession. When the presidency becomes vacant, the Vice President becomes President, while a vacancy in the vice presidency has no automatic successor waiting to step in.

There is also no constitutional position called “Acting Vice President.” The office can remain vacant while the nomination and confirmation process plays out, and there is no constitutional deadline forcing the President and Congress to complete the process within a specific number of days.

The Office of the Vice President can continue handling its administrative work through its existing staff, but the constitutional position itself remains empty until a replacement is confirmed. A Duterte resignation would therefore immediately create another political decision for President Marcos Jr., who would get to nominate the next Vice President.

WHO BENEFITS IF SHE LEAVES?

This is where the resignation question becomes much more interesting.

Marcos and Duterte ran together in 2022 and won by a landslide. Their alliance later collapsed into open political warfare, including Duterte's threats involving Marcos and First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos.

The break widened further after former President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested on an International Criminal Court warrant and flown to The Hague in March 2025, after the Marcos government allowed Philippine authorities to cooperate with the process that led to his transfer.

A resignation could therefore produce two very different political advantages at the same time. Sara Duterte could potentially remove herself from the immediate danger of an impeachment conviction, depending on how the constitutional fight is resolved, while surrendering the vice presidency and giving Marcos the power to nominate her replacement, subject to approval from Congress.

There is also a possible benefit for Duterte. Leaving office could free her from the demands of the vice presidency and allow her to focus fully on 2028. If the impeachment trial also ends, she could campaign without having to spend months defending herself inside the Senate impeachment court.

The calculation is unusual. Marcos gains the chance to place an ally in the vice presidency, while Duterte may gain the freedom to present herself purely as the challenger preparing for 2028.

So the question is bigger than whether resignation gives Sara Duterte a way out of impeachment. She would have to decide whether avoiding the risk of conviction is worth giving Marcos control over who takes her place.

WHY THE TRIAL RECORD STILL COUNTS

The impeachment trial has one quality the other proceedings do not have: Filipinos can watch much of it unfold themselves.

The Ombudsman process happens largely away from cameras. The DOJ gives occasional updates, while a disbarment case eventually produces a Supreme Court decision. The Senate trial puts witnesses, arguments, documents, and cross-examinations in public view, with the Senate's decision to publish records online adding another layer of access.

That does not turn Senate evidence into an automatic criminal conviction somewhere else. It does give voters information they would otherwise have had very little chance to see.

Pulse Asia polling commissioned by Stratbase in May 2026 showed that 51 percent of respondents would still vote for Duterte for President if the election were held then. A WR Numero survey from April showed her leading her nearest 2028 rival by 17 points.

Those numbers barely moved as impeachment continued. My reading of that is uncomfortable: so far, the allegations and evidence being aired in the Senate do not appear to have seriously weakened her position among a large part of the electorate.

As a side note, I think the evidence presented by the prosecution should have some effect on voters, even among people who ultimately remain unconvinced. At the very least, new testimony, documents, and financial records should force people to reassess what they think they know.

My concern is that astroturfing (organized political messaging made to look like spontaneous grassroots support), combined with survey after survey showing Sara Duterte ahead, can create the impression that none of it is changing anything and that her victory in 2028 is already inevitable.

Once that impression takes hold, the surveys stop being read simply as measurements of public opinion. They start reinforcing the same image the astroturfing is trying to create: that Sara Duterte is too popular to beat, that the evidence is not moving voters, and that the outcome is already decided.

That may be the real political effect. You do not have to convince everyone that the allegations are false. You only have to convince enough people that the allegations will not change the result.

That is also why the trial record has value even if the Senate never reaches a conviction. Voters who want more than campaign speeches, headlines, and social media clips now have testimony, documents, arguments from both sides, and cross-examination to look at.

Some of that material may eventually help other investigators find evidence they can use through their own legal processes. Some of it may go nowhere, but it exists.

Former Senate President Franklin Drilon has said he expects the impeachment trial to finish before the end of the year. It could end with conviction or acquittal, while resignation could trigger a constitutional fight that reaches the Supreme Court and stops the Senate before it can finish.

Each outcome would carry a different legal result. For voters, though, one thing has already changed: more of the record is now in public than before the trial began.

Sara Duterte can leave the vice presidency. The questions raised by the trial will be much harder to leave behind.

Sources

CAYETANO BORROWED THE LANGUAGE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS. RAGE BORROWS “GOOD GOVERNANCE.”

Gino Borlado — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:01:05 GMT

When I first saw Senator Alan Peter Cayetano call Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Rodante Marcoleta, along with former lawmaker Mike Defensor, “political prisoners,” my reaction was immediate.

That is a very serious term to use, and I am not convinced it belongs here.

Marcoleta, Estrada, and Defensor have rights as accused persons. They are presumed innocent. They can challenge the charges, question the evidence, seek bail where the law allows it, and demand a fair and timely trial.

I have no problem with Cayetano arguing for due process. He can question the strength of the cases. He can accuse the government of selective prosecution if he has evidence to support that claim. He can demand that courts and prosecutors act fairly.

But calling these men “political prisoners?” That is an insult to people who actually were.

It borrows a term tied to people jailed because of their beliefs, their organizing, their journalism, their activism, their union work, or their opposition to those in power, then places that label on politicians facing corruption-related charges.

What bothers me is not only the label itself. I am starting to notice a political habit that keeps showing up in different forms.

Words once used against abuses of power are now being used by politicians with questionable records and dealings to cosplay as victims of persecution when scrutiny finally catches up with them.

A corruption prosecution becomes political persecution. An accused politician becomes a political prisoner. An investigation becomes weaponization. Then a political coalition aligned with many of the same personalities puts “good governance” and “accountability” in its own name.

At some point, we have to ask what these words still mean.

THE POWER OF CALLING YOURSELF A VICTIM

There is an obvious political advantage in presenting yourself as persecuted.

Once supporters accept that an investigation is mainly an act of revenge, the actual accusation can fade into the background. Questions about money, disclosure, official conduct, and legal responsibility are replaced by a different question: Who is attacking us?

That change helps the accused.

Instead of answering the allegations, the politician becomes the victim. Prosecutors become persecutors. Courts become suspect before they have ruled. The investigation itself is treated as proof that political enemies are afraid.

I am not saying political prosecution is impossible. Of course it is possible.

Governments can abuse criminal law. Prosecutors can be selective. Cases can be timed for political advantage. Powerful institutions can be used against opponents. Philippine history gives us enough reason to be suspicious when state power is used aggressively.

But suspicion still needs evidence.

The fact that a criminal case has political consequences does not automatically mean the case was invented for political reasons. A politician can be an enemy of the government and still have allegations to answer. Both can be true at the same time.

That distinction gets lost when “political prisoner” becomes the default label for every ally facing legal trouble.

WHAT CAYETANO’S WORDS BORROW

The 1987 Constitution says no person shall be detained solely because of political beliefs and aspirations.

That protection came from a country that had already lived through martial law, mass arrests, torture, disappearances, military detention, and punishment directed at people who challenged those in power.

That is the history carried by the phrase “political prisoner.”

KAPATID, an organization of families and friends of political prisoners, rejected Cayetano’s description. Its argument was simple: politicians do not become political prisoners just because they claim political motivation behind their prosecution. The group also warned against using the term to “sanitize corruption.”

Karapatan likewise criticized Cayetano’s statement and pointed to detainees it considers political prisoners whose cases involve allegations of red-tagging, fabricated charges, abuse, or long periods of detention.

The point they are making is about the reason a person loses freedom.

There are detainees whose families have spent years trying to find money for lawyers, medicine, travel, and prison visits. Some were community organizers, activists, peasant leaders, workers, or critics of government. Their families and supporters believe the cases against them were used to punish their political work.

Then there are national politicians with lawyers, allies, media access, public platforms, and the ability to turn their legal cases into national political campaigns.

Power does not automatically mean someone can never be politically persecuted. I do not believe that.

But being powerful does not automatically turn a criminal defendant into a political prisoner either.

The facts have to carry that claim.

THE CASES STILL HAVE TO BE ANSWERED

Estrada faces plunder and graft charges in a case involving alleged illicit payouts connected to a P573-million flood-control project. The Sandiganbayan ordered his arrest in June, and the case remains pending.

Marcoleta and Defensor are co-accused in another case involving alleged P75 million campaign donations received by Marcoleta. The Office of the Ombudsman filed plunder charges against Marcoleta, Defensor, Joseph Espiritu, and Aristotle Viray.

There are also separate allegations involving Presidential Decree No. 46, which prohibits public officials from receiving gifts, and private persons from giving them, under circumstances covered by the law.

These cases may fail in court. Prosecutors may not prove the charges. Evidence can fall apart. Accused persons can be acquitted.

That is how the legal process works.

What I do not accept is the idea that calling the defendants political prisoners somehow answers the allegations.

It does not tell us what happened to the money. It does not answer questions about disclosure. It does not tell us whether prosecutors can prove their case or whether the charges were filed properly.

It changes the subject.

And politically, that can be very useful.

THE DANGER OF MAKING EVERY CASE “PERSECUTION”

There is another problem when politicians keep describing accountability as persecution.

Actual political persecution becomes harder to recognize.

Think about the effect of using the same label for very different situations. A journalist jailed for reporting against a government, an activist arrested after years of red-tagging, and a senator charged in a corruption case can all end up under the same category.

Once that happens, the differences disappear.

Then the public is pushed toward two bad reactions. Either every prosecution involving a politician starts looking like heroic resistance, or real victims of political repression lose some of the language used to describe what happened to them.

I do not think either outcome helps us.

Calling someone a political prisoner is a serious accusation against the state. It means government power was used to punish political belief, expression, association, organizing, or dissent.

That claim should be backed by evidence strong enough to justify the term.

Otherwise, “political prisoner” becomes just another political slogan.

RAGE AND THE POLITICS OF BORROWED WORDS

This is also why I keep looking at the name Reform Alliance for Good Governance and Accountability, or RAGE Coalition, and thinking there is a deeper contradiction here.

RAGE was launched under Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte. Its public identity puts reform, good governance, and accountability right in the name. Reports about the coalition described a Duterte-aligned political group promising transparency, accountability, and opposition to corruption.

Ronald dela Rosa also publicly supported the coalition through a recorded message.

There is nothing unusual about politicians promising good governance. Almost everyone in politics says some version of it.

The test comes when scrutiny reaches your own side.

It is easy to demand transparency from an opponent. It is harder when the documents being requested belong to an ally. Accountability sounds good until an investigation threatens someone inside your own camp.

That is where the words either hold up or fall apart.

A coalition that uses good governance and accountability as part of its identity cannot expect those principles to apply only to political enemies. It cannot praise investigations aimed at opponents, then treat similar scrutiny of allies as persecution before the courts have even finished their work.

I am not saying every case filed against a Duterte ally is automatically fair. I am saying the same standard has to apply in both directions.

Look at the evidence. Question the process. Challenge abuse when there is proof of abuse. But do not turn every accused ally into a martyr before the case has even been tested.

Otherwise, “good governance” becomes a political tagline, useful for the stage and meaningless the moment accountability reaches their own side.

Use it often enough that way, and eventually the words themselves lose their meaning.

WHO BENEFITS WHEN LANGUAGE IS REVERSED?

This is the part that bothers me most.

Words once used against abuses of power are now being used by powerful people to defend themselves from institutions meant to examine them.

Human-rights language becomes a defense strategy. Accountability becomes a campaign identity. Persecution becomes a shield against scrutiny.

The political advantage is easy to see.

Once supporters believe their leaders are permanent victims, almost every institution investigating them can be folded into the same story. Prosecutors, judges, legislators, journalists, auditors, and critics can all be presented as part of one attack.

Then evidence has to compete with loyalty.

An accusation against the other side becomes proof of corruption. An accusation against your side becomes proof of persecution.

That is where accountability starts breaking down.

People stop asking whether the allegation is true and start asking which political camp benefits from it.

For anyone who does not want to answer difficult questions, that is a very comfortable place to be.

THE STANDARD SHOULD BE HARDER

Cayetano can argue that Estrada, Marcoleta, and Defensor are being treated unfairly, including that the cases moved with unusual speed or at a politically convenient time.

He can point to procedural problems, political interference, selective prosecution, weak evidence, unequal treatment, or suspicious timing.

But show us.

If state institutions were weaponized, explain how. If the charges were fabricated, identify what was fabricated. If political pressure drove the prosecution, produce the evidence connecting that pressure to the case.

That would be a serious argument.

Calling powerful accused politicians “political prisoners” asks the public to accept the conclusion first.

The same applies to RAGE.

A coalition that places good governance and accountability in its name should be prepared to show what those words mean when its own allies face scrutiny.

Anyone can demand transparency from an enemy. The harder moment comes when transparency becomes uncomfortable for your own side.

I am not asking anyone to assume these men are guilty.

I am asking for something simpler: answer the cases with evidence, defend due process where it is violated, and stop borrowing the language of people who were persecuted for speaking, organizing, writing, protesting, or resisting.

Marcoleta, Estrada, Defensor, and their co-accused deserve fair treatment under the law. If their cases are politically manipulated, that should be exposed. If prosecutors cannot prove the charges, the courts should say so.

Their rights can be defended without changing the meaning of political imprisonment.

And a political coalition can defend its allies without making “good governance” sound like a slogan that only applies to everyone else.

We have spent years talking about politicians controlling institutions.

Maybe we should also pay closer attention when powerful people start trying to control the words we use to judge them.

Sources

FILIPINOS DID NOT BECOME MORE TRUSTING OF CHINA. MANY BECAME UNSURE.

Gino Borlado — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 12:18:43 GMT

WHAT THE NEW SURVEY ACTUALLY SHOWS

OCTA Research's latest Tugon ng Masa survey found that 64 percent of Filipinos say the country should distrust China, up from 55 percent in March 2026. Trust barely moved, slipping from 17 percent to 14 percent, while the undecided group fell from 28 percent to 21 percent.

OCTA points to renewed attention on the West Philippine Sea (WPS) as one possible reason. The survey was conducted from July 4 to 11, during the buildup to the 10th anniversary of the 2016 arbitral ruling against China's sweeping claims in the South China Sea, with the anniversary falling on July 12.

That explanation makes sense, but I think there is a more interesting question buried in the numbers: where did all that distrust go before it came back?

LOOK AT THE UNDECIDED NUMBER

Distrust of China stood at 85 percent in July 2025. It fell to 60 percent in December, then dropped again to 55 percent by March 2026.

You could look at that and think Filipinos were slowly becoming more comfortable with China. The problem is that the trust numbers do not show that. Trust stayed relatively low, while the number of Filipinos who were undecided kept growing.

That is the part I find more interesting. People were leaving the distrust column, but they were not rushing into the trust column. Many of them were ending up somewhere in between.

Then July came around. Distrust jumped nine points, while the undecided number fell seven points.

I cannot say those were exactly the same people moving from one answer to another because the survey does not track individual respondents that way. But when one number rises sharply while the other falls almost as sharply, I think it is fair to ask whether some of that distrust was never really gone in the first place.

Perhaps some Filipinos simply became less certain for a while. Then the West Philippine Sea became impossible to ignore again.

THE ANNIVERSARY EXPLAINS PART OF IT

The timing clearly supports OCTA's explanation. The survey happened just before the 10th anniversary of the arbitral ruling, when the West Philippine Sea was getting renewed attention.

But this is where I start to hesitate.

Chinese Coast Guard and maritime militia activity did not suddenly stop during the months when Filipino distrust was falling. The problems at sea continued, yet fewer people were telling OCTA they distrusted China.

So what changed? It could simply be attention.

Perhaps when the West Philippine Sea dominates the news, Filipinos become more certain about how they feel toward China. When it fades from the headlines for a while, some people move back into uncertainty.

I do not think this survey alone can answer that. I also do not think we should look at a falling distrust number and assume China is becoming more acceptable to Filipinos, because the trust numbers never really showed that.

WHERE YOU LIVE MAY ALSO AFFECT HOW YOU SEE THIS

The regional results gave me another reason to pause. Distrust reached 94 percent in MIMAROPA and 88 percent in Caraga, while it was 47 percent in Central Visayas, 52 percent in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), and 53 percent in both Northern Mindanao and SOCCSKSARGEN.

MIMAROPA includes Palawan, which is much closer to the West Philippine Sea, both geographically and in terms of fishing, security, and repeated confrontations involving Chinese vessels. CAR, on the other hand, is landlocked, and 48 percent of respondents there were undecided, the highest undecided number in the survey.

I do not want to force a conclusion from that because there could be many reasons for the regional differences. But I do wonder whether distance changes how urgent the issue feels.

For someone whose livelihood depends on the sea, China may not feel like an abstract foreign-policy question. For someone living far from the coast, the West Philippine Sea may feel much farther removed from daily life.

That does not explain everything, but it does make me question whether national media coverage is the whole story behind these numbers. Geography, livelihood, and direct exposure may also be shaping how people answer.

THE AGE NUMBERS ARE EVEN STRANGER

The age breakdown surprised me. Distrust is highest among Filipinos aged 18 to 24, at 73 percent.

Then you move one age group up, to 25 to 34, and distrust drops to 47 percent. That is the only age group where fewer than half say the country should distrust China, and it also has the highest combined trust rating in the survey, at 27 percent.

Why the gap?

I honestly do not know, and the survey does not answer it. The easy explanation would be social media, but that does not really work because both groups are heavily online.

There may be something about economic experience, work, political memory, or the events each generation remembers most clearly. Filipinos now in their early twenties grew up politically during years when water cannon incidents and confrontations in the West Philippine Sea became regular national news.

That is only one possibility. The survey gives us the difference, but not the reason behind it.

WHAT I THINK THE NUMBERS ARE REALLY TELLING US

I think we have been looking at distrust of China too simply. Distrust goes down and people assume Filipinos are warming toward China. Distrust goes up and people assume public anger has suddenly returned.

But look at where the numbers actually moved.

Trust barely changed, while the biggest movement happened between distrust and uncertainty. That tells me Filipino opinion toward China may not be moving neatly between liking and disliking Beijing. A significant part of the public may instead be moving between having a strong opinion and not being quite sure what to think.

Visibility may have something to do with it. When the West Philippine Sea is everywhere, the confrontations are on television, fishermen are speaking publicly, and the arbitral ruling is back in the national conversation, people have something immediate in front of them.

When attention fades, some of that certainty may fade with it.

I think that is the question the next OCTA survey should help answer. Was this nine-point jump a temporary reaction to renewed attention around the arbitral ruling anniversary, or are Filipinos beginning to settle back into the much higher distrust levels we saw before?

For now, I would be careful about saying Filipinos had started warming up to China and then suddenly changed their minds. The numbers do not really show that.

What they show is that trust remained low while uncertainty grew. Then, when the West Philippine Sea became highly visible again, distrust rose and uncertainty fell.

To me, that is the more interesting story.

Sources

OCTA Research, Q2 2026 Tugon ng Masa Survey Report on Public Sentiment Toward China (PDF, user-provided document)
Philippine Star
GMA News
Rappler
ABS-CBN News
YouTube
YouTube
Asia News Network

If you were not able to watch the Senate impeachment hearing today, July 22, 2026, here are some of the highlights.

Gino Borlado — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 11:22:36 GMT

Please note that I did not include everything that happened during the hearing. These are simply my notes on the major developments, exchanges, clashes, disruptions, and some of the more memorable moments from today’s proceedings.

• National Bureau of Investigation Director Melvin Matibag remained on the witness stand as the hearing focused largely on Article IV, involving Vice President Sara Duterte’s statements about having someone kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez if she herself were killed.

• The defense continued questioning Matibag’s interpretation of Duterte’s statements, particularly whether they amounted to a threat or, as the NBI argued, an active and continuing plan.

• Matibag maintained that Duterte’s remarks went beyond a threat because she had publicly said she contracted someone to kill the President and the others if she were killed.

• The defense also questioned how the NBI reached its conclusions and whether there was sufficient basis to classify the statements as a national-security concern.

• Matibag was pressed over the NBI’s use of the term “kinetic force.” He suggested that Duterte’s statements could help drive supporters into real-world action.

• Senator-judge Robin Padilla questioned the prosecution’s reliance on certain witnesses he said faced perjury-related allegations and suggested that the presentation was unfair.

• House lead prosecutor Gerville Luistro responded and defended the prosecution’s witnesses.

• At one point, Padilla complained about comments coming from the gallery while he was speaking, prompting a brief disturbance.

• Presiding Officer Francis Escudero intervened and reminded participants and the gallery to follow courtroom rules while directing the Sergeant-at-Arms to maintain order.

• Raffy Tulfo raised one of the sharper procedural complaints of the day when he questioned what he saw as uneven enforcement of the two-minute speaking limit for senator-judges.

• Tulfo complained that some senators appeared to be allowed to speak for five or ten minutes while others were being cut off after two.

• Escudero replied that there are no majority or minority blocs inside the impeachment court and directed the secretariat to enforce the time limits uniformly.

• The exchange showed visible tension among the senator-judges over how the proceedings were being managed.

• At one point, Senator Bong Go referenced the 2011 incident in which Sara Duterte, then Davao City mayor, punched a court sheriff.

• The old incident was inserted into the discussion on Duterte’s temperament and whether aggressive behavior or language necessarily proves an actual intention to carry out a threat.

• The sheriff-punching episode also became one of the stranger moments of the hearing, considering that the discussion had been centered on alleged assassination threats and national-security concerns.

• Matibag faced sustained questioning not only from the defense but also from senator-judges examining the NBI’s methodology and conclusions.

• Outside the witness examination, the controversy over subpoenas for financial records continued.

• Several senator-judges, including Alan Peter Cayetano, Pia Cayetano, Loren Legarda, Imee Marcos, and Camille Villar, have filed manifestations raising reservations or objections about the subpoenas for financial records.

• Those manifestations did not reverse the impeachment court’s earlier decision granting the subpoenas.

• The hearing also shifted at several points into procedural debates, manifestations, arguments over speaking time, and side exchanges involving the senator-judges.

• Some of the most memorable moments came from the senator-judges themselves rather than from the witness examination.

• Taken together, the hearing suggested that the impeachment court itself is increasingly becoming part of the story. Some senator-judges are openly challenging witnesses, questioning the prosecution, disputing procedure, and competing for control of the floor.

Image borrowed from The Manila Bulletin

SARA DUTERTE’S 32 MILLION VOTES, A TRUST SURVEY, AND THE QUESTION I STILL HAVE

Gino Borlado — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 20:11:53 GMT

I took down an earlier version of this article because I made a mistake.

While watching the impeachment hearing, I saw defense counsel Mark Vinluan present a Social Weather Stations survey during his cross-examination of NBI Director Melvin Matibag. I thought it was the same survey I had recently written about.

I was wrong.

I had confused a trust survey with a separate survey measuring satisfaction with Sara Duterte’s performance.

So I took the article down.

Trust and satisfaction ask different questions. I should have separated the two surveys from the start.

After checking everything again, though, I realized my mistake had distracted me from the question that bothered me in the first place.

Earlier in the trial, lead defense counsel Sheila Sison reminded the impeachment court that more than 32 million Filipinos voted for Sara Duterte in 2022.

Then, during Matibag’s cross-examination, Vinluan presented a survey comparing public trust in Duterte and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Why does Sara Duterte’s popularity keep entering the picture?

THE 32 MILLION VOTES

More than 32 million Filipinos voted for Sara Duterte in 2022.

That tells me something about her political strength when she was elected. She received an enormous mandate.

I understand that.

What I do not understand is what those votes tell me about the accusations against her years later.

I am not a lawyer. I am not going to pretend that I understand every reason a defense lawyer raises a certain point during an impeachment trial.

I am watching this as a Filipino trying to follow the case.

When the 32 million votes are brought up, I am reminded of how many people supported Sara Duterte.

I already knew she was popular.

What I am trying to understand is why her popularity belongs in the conversation about the accusations against her.

THE SURVEY I GOT WRONG

The survey Vinluan presented was about trust.

It showed 57 percent with much trust in Duterte, compared with 34 percent for Marcos. Twenty-seven percent had little trust in Duterte, while 15 percent were undecided.

The survey I had previously written about asked about satisfaction with Duterte’s performance.

Nationally, 58 percent said they were satisfied and 26 percent dissatisfied.

I had questioned the way that national figure was being discussed because the regional results showed a far more uneven picture.

Duterte’s net satisfaction was +84 in Mindanao, +36 in the Visayas, +10 in Balance Luzon, and +3 in Metro Manila.

That was the survey I had studied.

Vinluan presented another one.

Once I corrected my mistake, I knew I could no longer use that regional breakdown to criticize the survey shown during the hearing.

But I was left with another question.

Why show a trust survey comparing Duterte and Marcos during the cross-examination of the NBI director?

WHY SHOW A TRUST SURVEY?

Vinluan was cross-examining Matibag.

Then a graphic appeared comparing public trust in Duterte and Marcos.

I do not know what Vinluan intended to accomplish by presenting it.

There may be a legal reason that lawyers following the case understand better than I do.

I will not invent one.

But I immediately understood the political message.

Duterte was ahead of Marcos in public trust.

Anyone looking at the graphic could understand that without knowing anything about Matibag’s testimony or following the details of the impeachment case.

And that brought me back to the 32 million votes.

At separate points in this trial, viewers have been reminded of Duterte’s enormous electoral mandate and her current standing in a public trust survey.

I cannot say those moments are part of one planned strategy.

I can only describe what I see as someone following the proceedings.

Both direct attention toward Sara Duterte’s political strength.

That is what interests me.

THE TRIAL AND THE AUDIENCE OUTSIDE

The impeachment proceedings are playing out in front of a much larger public audience.

People watch clips. Screenshots get posted. Short exchanges become headlines. A single image can travel much further than the testimony surrounding it.

The trust survey works perfectly in that environment.

A screenshot can leave the hearing and circulate online without anyone explaining why the survey appeared during Matibag’s cross-examination.

The people sharing it do not have to discuss his testimony.

They do not have to explain what the NBI investigated.

They do not have to address the accusations against Duterte.

The graphic gives them a much easier message.

Duterte is more trusted than Marcos.

I am not saying that was Vinluan’s intention.

I am asking what happens when a survey like that enters the hearing and then reaches an audience far beyond the impeachment court.

Because once the screenshot is out there, the original question asked during cross-examination may become almost irrelevant to the people sharing it.

The political message can survive on its own.

THE QUESTION I COULD FOLLOW

Vinluan raised another issue during Matibag’s cross-examination that I could understand much more easily.

He pointed out that Matibag’s wife is a member of the House of Representatives and had endorsed the impeachment complaint before Matibag testified.

I could see the possible question about bias.

The trust survey leaves me with a different problem.

I understand what it tells me about Duterte’s political standing.

I am still trying to understand what it adds to Matibag’s testimony.

Maybe there is an answer.

I am open to hearing it.

But after correcting my own mistake and looking at the hearing again, I am left with a question that goes beyond one survey.

The defense has reminded the public that more than 32 million Filipinos voted for Sara Duterte.

The public has also been shown a survey placing her ahead of Marcos in trust.

Both tell us something about Sara Duterte as a political figure.

What I am still trying to understand is what her popularity tells us about the accusations against her.

And if it tells us nothing about those accusations, then who were those numbers really for?

Sources

Sharing my notes from today’s impeachment hearing for anyone who might be interested but is unable to watch.

Gino Borlado — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:41:58 GMT

This is only a partial update. The hearing is currently on recess and will continue after.

SARA DUTERTE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL: DAY 8 NOTES SO FAR

• The impeachment court continued hearing evidence under Article IV, involving the alleged threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

• National Bureau of Investigation Director Melvin Matibag testified as the prosecution’s final witness for Article IV.

• Presiding officer Francis “Chiz” Escudero admonished Matibag over statements that could affect the independence or integrity of senator-judges.

• Escudero said the issue raised by Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Pia Cayetano concerning Matibag’s previous statements would be referred to the Senate Rules Committee and handled separately from the impeachment proceeding.

• Matibag discussed the NBI’s creation of a special task force to investigate the alleged threats against President Marcos.

• Matibag described the threat being investigated by the NBI as “serious, active, and continuing.”

• He said the NBI viewed a threat against the President as a national security concern.

• Vice President Sara Duterte remains the subject of a continuing NBI investigation connected to the alleged threats.

• Matibag used the term “kinetic force” in describing what the NBI believed Duterte’s statements could produce, including fear and the possibility of influencing other threatening statements or actions.

• This was the NBI’s assessment presented as evidence. The impeachment court has not made a finding adopting that assessment.

• The prosecution presented footage of the 2011 incident in which Duterte, then Davao City mayor, punched court sheriff Abe Andres during a demolition.

• Matibag referred to the incident while discussing what the NBI considered an alleged “pattern of violence.”

• The 2011 punching incident happened, but its relevance to the current impeachment charge is part of the prosecution’s case and has not been determined by the impeachment court.

• Matibag also discussed statements attributed to Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte. ("Isang ulo lang naman ang kailangan namin.")

• He said the NBI saw similarities between statements made by Vice President Duterte and her brother while assessing the alleged security threat.

• Article IV has not yet been concluded.

Will add more notes as the hearing continues.

THE US WANTS TO DISABLE THE ICC. THAT DOES NOT MEAN DUTERTE WALKS FREE.

Gino Borlado — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 07:30:12 GMT

The United States has stopped pretending that its fight with the International Criminal Court is only a disagreement over legal theory.

On July 13, 2026, the US State Department announced a campaign to dismantle what it calls the ICC’s threat to American sovereignty. It said the effort would use the whole US government to restrict the Court’s operations, pressure other countries to leave the Rome Statute, scrutinise states that support the ICC while receiving US assistance, and pursue visa restrictions, travel bans, and further sanctions.

The goal appears much bigger than arguing with the Court over jurisdiction. Washington is trying to make the ICC harder to operate and increasingly costly for governments and institutions that continue working with it.

The United States says the ICC cannot investigate Americans because the US never joined the Rome Statute. Washington makes the same jurisdictional argument in defending Israel, its closest ally in this fight.

Filipinos should recognise part of that argument. We have heard our own version of it for years.

THE QUESTION FOR FILIPINOS

Duterte’s defenders said the ICC had no right to investigate the drug war because the Philippines had withdrawn from the Rome Statute. Washington says the Court has no authority over American citizens because the United States never became a party to the treaty.

The legal circumstances are different.

The Philippines joined the Rome Statute and remained a member during the period covered by the ICC investigation. The Court says its jurisdiction covers alleged crimes committed in the Philippines from November 1, 2011 through March 16, 2019. The Philippine withdrawal took effect after that period.

The United States, meanwhile, has never been an ICC member. In a July 2026 letter, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche argued that a treaty cannot bind a country that did not consent to it. He said the ICC has no authority over Americans anywhere in the world.

Both disputes eventually reach the same argument over jurisdiction. Washington places heavy weight on the nationality of the accused and the consent of that person’s country. The ICC reads the Rome Statute differently.

Under the Court’s position, jurisdiction can also come from the territory where an alleged crime occurred. That distinction is important because the ICC says it can investigate genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed on the territory of a member state even when the suspect comes from a country that never joined the Rome Statute.

A country’s refusal to join the treaty does not automatically shield all of its citizens from the Court. Withdrawal also does not necessarily erase jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed while a country was still bound by the treaty.

For Filipinos, however, the immediate question is much simpler.

Could the American campaign against the ICC somehow send Rodrigo Duterte home?

Not automatically.

Duterte was arrested by Philippine authorities and surrendered to ICC custody on March 12, 2025. The Court says he is accused of crimes against humanity tied to alleged killings in the Philippines between November 1, 2011 and March 16, 2019.

He challenged the Court’s jurisdiction after the Philippines withdrew from the Rome Statute. The ICC Appeals Chamber rejected that challenge in April 2026.

On April 23, 2026, Pre-Trial Chamber I confirmed the charges brought by the prosecution against Duterte and committed him to trial. The Court describes the confirmed case as involving three counts of crimes against humanity.

The prosecution’s public Document Containing the Charges, dated February 13, 2026, also named Senators Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa and Christopher “Bong” Go among Duterte’s alleged co-perpetrators in the alleged common plan behind the drug war. That remains an allegation by the prosecution, not a conviction.

Their inclusion in that public document should not be erased or softened. The document exists. It is public.

The case against Duterte has therefore moved well beyond the political argument that the ICC should never have been allowed to investigate him in the first place. He is already in ICC custody. His jurisdictional challenge has been rejected.

Charges have been confirmed. His case has been committed to trial.

American pressure on the Court can create serious problems for that process. It does not hand Washington the legal authority to order Duterte released.

WHY THE ICC SAYS TERRITORY COUNTS

The disagreement between Washington and the ICC becomes easier to understand when you look at the Court’s cases involving Israel and Afghanistan. The basic question is whether the nationality of a suspect can place that person beyond ICC jurisdiction when the alleged crime happened somewhere that falls under the Court’s authority.

The ICC says no. Washington strongly disagrees.

WHY THE ICC LOOKED AT ISRAEL

The ICC did not issue arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant simply because the Court wanted a political confrontation with Washington.

Palestine accepted ICC jurisdiction in 2015. The Court later ruled that its territorial jurisdiction in the Palestine situation extends to Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Israel disputes that position.

Israel challenged the Court’s jurisdiction, including its claimed authority over Israeli nationals. In November 2024, the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber rejected that challenge. The Chamber concluded that Israel’s consent was unnecessary because the Court could exercise jurisdiction through Palestine’s territorial status.

On November 21, 2024, the Chamber issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.

The judges found reasonable grounds to believe they bore criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and for the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts. The judges also found reasonable grounds relating to the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against civilians.

These were findings made at the warrant stage. They are serious legal findings, but they are not convictions.

The Court said the alleged conduct involved depriving Gaza’s civilian population of objects needed for survival, including food, water, medicine, fuel, electricity, and medical supplies. It found reasonable grounds to believe that restrictions on humanitarian aid, together with electricity and fuel cuts, contributed to that deprivation.

The warrants concern named individuals, particular alleged conduct, and the legal standard of reasonable grounds to believe. They do not assign criminal responsibility for every civilian death in Gaza.

Whether the prosecution can prove the allegations at trial is a separate question. The jurisdictional point, however, is central to the fight now being waged by Washington.

Israel says the ICC has no authority over Israeli nationals without Israel’s consent. The Court’s answer is that territorial jurisdiction can come through Palestine.

That same basic disagreement appears elsewhere.

WHY THE ICC LOOKED AT AMERICANS

The American conflict with the ICC did not begin with Gaza. It goes back to Afghanistan.

In 2020, the ICC Appeals Chamber authorised an investigation into alleged crimes committed in Afghanistan since May 1, 2003. The situation covered alleged crimes by the Taliban, Afghan forces, and US personnel.

The prosecutor’s request included allegations of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, rape, and other sexual violence involving US armed forces and Central Intelligence Agency personnel. It also covered alleged CIA detention-related conduct in Afghanistan and in ICC member states, including Poland, Romania, and Lithuania.

The investigation did not accuse every American service member of committing a crime. It concerned allegations involving particular personnel and possible responsibility higher in the chain of command.

Washington rejects the Court’s claimed authority. The Justice Department says the United States never consented to ICC jurisdiction and will not cooperate with an ICC investigation, summons, request, extradition, or transfer involving an American.

The Court reaches the issue through territory. Afghanistan was a Rome Statute member when the alleged crimes under investigation occurred. Poland, Romania, and Lithuania are also members.

Under the ICC’s interpretation, alleged crimes committed in those countries can fall under its jurisdiction even when the people suspected of committing them are American.

So the legal dispute is not difficult to identify. Washington argues that the absence of US consent protects Americans from ICC jurisdiction. The Court says the consent given by the country where an alleged crime took place can also provide a legal basis for jurisdiction.

That disagreement is now part of a much larger American effort against the institution itself.

THE US DOES NOT CONTROL THE ICC

The United States can cause serious damage to the Court.

Sanctions can freeze assets under US jurisdiction and restrict access to parts of the global financial system. Visas can be denied. Allies can face political pressure.

Banks, law firms, civil society groups, and other institutions may decide that working with ICC personnel creates too much financial or legal risk.

What Washington cannot do through a presidential order is close the Court.

The ICC exists under the Rome Statute, a treaty with 125 States Parties. Its Assembly of States Parties oversees the Court and makes institutional decisions.

The United States never joined the treaty. It has no vote in that Assembly and no veto over the Court’s continued existence.

Formal changes to the Rome Statute go through the treaty’s amendment process. Any State Party can propose an amendment, while adoption needs approval from two-thirds of States Parties.

There is no switch in the White House that says “close the ICC.”

The more realistic danger is less dramatic but potentially more damaging. The Court could remain open while sanctions disrupt banking, travel, recruitment, witness protection, legal work, and cooperation from governments.

Cases could slow down. Some governments could refuse to arrest suspects. Staff could leave if their families, finances, or ability to travel become exposed to sanctions.

A court has judges and prosecutors. It does not have its own police force.

Arrest warrants depend on governments willing to enforce them. That dependence gives the United States considerable room to weaken the institution even without controlling it.

WHAT HAPPENS TO DUTERTE IF THE ICC IS WEAKENED

The Rome Statute contains rules for countries that withdraw.

Article 127 says withdrawal does not erase obligations that arose while a country was still a member. It also does not halt a case already under consideration.

This is why the Philippine withdrawal did not end the Court’s authority over the period covered by Duterte’s case.

A much harder question appears in an extreme scenario where the ICC itself becomes unable to function, large numbers of member states leave, or the Court is formally dismantled through a future treaty process. The Rome Statute does not provide a clean answer for every possible version of that situation.

Even then, there is no rule saying Duterte would automatically be released and flown back to the Philippines because Washington had crippled the Court. His detention is connected to an executed arrest warrant, a live case, and charges that have already been confirmed.

A paralysed Court could create major legal problems. His trial could be delayed. Questions could arise over detention, funding, staffing, and the responsibilities of the Netherlands as the ICC’s host country.

None of that automatically becomes a legal order releasing Duterte.

A release, transfer, or return would still need some lawful basis through ICC procedures or another agreed process involving the Court, its member states, and the host state. The United States cannot simply order that outcome.

The Philippine government cannot declare Duterte entitled to return merely because American sanctions have damaged the Court.

His status could change through the case itself. Duterte could seek interim release. He could be acquitted after trial.

A future court ruling could alter his legal position. Those are possible legal outcomes arising from judicial proceedings.

American pressure does not automatically produce any of them.

WHAT AN AMERICAN “WIN” COULD ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE

Washington can weaken the ICC without abolishing it.

The effect becomes serious when judges and prosecutors struggle to work, banks refuse transactions, lawyers fear exposure, witnesses lose protection, and governments conclude that cooperation carries too high a political or financial cost.

A court can survive formally while losing much of its practical ability to act. Warrants become harder to enforce when governments refuse arrests.

Investigations suffer when witnesses cannot be protected. Legal proceedings slow when staff, lawyers, institutions, or financial service providers are afraid to work with the Court.

That appears to be where the American campaign poses its greatest danger.

The Duterte case is already moving through that institution. Duterte is in custody. The Court rejected his jurisdictional challenge.

The prosecution’s charges have been confirmed. The case has been committed to trial.

A weakened ICC could make that trial slower and more difficult. Severe institutional paralysis could create legal questions that the Rome Statute was never written to answer cleanly.

What American pressure does not provide is a legal shortcut from an ICC detention facility back to the Philippines.

Washington has considerable power to hurt the Court. Whether it can damage the ICC badly enough to disrupt cases already underway is now a serious question.

But Duterte does not walk free simply because the United States wants the institution holding him weakened.

Sources

SUMASAHOD PA BA SI DELA ROSA? NAKALIMUTAN NA NATING MAY SENADOR NA NAGTATAGO AT PATULOY NA SUMASAHOD

Gino Borlado — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 01:53:38 GMT

[An MCT Opinion]

May senador tayong ilang buwan nang halos hindi pumapasok sa trabaho dahil nagtatago siya mula sa International Criminal Court.

Ang pangalan niya: Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa.

At may isang simpleng tanong na parang nawala na rin kasabay niya.

Sumasahod pa ba siya?

I asked myself that because I could not remember the Senate ever deciding to stop his salary.

No resolution. No formal vote. No rule automatically cutting off the pay of a senator who stops reporting for work.

Dela Rosa had been absent from Senate sessions since November 2025. He resurfaced briefly in May 2026 for a Senate leadership vote, then disappeared from public view again as authorities attempted to serve the ICC warrant against him.

Yet after all that, the salary question remained hanging.

WALANG “NO WORK, NO PAY” SA SENADO

For ordinary Filipino workers, absence has consequences.

One late can mean a deduction. One absence can mean no pay.

Minsan nga, sick leave na lang ang kailangan mo dahil may sakit ka talaga, pahirapan pang aprubahan. Urgent vacation leave na nga lang dahil may emergency sa pamilya, kailangan mo pang magpaliwanag, magmakaawa, o humanap ng paraan para hindi ka mawalan ng kita.

Then here is a senator who can disappear from regular sessions for months while facing an international arrest warrant, and there is no automatic mechanism to stop his compensation.

That is not only absurd.

It is unfair.

The people paying his salary are the same people whose own salaries can be reduced for being late. The same workers who can lose a day’s pay because they had to bring a sick child to the hospital. The same employees who sometimes have to fight just to use leave credits they already earned.

And when a senator stops showing up, there is apparently no automatic rule stopping his pay. The public is left relying on the senator himself to voluntarily refuse it.

Dela Rosa later claimed that he had already done exactly that.

THE SALARY WAIVER

Before Dela Rosa made that claim, Senate leaders had already publicly suggested that he forgo his salary while absent.

Senator JV Ejercito also appealed to him to voluntarily waive his salary and allowances.

Dela Rosa later said there was no need to ask him because he had already chosen not to accept his salary during his absence.

According to him, he did it voluntarily. He also said money received by his staff had been redirected to relief efforts.

Fine.

Then there should be records.

Where is the official document showing when the payments stopped?

How much had already been released before that?

What happened to his allowances?

Was there a formal waiver?

Where did the redirected money go?

Who verified any of it?

These are basic questions involving public money.

And this is where the real problem remains.

Even if Dela Rosa voluntarily stopped accepting his salary, the system itself did not automatically stop it.

The public still had to depend on his decision.

We still had to depend on his own claim that the money was refused.

That should bother everyone.

SHOW US THE RECORDS

A coalition of mayors eventually raised the issue publicly and questioned the cost of Dela Rosa’s prolonged absence.

The Senate should have answered this long before anyone had to ask.

If he waived his salary, show the date.

If the waiver was documented, release it.

If compensation or allowances continued, disclose that too.

There should be a clear public record.

Instead, we got uncertainty.

And while everyone watched the bigger political spectacle surrounding the ICC warrant, Dela Rosa’s whereabouts and the Senate’s handling of him, the money question quietly faded.

A new controversy arrived. Then another.

Soon the unresolved question disappeared from public conversation even though nobody had actually answered it.

So here we are again.

Sumasahod pa ba si Bato dela Rosa?

Dela Rosa says he voluntarily stopped accepting his salary.

Then show us the records.

Because this should never depend on whether we believe Dela Rosa.

It should depend on documents.

Filipino workers are expected to explain every late, every absence and every emergency that keeps them from work.

The least the Senate can do is explain where our money went.

[Note: I did my research on this but I couldn’t find anything to confirm if his salary has been stopped. If you are from the senate and you have verified information, please let me know. I will be more than happy to correct this piece.

SENATE IMPEACHMENT COURT GRANTS SUBPOENAS FOR DUTERTE FINANCIAL RECORDS

Gino Borlado — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 12:58:54 GMT

The Senate impeachment court has granted subpoenas for bank, Anti-Money Laundering Council, and tax records linked to Vice President Sara Duterte, her husband Manases Carpio, Carpio Lawyers, and several companies connected to them.

Presiding Officer Francis “Chiz” Escudero, reading the court’s ruling on Monday, July 20, said the requested records were sufficiently identified and had an initial connection to Article II of the Articles of Impeachment.

The bank subpoenas are limited to peso-denominated accounts.

The court also approved requests involving 19 corporate entities and Carpio Lawyers.

Requests involving JTC Group of Companies (Philippines), Inc. and Pikimong Pikimong Philippines Corporation were denied after the court found that the prosecution had not established a sufficient initial connection between the two companies and either Duterte or Carpio.

The impeachment court also granted subpoenas for relevant Anti-Money Laundering Council records involving Duterte, Carpio, and the entities covered by the ruling.

The defense had argued that confidentiality provisions under the Anti-Money Laundering Act prevented the AMLC from complying with the impeachment court’s compulsory processes.

Escudero rejected that argument.

He said the confidentiality provision cited by the defense regulates unauthorized disclosures by AMLC personnel but does not remove the subpoena power of the Senate sitting as an impeachment court.

The court also addressed objections to obtaining financial records covering years before Duterte became vice president in 2022.

Escudero allowed the production of older records, but placed limits on how prosecutors may use them.

Those records may be examined to establish Duterte’s financial baseline and capacity before and during her present term. They cannot be used as a route to introduce separate impeachment accusations outside the Articles of Impeachment already before the court.

The ruling also draws a clear line between obtaining the documents and admitting them as evidence.

The subpoenas authorize the production of the records. Prosecutors must still establish their relevance, admissibility, and connection to Article II before relying on them during the trial.

The court also allowed the examination of financial records held separately and jointly by Duterte and Carpio.

Escudero said Carpio’s records may be examined because, without proof of a different marital property arrangement, the applicable legal presumption allows the court to consider property and financial interests that may form part of the couple’s marital property regime.

A separate subpoena covering relevant tax records connected to Duterte was also granted.

The release and use of those records remain subject to legal restrictions on tax confidentiality.

The ruling gives prosecutors access to financial information they sought in connection with Article II, but it does not establish that the records contain evidence of unexplained wealth or wrongdoing.

That question remains for the trial.

Prosecutors must still show what the documents contain, establish which records may be admitted as evidence, and demonstrate how they relate to the allegations already before the impeachment court.

Escudero’s ruling therefore gives the prosecution access to the records while placing boundaries on what those records can be used to prove.

The subpoenas open the documents to examination.

They do not decide the case.

PAX SILICA AND THE DATA CENTER QUESTION

Gino Borlado — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:02:10 GMT

A 4,000-acre artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing hub is being planned for New Clark City.

Its projected electricity demand could reach around 5 gigawatts.

That is the scale we should be talking about when we discuss Pax Silica.

Scientists, environmental groups, and farmers have raised concerns about water, electricity, mining, agricultural areas, and the communities around Clark. Government officials, meanwhile, say they are working on those problems and point to the jobs and investment the project could bring.

So the question goes beyond whether data centers are bad for the environment.

We already know they can consume enormous amounts of water and electricity.

The harder question is whether the Philippines knows enough about this particular project to decide whether the benefits are worth the cost.

WHAT PAX SILICA INVOLVES

Pax Silica is a United States-led initiative focused on securing supplies needed for semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and advanced technology, while reducing dependence on China.

The Philippines joined the initiative in April 2026.

One of the biggest projects connected to it is the proposed AI and advanced manufacturing hub in New Clark City, Tarlac.

The Bases Conversion and Development Authority, or BCDA, has described the roughly 1,618-hectare development as part of its plan to turn New Clark City into a Philippine version of Silicon Valley.

The project covers data centers, semiconductor fabrication, and industries connected to minerals used in chip production, including nickel and gold.

That makes the environmental debate much wider than the cooling systems inside a server building.

HOW MUCH WATER DOES A DATA CENTER NEED?

Potentially, a lot.

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute says some large data centers can use as much as 5 million gallons of water a day for cooling. That is comparable to the daily water use of a community with tens of thousands of people.

Much of that water evaporates during the cooling process.

There is another layer to the problem. The electricity supplying a data center may come from power plants that use large amounts of water too.

The United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health has warned that the worldwide expansion of AI infrastructure could add significantly to water demand.

Clark is already a fast-growing area.

The concern is easy to understand. A huge industrial customer arrives with enormous computing needs and the money to pay for the resources it consumes. People living nearby still need water too.

That is where the argument becomes very local, very quickly.

THEN THERE IS THE ELECTRICITY

BCDA president Joshua Bingcang has placed New Clark City's projected power demand at around 5 gigawatts.

Officials have even discussed obtaining electricity from outside the Philippines to meet future demand.

Large AI data centers can consume electricity on the scale of entire communities. Cooling systems can account for more than 40 percent of a facility's electricity use.

Backup diesel generators bring another environmental cost through particulate pollution, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide.

Then came another detail.

BCDA reportedly asked infrastructure investor I Squared Capital to consider converting a proposed jet-fuel pipeline into a liquefied natural gas pipeline that could supply New Clark City.

A technology hub may therefore need a major new supply of fossil fuel to keep the lights on and the servers cool.

That deserves more attention than it has received.

WHAT DOES “HYPERSCALE” MEAN?

The word appears often in discussions about Pax Silica, but most people do not spend their days reading about data center infrastructure.

A hyperscale data center is an extremely large computing facility built to handle huge amounts of data, storage, cloud services, or AI processing.

Think of the massive facilities used by major technology companies rather than the server room inside an ordinary office building.

The difference is important because size changes the resource question.

More computing equipment means more electricity. More electricity produces more heat. Removing that heat can demand enormous cooling systems and, depending on the technology used, enormous amounts of water.

Dr. Giovanni Tapang of the University of the Philippines College of Science has warned that hyperscale data centers connected to Pax Silica could consume local resources without producing enough benefit for ordinary Filipinos.

His concern includes the possibility that a facility with far greater buying power than nearby residents could compete with communities for water when supplies become tight.

That possibility has helped bring scientists, environmentalists, and farmers into the opposition.

Groups including AGHAM, the Computer Professionals' Union, and Kalikasan People's Network for the Environment have raised other concerns as well.

They point to the mining of minerals needed for semiconductor production and the possible conversion of areas used for rice and coconut farming.

There is also an economic question underneath all of this.

Critics are asking whether the Philippines will once again supply raw materials while much of the higher-value technology and profit goes elsewhere.

The South China Morning Post has reported concerns about environmental protections, disputed property, and the effects of the development on local livelihoods. Critics quoted in the report used the word “plunder” to describe the mineral extraction they fear could follow.

Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas has raised a different concern involving US-Philippine military cooperation and the risks that could come with placing major industrial facilities near military areas during a future conflict.

These groups are opposing the same project for different reasons.

Some are worried about water and electricity. Others are looking at mining, farming, military cooperation, or who will control the wealth created by the project.

The disagreement over Pax Silica cannot be reduced to a single environmental complaint.

WHAT BCDA HAS SAID

BCDA says concerns involving power, utilities, and water are being addressed.

The agency has also brought in South Korea's K-water for water-management expertise.

BCDA officials say the development could create quality jobs and give Filipinos a bigger role in advanced technology industries.

Those are serious potential benefits.

There is still a basic problem for anyone trying to decide whether the tradeoff is acceptable.

No completed public environmental study has concluded that the project will exhaust local water supplies or cause permanent environmental damage.

At the same time, the public has not been given detailed projections showing how much water the completed development will consume or what final protections will be imposed.

We are talking about a project covering roughly 1,618 hectares with a projected power demand of around 5 gigawatts.

At that size, “we are addressing it” cannot carry the entire argument.

The public needs to see how.

THE OTHER QUESTION: WHOSE LAWS APPLY?

Pax Silica has also run into a legal sovereignty dispute.

Reports indicate that the US side sought special legal protections for investors connected to the hub, including proposals that certain operations be governed under US common law rather than Philippine law.

The Philippine government has not granted that request.

Water and electricity have nothing to do with that dispute, but the issue helps explain why opposition to Pax Silica comes from several directions.

Environmental groups have one set of concerns. Farmers and anti-mining groups have others. The legal dispute raises questions about how much authority the Philippines would retain over activities taking place inside its own territory.

That deserves an argument of its own.

SO WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE US?

I do not think the available environmental evidence gives us an automatic answer to whether the Philippines should reject Pax Silica.

It does give us plenty of reasons to demand answers before a project this large moves too far ahead.

How much water will the completed hub use?

Where will that water come from?

What happens during a drought?

Will communities have guaranteed access before industrial users?

How much of the project's electricity will come from fossil fuels?

What limits will be placed on water and power consumption?

Who pays for the infrastructure needed to support the hub?

How many of the promised jobs will actually go to Filipinos?

How much of the value created by Philippine minerals, electricity, water, and public infrastructure will stay in the country?

And what legal protections will remain firmly under Philippine law?

Those questions do not come from fear of technology.

They come from the sheer size of what is being proposed.

The government may eventually show that Pax Silica will bring more benefits than costs. It may show that the water can be supplied without hurting communities, that the electricity system can handle the demand, and that Filipinos will receive enough economic value to justify the resources involved.

But those answers have to come before trust, not after it.

For now, the people raising environmental concerns have something concrete behind them: what large data centers already consume elsewhere, the 5-gigawatt projection for New Clark City, and the possibility that an LNG pipeline may be needed to help power the development.

Government has the promise of jobs, investment, and a place for the Philippines in the AI and semiconductor economy.

The country deserves to see the full price tag before deciding whether that promise is worth buying.

Sources

LANS AND THE COST OF SPEAKING UP FOR PAG-ASA

Gino Borlado — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 07:16:48 GMT

A twenty-four-year-old veterinary medicine student posts a video from a sandbar in the West Philippine Sea, and within days people are attacking her for it.

That is where the country stands right now.

WHO IS LANS

Louise Anne Nagal, known online as Lans, is a veterinary medicine student who built a large following through short, upbeat educational videos rather than political content.

She had already faced online hostility before her trip to Pag-asa. In June, she told followers who were pitting her against other female creators and objectifying her in comments that they were free to unfollow her.

Then she stepped into something far bigger.

WHAT LANS DID

In mid-July, Lans traveled to Pag-asa Island, part of the Kalayaan Island Group in the West Philippine Sea.

She posed in front of a military C-130 aircraft, spent time with students and teachers on the island, and posted the words "Atin ang West Philippine Sea" across her channels.

She described the trip in personal terms, giving her audience a glimpse of daily life on a frontier island most Filipinos will never visit.

Supporters picked up the moment under the hashtag "TYFP," short for Thank You For Pag-asa.

There was no party campaign behind it. No candidate. No policy platform.

A young creator with a large audience went to Pag-asa and showed her followers a place that usually appears in naval briefings, Coast Guard reports, diplomatic protests, and news coverage of confrontations at sea.

That alone is significant.

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE BACKLASH

Soon after the trip, a Facebook post accused "China propagandists and trolls" linked to Vice President Sara Duterte's base of organizing attacks against Lans.

That specific accusation has not been independently confirmed.

There is, however, a broader and well-documented problem surrounding the West Philippine Sea.

Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela has said that trolling against Philippine government accounts rose sharply after authorities began publicizing Chinese actions at sea. He has also warned about Filipino accounts that echo Beijing's position on the dispute.

Reuters separately reported on a Makati-based firm, InfinitUs Marketing Solutions, accused of operating accounts that posed as ordinary pro-Beijing Filipinos and attacked figures viewed as hostile to China's position. The company denied having a contract with the Chinese Embassy, and its CEO repeated that denial before the Senate.

None of that proves that the same network targeted Lans.

The distinction is simple. Organized influence operations and coordinated trolling around the West Philippine Sea have been documented. The people or groups responsible for the attacks directed at Lans have not been publicly identified through independent reporting.

Supporting her does not require pretending otherwise.

WHY HER DECISION STANDS OUT

Lans built her audience on content far removed from maritime disputes and geopolitics.

That is precisely why her Pag-asa trip deserves attention.

Government agencies can issue statements. Coast Guard officials can hold briefings. Advocacy groups can organize civilian missions.

Lans reaches people who may never watch any of them.

She brought Pag-asa into the feeds of Filipinos who follow her for an entirely different reason.

For a territorial dispute fought partly through public perception, that reach has value.

Pag-asa Island sits inside a dispute where Filipino fishermen and Coast Guard personnel have repeatedly faced confrontations with Chinese vessels. Civilian groups such as the Atin Ito Coalition have also organized missions intended to assert Philippine presence in the West Philippine Sea.

Lans did something quieter.

She went there.

She filmed what she saw.

Then she told millions of people that the West Philippine Sea belongs to the Philippines.

For a creator whose safest commercial option would have been to avoid the subject completely, that was a choice.

And choices like that carry a cost.

SUPPORT HER WITHOUT INVENTING ENEMIES

Standing behind Lans does not mean treating her as beyond criticism.

It also does not mean attaching names to the people attacking her without evidence.

The strongest defense of someone targeted by propaganda or harassment is still the truth.

What can be said with confidence is that Lans used a platform built outside politics to draw attention to Pag-asa Island and the West Philippine Sea. She entered a public debate already surrounded by documented trolling, disinformation, propaganda, and competing efforts to influence what Filipinos believe about the dispute.

What cannot yet be said with confidence is who organized the attacks directed specifically at her.

Both points can exist together.

There is no need to weaken the case for supporting Lans with claims the evidence cannot yet carry.

The more interesting question is why a young veterinary student posting about Pag-asa provoked such hostility in the first place.

The West Philippine Sea is fought over with ships, water cannons, patrols, diplomatic protests, maps, legal arguments, and military presence.

It is also fought over through attention.

Who gets Filipinos to look.

Who gets them to care.

Who convinces them that the issue is worth speaking about.

Lans took an audience built far from geopolitics and pointed it toward Pag-asa.

Anyone trying to frighten young Filipinos away from doing the same understands exactly what is at stake.

Sources

WHEN CHINAVTV TRIED TO TEACH FILIPINOS ABOUT SURRENDER

Gino Borlado — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:16:31 GMT

ChinaVTV published a post that called Filipinos monkeys, then tried to justify the insult through a lazy version of our history.

The page calls itself 中華微視, or ChinaVTV. Its Facebook profile carries a Hong Kong contact number, says it has 800,000 followers, and promotes itself with the line “Chinese people around the world are watching.”

Fine. Let them watch.

They should also learn to read history before using it as a weapon against people they clearly do not understand.

The post claims the Philippines had no state before colonization and describes the people living here as little more than tribes that repeatedly surrendered to Spain, America, Japan, then America again.

From there, it blames Filipinos for supposedly inheriting a prosperous country and ruining it, using poverty, crime, political dynasties, Duterte’s drug war, and exploitation as evidence for racial contempt.

It is the kind of argument that looks intelligent only when nobody checks the footnotes.

BEFORE SPAIN, THERE WERE POLITIES

No, the Philippine archipelago did not have one centralized state resembling the modern Republic of the Philippines before Spain arrived. That is very different from claiming there was “no state at all.”

Historian and De La Salle University professor Michael “Xiao” Chua has pointed to Tondo as a kingdom as early as 900 CE. He cites the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, which records an organized government governed through customary law under a leader named Jayadewa.

The document even refers to the settling of a debt. People do not write legal records on copper when there is no political order, authority, or system of rules.

The Sultanate of Sulu also existed for centuries as a Muslim polity with authority over the Sulu archipelago and links across maritime Southeast Asia. Chinese records, regional trade, diplomacy, and local rule were already part of life here long before Spain tried to claim the islands for a king across the ocean.

The word “barangay” gets thrown around today as if it describes a tiny, harmless village. Before colonization, barangays were political communities with leaders, social ranks, obligations, alliances, trade, and customary law.

Political fragmentation does not turn inhabited societies into empty land waiting for foreigners to give them a past.

That distinction seems too difficult for ChinaVTV’s writer.

THE SURRENDER STORY IS A CONVENIENT LIE

The writer says Filipinos surrendered to the Spanish, Americans, Japanese forces, then the Americans again.

History left a far more violent and disobedient record.

At Mactan in 1521, Magellan’s expedition tried to force Lapu-Lapu’s community into submission and failed. Magellan died in battle after Lapu-Lapu’s warriors overwhelmed the European force.

The surviving eyewitness account by Antonio Pigafetta does not establish that Lapu-Lapu personally delivered the fatal blow. It does establish that Magellan died fighting people who refused to submit.

Resistance against Spanish rule continued for centuries, driven by forced labor, abusive tribute collection, land disputes, religious coercion, and colonial violence.

The Katipunan later fought for independence from Spain, and Filipino revolutionaries declared independence in 1898. The Philippine-American War followed when the United States attempted to replace Spain as the colonial power.

During the Japanese occupation, Filipino guerrillas fought across Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao. Many died before American forces returned.

ChinaVTV’s version wipes out that sacrifice because acknowledging it would destroy the neat little insult the page wanted to publish.

Losing a war does not prove that surrender is embedded in a people’s character. Colonization is something imposed by power, often after enormous resistance and bloodshed.

THE “RICHEST IN ASIA” CLAIM IS ALSO FALSE

ChinaVTV says the United States left the Philippines with a strong economic base, after which Filipinos ran the country into poverty.

There is a real history of economic decline relative to several Asian neighbors. Political families, weak institutions, corruption, land inequality, poor industrial policy, debt crises, and authoritarian plunder all played roles that no serious Filipino should pretend away.

Still, the usual claim that the Philippines was once Asia’s richest country, second only to Japan, is false. Rappler and AFP Fact Check reviewed historical GDP data and found no support for it.

The Philippines was never second only to Japan by gross domestic product or income per person during the Marcos years.

There was no imaginary Asian throne from which the country suddenly fell. Other nations built stronger state capacity, improved education and industry at different rates, attracted investment, and avoided some of the Philippines’ worst political failures.

That history deserves criticism. Racial pseudo-analysis from a page that thinks “monkey” is a serious political category contributes nothing to it.

OUR FAILURES DO NOT BELONG TO RACISTS

Political dynasties, poverty, pagpag, human trafficking, corruption, and drug-war killings are real problems in the Philippines.

Filipinos have spent decades arguing over whether the country’s institutions can still serve ordinary people. ChinaVTV discovered none of these failures.

Bad leaders get elected, but they also face opposition, investigations, protests, court cases, journalism, and public anger. Democratic life in the Philippines is ugly and frustrating, and its outcomes are often disappointing.

Rodrigo Duterte was arrested in March 2025 under an International Criminal Court warrant over allegations of crimes against humanity connected to his drug war. Philippine authorities arrested him and transferred him to International Criminal Court custody.

His lawyers contest the court’s jurisdiction after the Philippines withdrew from the Rome Statute in 2019. The case remains before the court.

ChinaVTV treats this as proof of Filipino disgrace.

A former president facing an international court over mass killing allegations should disturb every Filipino. The case also exists because the killings were challenged rather than quietly accepted.

Families of victims refused silence while rights groups documented cases, journalists reported what happened, and lawyers pursued legal action. Erasing the issue from public memory became much harder because people kept pushing back.

CHINAVTV SHOULD LOOK AT ITS OWN CONDITIONS

ChinaVTV mocks a country whose citizens openly criticize presidents, dynasties, police abuse, poverty, and corruption.

It should consider the political environment from which it speaks.

Freedom House’s 2025 report described China as having the world’s worst conditions for internet freedom for more than a decade. It rated China “Not Free,” citing extensive censorship, surveillance, arrests, and punishment for online speech.

The Tiananmen Square crackdown remains one of the clearest examples. On June 4, 1989, Chinese troops violently suppressed a movement demanding political reform.

China’s government gave a death toll in the low hundreds, while a declassified British diplomatic cable cited an estimate of at least 10,000 deaths. No independent accounting has been allowed, so no honest writer can present any figure as final.

Chinese authorities have also spent decades suppressing public discussion of the crackdown, particularly around each June 4 anniversary.

Even Chinese artificial intelligence systems operate around political red lines. Researchers found DeepSeek-R1 refused questions about Tiananmen Square and gave evasive responses when pushed.

Separate testing reported far higher refusal rates among Chinese chatbots on sensitive political questions than among major American models.

A media page operating near that political culture should be careful about lecturing Filipinos on historical courage.

A BIG MAP DOES NOT MAKE DIPLOMACY

ChinaVTV mocks Filipinos as a people waiting to surrender to the next foreign power.

Meanwhile, Filipinos have watched Chinese ships harass Philippine vessels near our own waters through water cannons, blocking maneuvers, collisions, and intimidation around Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands.

Beijing speaks about friendship while treating the West Philippine Sea like a private driveway.

In 2016, an arbitral tribunal established under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ruled that China’s nine-dash line had no legal basis for claims to historic rights over resources within that area.

The tribunal also found that Mischief Reef lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. China rejected the ruling and refused to take part in the arbitration.

China’s large-scale reclamation at seven Spratly features mostly happened from 2013 through 2015, before the ruling. Its military build-up continued after 2016 through airstrips, radar systems, and other installations.

ChinaVTV may call this diplomacy. Filipinos looking at a Philippine Coast Guard vessel being blocked or blasted with water cannons will probably choose another word.

THE POST EXPOSED ITS AUTHOR, NOT US

Listing another country’s worst problems is easy. Turning those problems into entertainment only takes enough cruelty.

ChinaVTV used Filipino poverty as supposed evidence of Filipino inferiority, turned colonial trauma into a punchline, and dragged Duterte’s victims, exploited children, urban poor families, and people living through addiction or hunger into a racial insult.

None of that offers serious insight into the Philippines. It reveals far more about the people who decided to publish it.

Filipinos have failures worth confronting without excuses. Philippine history also contains communities that lived under colonial rule while resisting occupation, dictatorship, abuse, and theft in many different forms.

ChinaVTV wanted to reduce all of that to monkeys and surrender.

Someone wrote an entire essay and apparently forgot that readers can still check whether any of it is true.

ChinaVTV Facebook profile screenshot, provided by the source page

Sources

IS PERSIDA ACOSTA AN EJK ENABLER?

Gino Borlado — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:01:51 GMT

I posted something earlier thanking Atty. Persida Rueda-Acosta for her exemplary leadership at the Public Attorney's Office (PAO). Then one comment stopped me cold: "Hindi po ba ito enabler ng EJK (extrajudicial killing)?"

I took the post down because I realized the information in my head was incomplete. I had never examined her record that closely.

Like many people, I knew her mainly as the PAO chief, a lawyer who has held the position since 2001. That comment sent me digging, followed by several rounds of checking my own assumptions.

Nothing I found changed my mind about thanking her for how she has run PAO.

The office handled 787,124 cases and assisted almost 850,000 clients in 2021. In 2022, its caseload went past 850,000 while the number of clients exceeded 900,000.

PAO reported an 82.69 percent favorable disposition rate that year and later received a near-perfect performance score from the Department of Budget and Management. Those numbers affect families who rarely appear in the news.

The question I am examining here is narrower: What role, if any, did Acosta and her office play in the deaths connected to the drug war?

WHO SHE IS AND WHY THIS QUESTION COMES UP

Acosta has led PAO since 2001. The office provides free legal assistance to indigent Filipinos and also operates a forensic division.

That forensic work is one reason her name enters discussions about drug war deaths.

During the 2017 Senate investigation into the killing of 17-year-old Kian delos Santos, Acosta became emotional while defending the Philippine National Police (PNP) against accusations that officers were carrying out a policy of killing suspected drug users.

A year later, after the trial court convicted the officers, human rights lawyers pointed to the verdict as evidence that extrajudicial killings were taking place. Acosta rejected that characterization and maintained that Kian's killing was not an EJK.

The case continued through the courts. In December 2025, the Supreme Court affirmed the convictions of the three police officers and rejected their claim that Kian's death resulted from lawful police action.

That record is relevant because Acosta was a senior government official publicly defending the police position in one of the drug war's most prominent cases.

But the autopsy controversy that first made me reconsider my earlier praise raises a different issue.

WHERE MY INITIAL ASSUMPTION WAS WRONG

I initially connected the falsified-autopsy controversy to Acosta because PAO has its own forensic division.

Once I traced who actually performed the autopsies examined by forensic pathologist Dr. Raquel Fortun, the evidence pointed elsewhere.

Fortun examined 46 exhumed drug war victims. The original autopsies in that group were performed mostly by PNP doctors, with 23 cases attributed to them and three more handled by National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) doctors.

Ten bodies had never been autopsied.

Seven deaths had reportedly been recorded as resulting from natural causes even though Fortun found that 32 of the 46 bodies had gunshot wounds. Twenty-four had been shot in the head.

PAO's forensic division does not appear in the reporting on that batch of cases.

The problem also continued beyond those initial examinations.

Fortun has examined more than 90 exhumed bodies since July 2021 and has continued to report inconsistencies between physical findings and earlier death records.

A separate Rappler investigation found cases in which funeral parlors pressured grieving families to sign waivers allowing deaths to be recorded as resulting from natural causes without a doctor physically examining the body. The practice has been described as a "verbal autopsy."

The evidence surrounding those cases points more directly toward PNP and NBI doctors, along with funeral parlor practices, than toward PAO's forensic division.

That changes the accusation considerably.

PAO also operates under an enormous workload. With roughly 2,096 public attorneys handling close to a million cases in a year, each lawyer would be carrying hundreds of cases annually.

A heavily burdened office can make mistakes or fail people without those failures automatically proving deliberate participation in a larger abuse.

WHAT OTHER INSTITUTIONS SAID

After Fortun disclosed her findings, PNP spokesperson Col. Jean Fajardo said police were willing to investigate allegations of falsified autopsy reports if the relevant documents were forwarded to them.

She also said the PNP had already submitted requested records to the Department of Justice (DOJ), which was conducting its own fact-finding inquiry.

I could not locate a public record showing the final results of that DOJ inquiry.

Nor did I find a direct public response from Acosta or PAO addressing Fortun's findings by name.

That absence deserves to be recorded without turning it into evidence of guilt.

One question remains unanswered: How many drug-war-related autopsies outside Fortun's group were handled by PAO's forensic division, and were any of those findings later disputed?

I have not found enough public information to answer that.

NUMBERS I OVERSTATED

I also overstated the certainty surrounding the drug war death toll when I first looked at the available figures.

I had cited the Dahas Project's count of 5,997 deaths through mid-2019 as though one accepted figure existed. The available counts differ sharply because the groups compiling them use different definitions and cover different categories of deaths.

The Duterte government's #RealNumbersPH tally recorded 6,252 deaths during police anti-drug operations through May 2022.

Dahas uses a broader definition that includes killings outside formal police operations and therefore produces a higher count. The International Criminal Court's former prosecutor cited estimates ranging from 12,000 to 30,000 deaths.

There is no single number that can be presented without explaining who counted the deaths and what criteria were used.

I had also treated the drug war as something confined to the Duterte administration.

Dahas recorded 161 drug-related killings during the first five months of the succeeding administration, compared with 149 during Duterte's final six months in office.

The administration changed. Drug-related killings continued.

Whatever responsibility belongs to PAO, the police, other government institutions, or individuals involved in these cases, the underlying problem extended beyond Duterte's presidency.

WHERE THE ICC CASE STANDS

The International Criminal Court's Pre-Trial Chamber confirmed three counts of crimes against humanity against Rodrigo Duterte in April 2026 after a confirmation hearing held in February.

His trial is scheduled to open on November 30, 2026.

Human Rights Watch has pointed to the stark difference between the international proceedings and the limited number of successful prosecutions in the Philippines.

Nearly a decade after the drug war began, only a small number of cases have produced convictions involving individual police officers. Officials accused of designing or directing the wider policy have largely remained beyond the reach of domestic criminal accountability.

Nothing in the reporting or official documents I reviewed connects PAO or Acosta to the ICC case against Duterte.

The questions surrounding Acosta belong to another part of the drug war record: how government institutions and officials responded when killings were questioned, challenged, investigated, or defended.

WHAT I STILL CANNOT ANSWER

I have not found a documented breakdown showing how many drug-war-related autopsies were handled by PAO's forensic division compared with the PNP or NBI.

Without those figures, I cannot determine how large or small PAO's forensic role was across the entire drug war.

I also found no direct testimony from families identifying PAO's forensic unit as the source of a disputed autopsy finding, separate from the broader testimony of families describing problems with police reports, death certificates, funeral homes, and official investigations.

Those gaps remain open.

Filling them with assumptions would only replace one weak accusation with another.

SO, IS PERSIDA ACOSTA AN EJK ENABLER?

Based on the evidence I examined for this article, I do not think the record supports accusing Acosta or PAO of enabling the killings themselves.

I found no evidence tying her office to the disputed autopsies examined by Fortun. The available reporting on those cases points toward other institutions and practices.

Acosta's public conduct during the drug war, however, remains part of the record.

She defended police accounts in the Kian delos Santos case. She rejected the characterization of his killing as an EJK after police officers had already been convicted, and the Supreme Court later affirmed those convictions.

Critics therefore have a legitimate basis to ask whether her public interventions gave institutional and rhetorical cover to police accounts during a period when officers were being accused of unlawful killings.

That is as far as the evidence in this article takes me.

Her public defense of police accounts is documented. I found insufficient evidence to accuse her or PAO of participating in, facilitating, or enabling the killings themselves.

My original praise for her leadership of PAO stands, but it now comes with a qualification I did not have before I started digging.

Someone can lead an institution effectively and still deserve serious scrutiny for other choices made in public office. Acosta's record during the drug war deserves that scrutiny, especially when she used the authority of her position to defend police accounts in a case as grave as Kian delos Santos.

Calling her an EJK enabler goes further than the evidence in this article supports.

A narrower criticism has a firmer basis in the record: Acosta publicly defended police accounts surrounding an alleged extrajudicial killing, and that deserves to be examined as part of her record too.

Sources

WAS PERSIDA ACOSTA AN EJK ENABLER?

Gino Borlado — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 23:03:17 GMT

Note: read the article before you leave a comment.

I posted something earlier thanking Atty. Persida Rueda-Acosta for her exemplary leadership at the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO). Then one comment stopped me cold: “Hindi po ba ito enabler ng EJK (extrajudicial killing)?”

I took the post down because I realized the information in my head was incomplete. I had never examined her record that closely.

Like many people, I knew her mainly as the PAO chief, a lawyer who has held the position since 2001. That comment sent me digging, followed by several rounds of checking my own assumptions.

Nothing I found changed my mind about thanking her for how she has run PAO.

The office handled 787,124 cases and assisted almost 850,000 clients in 2021. In 2022, its caseload went past 850,000 while the number of clients exceeded 900,000.

The question I am examining here is narrower: What role, if any, did Acosta and her office play in the deaths connected to the drug war?

WHO SHE IS AND WHY THIS QUESTION COMES UP

Acosta has led PAO since 2001. The office provides free legal assistance to indigent Filipinos and also operates a forensic division.

That forensic work is one reason her name enters discussions about drug war deaths.

The case continued through the courts. In December 2025, the Supreme Court affirmed the convictions of the three police officers and rejected their claim that Kian’s death resulted from lawful police action.

That record is relevant because Acosta was a senior government official publicly defending the police position in one of the drug war’s most prominent cases.

But the autopsy controversy that first made me reconsider my earlier praise raises a different issue.

WHERE MY INITIAL ASSUMPTION WAS WRONG

I initially connected the falsified-autopsy controversy to Acosta because PAO has its own forensic division.

Once I traced who actually performed the autopsies examined by forensic pathologist Dr. Raquel Fortun, the evidence pointed elsewhere.

Ten bodies had never been autopsied.

Seven deaths had reportedly been recorded as resulting from natural causes even though Fortun found that 32 of the 46 bodies had gunshot wounds. Twenty-four had been shot in the head.

PAO’s forensic division does not appear in the reporting on that batch of cases.

The problem also continued beyond those initial examinations.

Fortun has examined more than 90 exhumed bodies since July 2021 and has continued to report inconsistencies between physical findings and earlier death records.

The evidence surrounding those cases points more directly toward PNP and NBI doctors, along with funeral parlor practices, than toward PAO’s forensic division.

That changes the accusation considerably.

PAO also operates under an enormous workload. With roughly 2,096 public attorneys handling close to a million cases in a year, each lawyer would be carrying hundreds of cases annually.

A heavily burdened office can make mistakes or fail people without those failures automatically proving deliberate participation in a larger abuse.

WHAT OTHER INSTITUTIONS SAID

She also said the PNP had already submitted requested records to the Department of Justice (DOJ), which was conducting its own fact-finding inquiry.

I could not locate a public record showing the final results of that DOJ inquiry.

Nor did I find a direct public response from Acosta or PAO addressing Fortun’s findings by name.

That absence deserves to be recorded without turning it into evidence of guilt.

One question remains unanswered: How many drug-war-related autopsies outside Fortun’s group were handled by PAO’s forensic division, and were any of those findings later disputed?

I have not found enough public information to answer that.

NUMBERS I OVERSTATED

I also overstated the certainty surrounding the drug war death toll when I first looked at the available figures.

I had cited the Dahas Project’s count of 5,997 deaths through mid-2019 as though one accepted figure existed. The available counts differ sharply because the groups compiling them use different definitions and cover different categories of deaths.

The Duterte government’s #RealNumbersPH tally recorded 6,252 deaths during police anti-drug operations through May 2022.

Dahas uses a broader definition that includes killings outside formal police operations and therefore produces a higher count. The International Criminal Court’s former prosecutor cited estimates ranging from 12,000 to 30,000 deaths.

There is no single number that can be presented without explaining who counted the deaths and what criteria were used.

I had also treated the drug war as something confined to the Duterte administration.

Dahas recorded 161 drug-related killings during the first five months of the succeeding administration, compared with 149 during Duterte’s final six months in office.

The administration changed. Drug-related killings continued.

Whatever responsibility belongs to PAO, the police, other government institutions, or individuals involved in these cases, the underlying problem extended beyond Duterte’s presidency.

WHERE THE ICC CASE STANDS

The International Criminal Court’s Pre-Trial Chamber confirmed three counts of crimes against humanity against Rodrigo Duterte in April 2026 after a confirmation hearing held in February.

His trial is scheduled to open on November 30, 2026.

Human Rights Watch has pointed to the stark difference between the international proceedings and the limited number of successful prosecutions in the Philippines.

Nothing in the reporting or official documents I reviewed connects PAO or Acosta to the ICC case against Duterte.

WHAT I STILL CANNOT ANSWER

I have not found a documented breakdown showing how many drug-war-related autopsies were handled by PAO’s forensic division compared with the PNP or NBI.

Without those figures, I cannot determine how large or small PAO’s forensic role was across the entire drug war.

I also found no direct testimony from families identifying PAO’s forensic unit as the source of a disputed autopsy finding, separate from the broader testimony of families describing problems with police reports, death certificates, funeral homes, and official investigations.

Those gaps remain open.

Filling them with assumptions would only replace one weak accusation with another.

SO, WAS PERSIDA ACOSTA AN EJK ENABLER?

Based on the evidence I examined for this article, I do not think the record supports accusing Acosta or PAO of enabling the killings themselves.

I found no evidence tying her office to the disputed autopsies examined by Fortun. The available reporting on those cases points toward other institutions and practices.

Acosta’s public conduct during the drug war, however, remains part of the record.

That is as far as the evidence in this article takes me.

Her public defense of police accounts is documented. I found insufficient evidence to accuse her or PAO of participating in, facilitating, or enabling the killings themselves.

My original praise for her leadership of PAO stands, but it now comes with a qualification I did not have before I started digging.

Someone can lead an institution effectively and still deserve serious scrutiny for other choices made in public office. Acosta’s record during the drug war deserves that scrutiny, especially when she used the authority of her position to defend police accounts in a case as grave as Kian delos Santos.

Calling her an EJK enabler goes further than the evidence in this article supports.

Sources

THE MIRROR CHINAVTV FORGOT TO CHECK

Gino Borlado — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 13:50:47 GMT

ChinaVTV begins by telling Filipinos that we should stop complaining about being compared to monkeys. According to the post, our history and present condition have earned the comparison.

I read the rest looking for the path from evidence to that conclusion. I never found one.

The argument goes like this.

Before Western colonization, the archipelago supposedly had no state and only “a bunch of tribes.” Filipinos surrendered to Spain, the United States, Japan, then the United States again.

America supposedly left behind one of Asia’s strongest economies. Filipinos then ruined it through incompetence, corruption, dynasties, crime, drugs, slums, sexual exploitation, and weak national ambition.

The post closes by comparing the Philippines unfavorably even with North Korea, which it credits with having “today’s ambitions.”

That is a lot of history, economics, political science, and racial contempt packed into one Facebook post.

The least I can do is separate them.

WHEN DEFEAT BECOMES A PERSONALITY TEST

The first mistake is treating military defeat and colonization as proof of a people’s permanent character.

Before Spain established colonial rule, the archipelago did not have one centralized state covering the territory of the modern Philippines. That does not mean the people here had no political organization.

Historical scholarship documents political communities with rulers, systems of authority, trade relations, social classes, and larger political formations across parts of the archipelago, including the Sulu Sultanate in the south.

Calling all of that “a bunch of tribes” makes the past easier to mock. Accuracy pays the price.

Then we come to surrender.

Ferdinand Magellan died at Mactan in 1521 after forces under Lapulapu resisted his expedition. Spain eventually established colonial rule over much of the archipelago, but resistance continued in different places and forms, and the Philippine Revolution later challenged Spanish rule directly.

The First Philippine Republic fought the United States after Washington asserted sovereignty over the archipelago. American forces defeated conventional Filipino armies, and fighting continued through guerrilla warfare.

Japan invaded during World War II and occupied the Philippines. Filipino guerrillas fought Japanese forces throughout the occupation, a fact recorded in military histories and archival records.

That history contains defeat, occupation, collaboration, survival, and resistance. Compressing centuries into “they surrendered” produces a wonderfully simple story, which may explain its appeal.

The standard becomes more interesting when applied elsewhere.

Modern Chinese historical memory gives enormous weight to foreign invasion, military defeat, unequal treaties, foreign concessions, and the period widely remembered as the “Century of Humiliation.”

Chinese people do not become lesser human beings because stronger foreign powers once defeated China or imposed terms on it.

So I am curious about the rule being used here.

Colonial subjugation apparently reveals something shameful and permanent about Filipinos, while China’s own experience of foreign domination receives an entirely different moral meaning.

Perhaps conquest proves racial weakness only when somebody else was conquered.

THE ECONOMIC STORY IS BETTER WITHOUT THE MYTHS

The post moves from colonial history to economics with another familiar argument.

America supposedly handed Filipinos one of Asia’s strongest economies, then self-government exposed our inability to run a country.

There is a painful truth buried inside the exaggeration.

The Philippines lost economic ground relative to several Asian neighbors that grew much faster, and generations of Filipinos have paid for failures in governance, policy, investment, public institutions, and political leadership.

The old claim that the Philippines was once the richest or second-richest country in Asia after Japan has been repeatedly checked and found unsupported by historical economic data.

I have no interest in replacing ChinaVTV’s insult with a Filipino fairy tale.

Some neighbors that once had lower income levels passed us. The reasons deserve serious economic study rather than a theory about Filipino character.

ChinaVTV goes further and calls the Philippines one of the poorest countries in Asia today.

The World Bank moved the Philippines into its upper-middle-income group on July 1, 2026. That classification says little about whether a poor family has enough to eat or whether public services work as they should.

Still, describing the Philippines as “one of the poorest countries on the continent” is a strange choice for anyone presenting a supposedly factual argument in 2026.

THE PART I WILL NOT DEFEND

Political dynasties are real, and anyone expecting me to defend them will be disappointed.

The 1987 Constitution says the state shall prohibit political dynasties as may be defined by law. Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism research found that 212 of 254 district representatives elected in 2025 came from political dynasties.

ChinaVTV is welcome to criticize that.

It can criticize the Marcos record too. Ferdinand Marcos Sr. ruled from 1965 until his ouster in 1986, and documented killings, torture, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary arrests from his dictatorship remain part of the historical record.

His son later won the presidency in 2022.

Filipinos should be capable of hearing ugly truths about our politics without collapsing into patriotic denial.

The post takes those truths somewhere else. Corruption, dynasties, slums, pagpag, crime, drugs, insurgency, and sexual exploitation are assembled into a case about the worth of Filipinos as a people.

A child eating food recovered from garbage tells me something terrible about poverty and government failure. It tells me nothing about whether Filipinos belong in an animal caricature.

DUTERTE AND THE FOREIGN COURT

The post seems especially pleased with the idea that Filipinos allowed a former president to be sent to a foreign court.

Rodrigo Duterte was arrested in March 2025 after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant in its investigation of alleged crimes against humanity connected to killings during his anti-drug campaign. In April 2026, ICC judges confirmed three counts of crimes against humanity and committed him to trial.

His defense has challenged the court’s jurisdiction, and Duterte denies wrongdoing. Those legal disputes belong in any honest account of the case.

I still struggle to see the humiliation ChinaVTV sees.

A former president facing a court after leaving office becomes a sign of national weakness only if permanent protection for powerful leaders is the preferred measure of national strength.

That may be the writer’s standard. I do not share it.

NORTH KOREA ENTERS THE ARGUMENT

Then the post reaches a comparison I had to read again.

Poor Asian countries, it says, can still possess something admirable. Myanmar is offered as the example of a country with a glorious history, and North Korea gets credit for “today’s ambitions.”

North Korea.

The writer offers a hereditary dictatorship as evidence that poverty can coexist with national purpose, then points at the Philippines as the country with no future.

That is quite a measuring stick.

I am left wondering what counts as success in this worldview.

A state can severely restrict political freedom and still earn admiration if it projects enough power, while a noisy, corrupt, frustrating democracy becomes proof of civilizational failure because its weaknesses can be seen and argued about in public.

The Philippines has serious democratic defects. People can still vote governments out, criticize leaders openly, and publish investigations exposing those in power.

Sometimes powerful people evade accountability anyway.

I would still rather argue publicly about the failures of my government than live under a system where the argument itself can become the offense.

THE HISTORY A COUNTRY IS ALLOWED TO REMEMBER

That brings me to another part of the mirror.

Reporters Without Borders ranked China 178th out of 180 countries in its 2026 World Press Freedom Index.

It is Freedom House reported in 2025 that internet users in China had faced the world’s worst conditions for internet freedom for more than a decade.

Beijing rejects many foreign assessments of its political system. Restrictions on public discussion, however, are extensively documented.

The 1989 crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square remains one of the clearest examples.

The death toll is disputed, so I will not pretend there is a single verified number, but the violent suppression of the demonstrations is documented, while public discussion of the events has faced strict censorship inside China for decades.

ChinaVTV says the Philippines has no history.

I find that an odd accusation from a political environment where parts of modern Chinese history remain difficult to discuss openly. 🤷‍♂️

Censorship can restrict what people say about the past. It cannot erase what happened.

THE COUNTRY THAT SUPPOSEDLY ALWAYS SURRENDERS

There is one more problem with ChinaVTV’s portrait of Filipinos as people waiting for the next stronger outsider.

In 2013, the Philippines initiated arbitration against China over disputes in the South China Sea. A tribunal constituted under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea issued its award in 2016, finding no legal basis for Chinese historic-rights claims to resources within the nine-dash line beyond the rights provided by the convention, and finding that China had violated Philippine sovereign rights in areas covered by the case.

The tribunal did not decide sovereignty over every disputed feature. China rejected the proceedings and the award.

Taking a dispute with a far more powerful neighbor to an international tribunal is a curious example of national surrender.

Ten years after the award, China Daily, a separate state-run Chinese outlet, posted an AI-generated editorial video depicting the Philippines as a monkey while attacking the ruling. The Philippine government protested and demanded its removal, while China’s Foreign Ministry said the video did not represent the government’s official position and repeated Beijing’s rejection of the award.

ChinaVTV and China Daily are separate outlets. I am not going to pretend otherwise.

I do notice the coincidence.

ChinaVTV tells Filipinos to accept the monkey comparison because our history supposedly proves we are born to submit. A separate state-run publication used the same animal imagery while attacking the legal case the Philippines brought against China.

Somewhere inside that combination is a very unusual definition of surrender.

THE MIRROR

The ChinaVTV post could have been a harsh criticism of the Philippines, and I might have agreed with parts of it.

There is plenty to criticize here. Filipinos themselves have spent generations doing exactly that.

The argument changes when every national failure becomes evidence that an entire people deserve dehumanization.

ChinaVTV selected the Philippine failures that served its conclusion and flattened the history that got in the way. Military defeat became proof of a national instinct to surrender. Poverty became evidence against the people living through it.

A former president facing prosecution became another humiliation.

Then North Korea somehow became the example with ambition.

I do not know whether the writer expected Filipinos to feel ashamed after reading all of that.

I finished the post thinking about the mirror.

Sources

Marami ang naniniwala na tanga itong si Robinhood Padilla.

Gino Borlado — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 01:48:18 GMT

I have honestly tried my best not to validate that. I have tried to separate the man from his arguments and judge what he says on its own merits.

But this exchange between him and Commodore Jay Tarriela seems to validate what so many people have been saying all along:

Baka tanga nga talaga itong si Padilla.

China puts out a racist AI video depicting Filipinos as monkeys, and somehow Robin Padilla manages to turn the controversy into an attack on Jay Tarriela.

Not China.

Tarriela.

🤷‍♂️

The same Jay Tarriela who has been one of the loudest voices calling out China’s aggression and bullying in the West Philippine Sea.

That takes a special kind of stupidity on Robin’s part.

He keeps dragging up the caricature of Xi Jinping that Tarriela used during a university lecture months ago, as though a political caricature of one powerful man somehow gives anyone permission to dehumanize an entire people.

It doesn’t.

You can criticize Tarriela’s caricature. You can call it inappropriate. You can demand an apology.

But once you start using it to explain why Filipinos ended up being portrayed as monkeys, you are no longer simply condemning the insult. You are helping the people who made it manufacture an excuse.

And then Padilla gave us this masterpiece:

“Aren’t we all monkeys of different colors?”

No, Senator.

We are not.

Filipinos are not monkeys. Chinese are not monkeys. Japanese are not monkeys.

Human beings evolved a very long time ago.

Although, listening to Robin’s argument, you begin to wonder whether evolution occasionally leaves a few people behind.

And unfortunately, some of them still manage to win elections and hold government office.

This did not require a history lesson on white colonialism, Austronesian ancestry, or whatever racial classification system is currently operating inside Robin Padilla’s head.

It required a spine and one simple sentence:

Calling Filipinos monkeys is racist, and the people who produced and circulated that garbage should be condemned.

Instead, Padilla condemns China in one breath and then spends considerably more energy attacking Tarriela.

And that, I think, is the most revealing part of this ridiculous exchange.

When confronted with Chinese propaganda insulting Filipinos, Padilla somehow finds his fighting spirit when the opponent is another Filipino.

Against Tarriela, matapang.

Against the man who has been publicly calling out the China Coast Guard, matapang.

But when it comes to China itself, suddenly we get a lecture.

Colonialism.

History.

Caricatures.

Austronesian heritage.

“We are all monkeys.”

Kung anu-ano na.

Anything that moves the conversation away from the simple fact that China produced and circulated the racist video.

Worse, Padilla accused Tarriela of having “drawn first blood,” essentially suggesting that Tarriela started this propaganda escalation.

Then when Tarriela answered him, Padilla complained about being attacked.

Senator, you mentioned the man’s name.

You accused him.

He answered you.

Hindi po bullying ang tawag doon.

Reply po iyon.

Robin Padilla had one very easy job here: condemn the racist video and direct his anger at the people who made it.

Somehow, he still managed to pick a fight with Jay Tarriela instead.

And we should be cautious with what Robin is doing here.

Because although he is addressing Tarriela, he is also feeding the trolls.

He has just handed them several days’ worth of mental gymnastics to repeat:

“Si Tarriela naman ang nauna.”

“Na-provoke lang ang China.”

“Wartime propaganda rin naman ang ginawa ni Tarriela.”

“Racist din naman ang caricature ni Xi.”

“Lahat naman tayo unggoy sa mata ng mga puti.”

Watch for it.

These arguments will be repeated, chopped into memes, turned into talking points, and pushed until the original issue becomes buried under ten different distractions.

And suddenly, instead of talking about why China produced and circulated racist propaganda depicting Filipinos as monkeys, Filipinos will be fighting among themselves over Jay Tarriela, Xi Jinping caricatures, white colonialism, Austronesians, and whether we are technically all monkeys.

Mission accomplished.

Because stupid as Robin’s argument may be, it is useful to people who need an excuse to move the blame away from China.

And Robin just gave them one.

IS IMEE MARCOS A LAW GRADUATE? F*CK NO!!!

Gino Borlado — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 22:49:46 GMT

Don’t let Alan Peter mislead you.

Imee Marcos isn't a law graduate. Never was.

UP checked their records, nothing there.

Princeton checked theirs too, nothing there either.

She said she graduated cum laude from UP College of Law.

She also said on Facebook she was one of Princeton's first female graduates.

Both false.

UP's own Executive VP, Teodoro Herbosa, told Rappler the registrar has no record of her graduating anything, no honors, no diploma.

She sat in classes, sure, in Arts and Sciences first, then law.

Sitting in class isn't the same as finishing.

Princeton's side confirms it too.

She enrolled in 1973, dropped out in 1976, came back in 1977, left for good in 1979.

Their spokesperson said flat out: no degree was awarded.

And yeah, her brother BBM did the same thing with Oxford. Claimed a degree, Oxford said no, just a special diploma.

This resurfaced this month because Senator Cayetano called her a "law graduate" during VP Sara Duterte's impeachment trial. Old fact-check, new stage, same unverified claim.

Sources

WHY “THERE WAS NO KILLER” DOES NOT END THE STORY

Gino Borlado — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The defense’s argument deserves a fair hearing.

Prosecutors did not present an identified assassin. They showed no payment trail, and nobody came forward to say Sara Duterte hired them to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, or former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

Fair enough.

Anyone claiming that the Vice President entered a murder-for-hire deal should have proof.

A person cannot be declared guilty just because the public fears her surname. I would not accept that standard against a politician I support, so I cannot use it against someone I do not.

But the defense leaves me with another question.

What exactly are we supposed to do with the words she herself put out in public?

THE WORDS ARE ALREADY THERE

On November 23, 2024, Sara Duterte spoke about having someone kill Marcos, Araneta-Marcos, and Romualdez if she were killed.

She named all three rather than referring vaguely to some enemy in the background.

A few days later, she returned to the subject. That later statement became part of the material presented during her impeachment trial.

The National Bureau of Investigation, or NBI, reviewed Duterte’s public briefings from October and November 2024 rather than relying on a single viral clip. Investigators considered the language, her delivery, the political conflict surrounding the people she named, and the reactions of government offices and the intended targets.

NBI Regional Director Jeremy Lotoc later told the Senate impeachment court that the statements were “serious, real and actual.” The bureau found grounds to recommend three counts of grave threats and one count of inciting to sedition.

That finding alone cannot settle the case, but it tells us something important about how investigators understood the statements.

They did not hear a joke.

THE MISSING ASSASSIN

The missing assassin cannot simply be brushed aside.

Lotoc admitted that he had no personal knowledge that Sara Duterte had hired a particular person. The NBI also did not publicly identify anyone who received an order, got paid, or prepared to carry out an attack.

The defense should press that gap.

Any serious legal process needs proof. A claim that there was an actual murder-for-hire arrangement demands more than the words of the person accused.

There may never be an identified assassin. The evidence may never establish that anyone was hired.

Should the record end there, nobody should invent a killer just to make the accusation easier to believe.

The difficulty comes when the absence of an identified assassin is treated as proof that no threat existed.

Those are separate questions.

One concerns whether a specific criminal arrangement can be established through evidence. The other concerns whether a vice president publicly discussing the killing of three named officials gave the government a legitimate reason to investigate and increase security.

Consider a reported bomb threat. Police do not wait for an explosion before checking whether the danger is real. The possibility that no bomb exists is part of the investigation, but the cost of dismissing the warning too early can be enormous.

The same basic problem exists here.

WHY THE OFFICE CHANGES THE WEIGHT

People say ugly things when they are furious.

Someone gets fed up with a boss, a landlord, an ex, or a politician and blurts out, “I could kill him.” Most of the time, anger is doing the talking, and every reckless statement made in a bad moment should not automatically become a criminal case.

Sara Duterte, however, was speaking as Vice President of the Philippines.

Her words could trigger security responses, place the President and First Lady under closer protection, and pull supporters deeper into an already hostile political conflict.

Lotoc told the impeachment court that Duterte had intent and capability. He pointed to her position as vice president when explaining why investigators took the remarks seriously.

The office changes how such words are received.

A vice president has access, influence, personnel, supporters, and a national platform. When the person holding that office names the President, his wife, and a senior political rival while talking about their deaths, security officials have to consider possibilities that would not arise from an ordinary private argument.

Shrugging and moving on would carry its own risk.

THE DUTERTE NAME IS PART OF THE CONTEXT

Here is where I have to be careful.

Sara Duterte cannot be declared guilty because of her father. Children do not inherit criminal liability through a surname, and her case should rest on what she said, what she did, and what the evidence can establish.

Rodrigo Duterte belongs in the discussion for a narrower reason.

During a 2024 Senate hearing, he admitted that he kept a death squad in Davao City and spoke about giving kill orders. He also described telling police to “encourage” suspects to fight back, creating a reason to shoot them.

None of that establishes that his daughter hired anyone.

It does, however, form part of the background security officials had to assess when evaluating her statements. Treating the remarks as ordinary political noise would have meant ignoring a history already associated with violence and kill orders through Rodrigo Duterte’s own admissions.

That history cannot establish Sara Duterte’s guilt.

Her own words remain the central issue.

WHAT THE DEFENSE LEAVES OPEN

The defense points to the absence of an identified killer, while the NBI says the statements and surrounding events gave investigators sufficient grounds to recommend charges.

Both propositions can exist at the same time.

Perhaps the prosecution will fail to establish that an assassin was hired. The Senate could also conclude that the evidence falls short of an impeachable offense.

Those are questions for the legal process, where evidence rather than public anger should decide the outcome.

A separate public question remains.

Did people overreact when they took the threat seriously?

I do not think they did.

Sara Duterte named the President, the First Lady, and a senior political rival. Investigators reviewed more than one statement before reaching their conclusion, and the NBI described the threat as serious, real, and actual.

The defense is right to ask where the assassin is.

That question should continue to be asked because the answer could determine how much of the accusation prosecutors can actually prove.

But the missing assassin cannot wipe away everything else that officials had in front of them: Duterte’s own statements, the authority of the office she held, the political conflict surrounding the people she named, and a family history that security officials could hardly pretend did not exist.

Perhaps no assassin will ever be found.

That would place a limit on what prosecutors can establish in court. It would not mean the country was wrong to investigate before someone ended up dead.

Waiting for proof after the worst has already happened is a strange way to protect anyone.

Sources

THE +31 QUESTION

Gino Borlado — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 23:12:03 GMT

The latest Social Weather Stations survey gives Vice President Sara Duterte a +31 net satisfaction rating. Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they were satisfied with her performance. Twenty-six percent were dissatisfied. The survey was conducted from June 20 to 29, 2026.

The number is higher than her +29 rating in March. The jump is only two points. SWS uses a plus-or-minus 3 percentage-point sampling error for national percentages in surveys of this size.

A two-point change does not settle whether public opinion truly moved. It may reflect a small improvement. It may also fall within the survey’s margin of error.

The headlines reported the +31. The fuller picture is in the regional numbers and in the separate polling on her impeachment.

THE COUNTRY IS NOT ONE NUMBER

Mindanao gave Duterte a net satisfaction rating of +84. That is excellent under the SWS scale. The Visayas gave her +36. Balance Luzon gave her +10. Metro Manila gave her +3.

Those four figures tell a different story from the national average.

Duterte still has a fortress in Mindanao. Her support is far weaker in Metro Manila. Balance Luzon is only mildly positive. The Visayas remains friendly, though nowhere near Mindanao’s level.

The two-point national increase came from higher ratings in Balance Luzon and Mindanao. Metro Manila went down. The Visayas did not move.

A national average can hide this kind of split. Parang grade sa classroom. The class average may look decent, while some students are flying and others are barely passing. The average is real. It just does not tell the whole story.

THE GAP WITH MARCOS

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had a -7 net satisfaction rating in the same June 20 to 29 SWS survey period.

Thirty-eight percent were satisfied with his performance. Forty-five percent were dissatisfied.

That puts Duterte 38 points ahead of Marcos in net satisfaction.

Her number does not prove support for every decision she has made. It does show that she remains far more popular than the President.

That is hard to ignore while the Senate impeachment process continues.

The political picture also looks strange.

The Vice President is under pressure from an impeachment case. The President remains in negative territory.

That gap gives Duterte’s camp room to argue that the administration has its own credibility problem.

THE IMPEACHMENT POLL

The SWS satisfaction figure needs to be read beside a separate OCTA Research survey.

OCTA found that 74% of Filipinos supported a Senate impeachment trial for Duterte.

The survey was conducted from April 20 to 24, 2026.

Twenty-one percent opposed the trial. Four percent were undecided.

Support for a trial was highest in Metro Manila at 81%.

The Visayas recorded 78%. Balance Luzon had 77%. Mindanao had the lowest support at 58%.

Even there, a majority still wanted the trial to continue.

That is the part many people reduce into a simple fight between pro-Sara and anti-Sara camps. The polls show a more uncomfortable reality.

A person can be satisfied with Duterte’s performance and still want her to face a trial. Support for due process does not automatically mean support for conviction.

The public can hold both views at once. Filipinos have seen enough political cases to know that public trust and legal accountability do not always move together.

WHAT +31 DOES AND DOES NOT SAY

SWS asks respondents whether they are satisfied or dissatisfied with an official’s performance. It does not ask whether Duterte is innocent. It does not ask whether she should be convicted. It does not ask whether respondents trust every statement from her camp.

That distinction has to stay clear.

The +31 rating shows she retains public support, especially in Mindanao. It does not erase the allegations raised in the impeachment process.

The OCTA result shows broad public backing for letting that constitutional process continue.

Both polls can be true. Neither poll can replace evidence presented in the Senate.

The harder question is whether the impeachment trial can convince Filipinos that the process is fair.

Duterte’s numbers remain strong enough to keep the political fight alive. Marcos’ weak numbers make the imbalance even harder to miss.

The country is watching two institutions at the same time. One is judging a Vice President. The other is being judged by the public every day.

Sources

WHEN SENATOR-JUDGES HOLD THE MICROPHONE

Gino Borlado — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 04:10:15 GMT

Father Ranhillo Aquino raised an idea during his interview with Ted Failon and DJ Chacha that deserves serious attention.

Why not use the United States Senate method during an impeachment trial?

A senator-judge writes a question. The presiding officer reads it aloud. The witness, prosecutor, or defense lawyer responds. The court moves forward.

Ted Failon answered with a joke that landed far too close to reality.

“Paano naman yung plano ko na pumapel if I am a senator judge?”

We have watched enough Senate hearings to understand the joke.

A microphone in the Senate brings more than a chance to ask a question. It brings a camera angle. It produces a social-media clip. It gives a senator a few minutes to impress supporters, embarrass an opponent, defend an ally, or start a political fight that has little connection to the witness in front of them.

In a regular hearing, that can already be exhausting.

In an impeachment trial, it can pull the court away from its real task.

The Senate is acting as an impeachment court. Senator-judges take an oath. They are expected to hear evidence, test claims, and decide whether a high official should remain in office.

Yet once questioning begins, the old Senate habit returns. Long introductions. Political messages. Repeated questions. Speeches disguised as questions. Somewhere, a social-media team is already preparing the clip.

Father Aquino’s proposal deserves attention because it could reduce the temptation to perform.

It could also force the Senate to confront a deeper question: who keeps senator-judges within the boundaries of the case?

THE UNITED STATES METHOD

The United States Senate uses a more controlled questioning procedure in impeachment trials.

A senator submits a written question to the presiding officer. The presiding officer reads it aloud. The answer becomes part of the record.

The senator still participates. They can challenge the prosecution’s evidence. They can test the defense’s version of events. They can press a witness whose testimony does not hold up.

But the public hears the question through the chair.

That changes the atmosphere inside the room.

A written question leaves less room for a dramatic opening statement. It makes it harder to use a witness as a prop for a personal speech. Attention stays closer to the answer, rather than the senator who wants airtime.

The United States used this procedure during the impeachment trials of former Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

American impeachment trials remain political. They involve politicians, cameras, party loyalties, and public pressure. No rule can remove all that.

Still, procedure can reduce how much of the hearing becomes a contest for attention.

That is the value of the written-question system.

WHAT THE PHILIPPINE RULES ALLOW

The Philippine Senate follows another setup.

Under the Senate’s Rules of Procedure on Impeachment Trials, a senator-judge may question a witness for up to two minutes. A senator may also question a prosecutor or counsel.

The ordinary question does not have to pass through the presiding officer in writing.

The senator stands. The senator speaks. The senator frames the question. The senator gets the camera.

Two minutes may sound short.

Two minutes is enough to deliver a political message.

A senator can begin with a long statement. A senator can bring up an old controversy. A senator can repeat a question already answered. A senator can shape the question so heavily that the witness is pushed toward one preferred answer.

Some questioning helps the court.

A senator-judge can expose weak testimony. A senator can test documents. A senator can ask about dates, records, transactions, inconsistencies, and missing proof. A fair court needs that kind of questioning.

A question that seems helpful to Vice President Sara Duterte’s defense should not automatically draw suspicion. The defense has a right to challenge the House prosecution. A weak claim deserves scrutiny.

The same standard applies to questions from senator-judges who seem ready to convict.

The issue is whether a question helps the court assess the charges.

Does it connect to the article of impeachment being heard?

Does it test evidence?

Does it clarify a disputed fact?

If it does, let the question proceed.

If it does not, the presiding officer should require an explanation.

THE JOB OF THE CHAIR

The presiding officer does more than call a session to order or announce a recess.

The Senate’s impeachment rules give the chair authority over questions involving evidence. That includes relevance, materiality, competency, and admissibility.

Those are legal words. The basic idea is easier to understand.

Relevance asks whether the question connects to the charge, the witness, or the evidence before the court.

Materiality asks whether the answer could affect the court’s final decision.

A presiding officer can ask a senator-judge to show that connection.

Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero can ask for a shorter question.

He can require a senator to stop delivering a speech.

He can point out that the witness has already answered the issue.

He can rule that a question has gone beyond the article being heard.

He cannot silence a senator simply because he dislikes the question.

A senator may challenge the chair’s ruling. The impeachment court may vote. The objection and the vote can become part of the public record.

That process offers a fair path.

Escudero does not have to win every dispute alone. His job is to make the court confront the question that some senator-judges would rather avoid: does this help decide the case?

If the answer is yes, proceed.

If the answer is no, the Senate should stop wasting time.

ESCUDERO’S CREDIBILITY PROBLEM

Here is the difficulty.

Escudero has the authority to control the proceedings. The chair also needs public confidence.

His role during the first impeachment case against Sara Duterte in 2025 follows him into this trial.

Escudero was Senate president when the House transmitted the earlier articles of impeachment.

Critics demanded that the Senate proceed quickly.

The Senate’s handling of the case drew anger, frustration, and accusations that it was avoiding a constitutional duty.

The Supreme Court later voided the 2025 impeachment complaint under the Constitution’s one-year bar.

The Court held that the complaint violated the constitutional ban on initiating more than one impeachment proceeding against the same official within one year.

That legal ruling settled the case.

It did not erase public distrust.

Many Filipinos watched the first case become tangled in delay, procedure, legal arguments, and uncertainty. For them, Escudero became part of a Senate leadership that did not give the process the urgency they expected.

That is a political burden he carries into the present trial.

A senator-judge whom Escudero calls out for an irrelevant speech may quietly ask: why should you lecture me about protecting this process?

That is the credibility problem.

The chair needs to make difficult calls. He needs senator-judges to accept rulings even when they disagree. He needs the public to believe that relevance is being applied equally.

His 2025 record makes that harder.

THE BETTER CHOICE, AND THE LOSS ON THE FLOOR

I still believe Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan would have been the better choice for presiding officer.

He is a lawyer. He served as a senator-judge during the impeachment trial of former Chief Justice Renato Corona.

He has shown familiarity with the constitutional questions surrounding the Senate impeachment court.

He also argued that the Constitution does not require the Senate president to preside in the trial of a vice president.

Pangilinan could have entered the chair with more distance from the controversy surrounding the 2025 case.

That distance is critical here. Supposedly.

A presiding officer has to rule on relevance, evidence, time, and procedure.

Every intervention needs public confidence.

Pangilinan would not have carried the same questions attached to Escudero’s role in the earlier case.

But we also need Pangilinan on the floor.

A presiding officer must exercise restraint. The chair has to recognize speakers, manage objections, control the pace, and avoid becoming part of every argument.

Pangilinan can do more from the floor.

He can challenge weak legal arguments. He can ask focused questions. He can call attention to procedural detours. He can help explain the legal fight in language ordinary Filipinos can follow.

So yes, I still think he was the stronger choice for the chair.

Yet losing his voice from the floor would also have cost the us something.

Operative of word here is “us” because he represents at leas those who us believe in justice being served, and good governance along with it.

That is the frustrating part.

The Senate had options. It amended its impeachment rules to allow the election of another senator as presiding officer. The court then elected Escudero, with 12 votes in favor and eight against.

The decision has been made.

PERO ANDITO NA TAYO

I opposed Escudero’s election.

I still have doubts about whether the Senate chose the person best placed to restore confidence in the impeachment court.

Pero andito na nga tayo.

Andiyan ka na, Senator Escudero.

The court elected you. The trial is moving. Repeating the election fight every day will become beating a dead horse.

The plea now is simple.

Do the job fully.

You have shown that you can manage the traffic of a difficult hearing. You recognize speakers. You move the discussion along. You have reminded lawyers from both sides to avoid long speeches aimed at the audience.

I appreciate that.

A room full of politicians can become chaotic fast. Keeping the proceedings orderly carries value.

But efficient traffic management is only part of the work.

The gap is between keeping discussion moving and protecting the court from questions that lead nowhere.

A traffic officer makes sure vehicles keep moving.

A presiding officer in an impeachment court must also stop a vehicle heading in the wrong direction.

The chair must decide when a senator-judge has gone too far from the evidence.

The chair must stop a speech disguised as a question.

The chair must call attention to repetition.

The chair must ask why an issue belongs in the hearing before giving it more public time.

That is where the harder work begins.

THE PLEA TO ESCUDERO

Senator Escudero, do not ask Filipinos to trust your neutrality through promises alone.

Show it through the small rulings.

When a senator-judge asks a question tied to the evidence, allow it, even if it helps Sara Duterte’s defense.

When a senator-judge exposes a gap in the prosecution’s proof, allow it.

When a senator-judge tests the defense’s claim through actual evidence, allow it.

But when a senator turns their two minutes into a political speech, bring them back to the witness.

When a question has no clear connection to the article of impeachment, ask for that connection.

When an issue has already been answered, say so.

When a senator acts like an additional prosecutor or defense counsel, remind them that they are senator-judges.

Apply the rule evenly.

Apply it to senators seen as pro-Sara Duterte.

Apply it to senators who appear determined to convict her.

Apply it to friends, allies, rivals, administration figures, and opposition figures.

The moment the standard changes according to who holds the microphone, the court loses public confidence.

Escudero cannot erase the doubts left by 2025 in one afternoon. Nobody expects that.

He can show the public that the chair will not allow this trial to become an endless series of political auditions.

Father Aquino’s suggestion points to a better procedure. Written questions through the presiding officer could reduce the urge to perform and preserve more time for evidence.

For now, the Senate has its direct-questioning system.

That gives every senator-judge two minutes and a microphone.

The country deserves a chair who will protect those two minutes from becoming another campaign commercial.

Sources

THE BADLY WRITTEN QUIPS OF ATTY. VINLUAN

Gino Borlado — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 01:31:38 GMT

I've been watching the Sara Duterte impeachment trial this week, and I keep getting distracted by the same person. Not Sara. Her lawyer.

Atty. Mark Vinluan is one of the lead counsels for the defense. He runs his own practice, Vinluan Law Offices, and is part of Sara Duterte's 16-member defense team, which filed its entry of appearance under the Fortun, Narvasa and Salazar law firm. Vinluan himself left FNS as an associate back in 2015. He has been on his feet enough times this week that his name has become a fixture in the daily trial coverage. And the more he speaks, the harder it gets to figure out what exactly he is trying to do.

He is not some unknown figure pulled in at the last minute. But background and actual courtroom performance are two different things. And what has been happening inside that chamber this week has been, to put it plainly, a mess.

Each argument he delivers sounds reasonable for about thirty seconds. Then you think about it a little longer and the whole thing starts to fall apart.

THE "UNCONVENTIONAL BUT JUSTIFIED" LINE

The most talked-about moment came early in the trial. Sara Duterte, during a virtual media briefing on November 23, 2024, told people on camera that she had given instructions for someone to kill President Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former Speaker Martin Romualdez if anything happened to her. She said "no joke, no joke" twice.

Vinluan's response to this? "While her response was unconventional, it was justified."

Think about that for a second.

A sitting vice president publicly states on camera that she has contracted a hitman for three named individuals, says it twice to remove any doubt about her seriousness, and her defense lawyer's best argument is that it was "unconventional."

Like showing up to a corporate job interview in tsinelas. Unconventional.

He then argued that Sara was not acting as a vice president when she said it. She was acting as "a wife, mother, daughter, and sister who only sought to protect her own life and the lives of her family members."

Here is my problem with that argument.

She called that virtual media briefing herself. She was in front of cameras, talking to the public, in her capacity as a public official under scrutiny.

The moment you do that, the private citizen defense walks out the door.

You cannot call a formal media briefing and then tell the court that whatever you said was personal and not official. That argument does not hold in a barangay hearing, let alone an impeachment trial.

THE OPERATION ROMANOV PROBLEM

Vinluan also argued that Sara's threats were a direct response to something called "Operation Romanov," which he described as a plot to eliminate the entire Duterte family. He compared it, symbolically, to the assassination of Russia's last ruling family.

Big claim.

Here is what Day 5 of the trial revealed. NBI Bangsamoro Regional Director Jeremy Lotoc told the court that the first time "Romanov" came up was during a Maisug rally in Davao, when Davao City Mayor Sebastian "Baste" Duterte looked at the Marcos camp and said: "Mr. President, remember what happened to the Romanovs. When you go to bed tonight, think about the Romanovs."

Read that again. The Romanov reference originated as a Duterte warning directed at the Marcos family.

The NBI found no validated evidence that an Oplan Romanov targeting the Dutertes ever existed.

The NBI classified the claim of a Romanov operation against Sara as "unvalidated."

So Vinluan leaned on a label that started as a warning from Baste Duterte to Marcos, then got recycled and amplified by a friendly vlogger during Sara’s November 2024 online briefing.

In that livestream, Princess Maui floated “Operation Romanov” as an alleged plot to kill the Duterte family and asked Sara if she feared for her safety.

Sara answered by saying people should not worry because she had already spoken to someone who would kill the President, the First Lady, and the former Speaker if she herself were killed.

In the trial, the defense now treats that unvalidated “Operation Romanov” narrative—born in rallies and vlogs, not in official intelligence reports—as a core justification for her assassination remark.

Senator-judge Ping Lacson was visibly taken aback when this came out in court.

He pointed out that the Romanov threat had been consistently framed as a plot aimed at the Dutertes, and it was only during cross-examination that the record showed it originated the other way around.

THE CAYETANO ASSIST

The "warning not a threat" line did not come from Vinluan alone.

Senator-judges Alan Peter Cayetano and Pia Cayetano stepped in on Day 5 to argue that statements linked to Baste Duterte, and by extension Sara Duterte, should be read as warnings rather than threats.

Alan Peter Cayetano argued there is a "thin line between a warning and a threat" and said the terms "Romanov" and "Oplan Romanov" should not automatically be read as declarations of violence.

He also urged the court to "be fair to the Dutertes" while pushing the "conditional threat" framing the defense has been riding all week.

The problem with this argument is the same problem Vinluan runs into every time.

Baste Duterte told the president to think about the Romanovs before he went to bed.

Lotoc confirmed that is what was said. You can call that a warning. But when the NBI investigates it as a threat, when it ends up cited in the context of Sara's on-camera contract killing statement, the "just a warning" defense requires the court to ignore the full chain of events and take the Duterte family's framing at face value.

Two senator-judges essentially became defense lawyers for a day (maybe more).

That tells you something about how much the actual defense needs help.

THE HODGEPODGE LINE

During his closing remarks on Day 3, Vinluan told the court that the prosecution was attempting to establish what he called a "stretch narrative" through a collection of materials that did not directly prove Sara had hired an assassin.

"Trying to prove this stretch narrative using a hodgepodge of materials is a waste of this honorable court's time and the Filipino people's money," he said.

The word hodgepodge is not a legal argument.

It is a taray one-liner that sounds like it belongs in a courtroom drama, not in actual proceedings before 24 senator-judges.

And Rep. Terry Ridon of Bicol Saro responded to this kind of performance: if Sara did not contract a hitman, then her statements were lies. If the statements were true, she made real threats. Either she is a liar or she is a threat.

Vinluan has been trying to find a third door for days now, and there is not one.

THE TYPO STRATEGY

On Day 4, Vinluan spent significant time pointing out that NBI documents had date inconsistencies and mismatched docket numbers.

Specifically, an Investigation Data Form was subscribed and sworn to on February 12, 2025, but bore a DOJ receiving stamp dated January 30, 2025. A 13-day gap.

He also flagged that the docket number on the NBI's own copy, ending in "048," did not match the DOJ's certification, which used "049."

These are real inconsistencies. Legitimate questions. In isolation, they are fair game for any defense lawyer.

But here is where the movie script falls apart.

Lotoc was asked whether those errors changed the NBI's findings. His answer was no.

The typos were administrative errors. The substance of what was investigated, that Sara Duterte made statements about having people killed on camera, was never in question.

Nobody denied the video exists. Nobody denied she said the words.

Vinluan spent hours poking at paperwork errors in a case where the central piece of evidence is a video the whole country has already watched.

THE BAR EXAM GRADES STUNT

This is the one that got him admonished on record, and it deserved a louder response than it got.

On Day 4, while cross-examining Lotoc, Vinluan slipped in a comment about Sara Duterte's qualifications.

He told the court she earned her law degree and passed the Bar Exam on her first attempt with a rating of 80 percent. Then he added: "She has a higher grade than most of the lawyers here."

Sara passed the 2005 Philippine Bar Examinations with a General Weighted Average of 80, five points above the passing mark of 75. She confirmed this herself in a public statement in April 2026.

Prosecutor Amando Virgil Ligutan objected immediately, calling the remark "unprofessional" and "foul."

Presiding Officer Chiz Escudero stepped in and formally admonished Vinluan, telling him plainly: you don't know what their grades are.

The correct response. Because what, exactly, was the point of saying it?

The problem is that Vinluan was flexing Sara's 80 percent in a room that happened to include Rep. Leila de Lima, who placed 8th in the 1985 Philippine Bar Examinations with a rating of 86.26 percent.

The Oposisyon PH post that went viral on July 14 said it frankly: "Not in front of Rep. Leila de Lima."

A bar rating is not a lifetime pass to act above the law.

A score on a licensure exam says nothing about moral character, and it says even less about whether you threatened to have three people killed.

What the court is evaluating is whether the vice president committed impeachable offenses.

Her 2005 bar score has no bearing on that question.

What Vinluan did was try to reframe Sara as a qualified, intelligent public servant being ganged up on by lesser legal minds.

It was a character argument masquerading as a credential.

It backfired the moment Escudero called him out in open court, and it backfired further the moment the internet remembered who else was in the room.

THE BIGGER PROBLEM

Look at the full picture of Vinluan's performance this week and a pattern appears that is more uncomfortable than any single bad line.

The defense is not trying to win on facts. They conceded early that the video does not prove Sara contracted a hitman.

Vinluan said it himself. So the only play left is to reframe the meaning of what everyone already heard with their own ears.

Sara was not a vice president, she was a mother.

The threats were not threats, they were a response to trauma.

The betrayal was not betrayal, it was representation.

The "no joke, no joke" was not literal, it was emotional.

The Romanov conspiracy was not invented by her brother as a warning to the president, it was a real plot against the Dutertes.

Every line from Vinluan is a reinterpretation of something already on tape, and every reinterpretation comes with a new piece of movie dialogue attached.

Lines that sound written for a courtroom drama but read like a badly photocopied script being recited in a council meeting.

Rep. Ridon's challenge remains unanswered.

If the defense wants the court to believe Sara told the truth in that video, she made real threats.

If she did not tell the truth, she lied to the public she claims to represent. Vinluan keeps choosing a third option, which is to change the subject every time that question comes up.

The senators now have to decide on actual constitutional grounds whether what Sara Duterte did rises to an impeachable offense under the accountability provisions of the 1987 Constitution.

That is a legitimate, serious legal debate, and reasonable people can disagree about where the line is.

But Vinluan is not helping her get there.

Sources

WHAT A WASTE OF OPPORTUNITY: LOPEZ, BELLO, AND A DEFENSE THAT DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A REAL "ROMANOV"

Gino Borlado — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 22:43:27 GMT

Pa-rant lang sandali.

This is a non-lawyer's observation. Just another opinion that probably will not change anything. But I want to say it anyway.

Yesterday, the prosecution dropped Atty. Zuleika Lopez and Captain Belinda Bello as witnesses in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte. This was announced in court by private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan.

The reason on record: their testimonies would be redundant and unnecessary.

I do not buy that.

WHAT THEY JUST THREW AWAY

The first two witnesses for Article IV were both from the NBI: Senior Agent John Mark Calilung and Regional Director Jeremy Lotoc.

Calilung authenticated videos and explained the investigation into Sara Duterte's public statements. He admitted he had no personal knowledge that Sara hired any assassin.

Lotoc traced what they knew about the supposed assassin and about "Operation Romanov" and told the court there was no proof that Sara actually hired anyone to kill the President.

They are doing their job. But they are still one type of witness: investigators looking at screens, reports, and digital files.

Lopez is a different thing.

She is Sara's chief of staff. She was detained by the House and almost moved to the Correctional Institute for Women after a contempt citation. Sara went live in November 2024 and threatened the President and his family because of what was happening to Lopez.

Bello is also a different thing.

She is the executive director of the House Legislative Security Bureau. She was in charge of the security side of Lopez's detention and the planned transfer.

You cannot get that kind of testimony from an NBI report.

If you want to show that Sara's words were not just drunk talk on a livestream, you put on the stand the aide she said she was protecting and the House security chief who handled that aide.

You let the country see what kind of atmosphere Sara created around her office and her people.

Then you ask the Senate: is this how a vice president behaves and still keeps her job?

Instead, the prosecution walked away from them.

THE "OPERATION ROMANOV" EXCUSE HAS NO BACKBONE

The defense keeps reaching for "Operation Romanov" as the emotional excuse for everything. They say there was a plot to kill the Duterte family. They say Sara was reacting as a daughter, wife, sister.

Right now, that story has no spine.

Lotoc told the court that whatever "Romanov" intel they saw was not about the Dutertes. It was about the Marcos First Family.

The NBI tagged any supposed Romanov threat against Sara as "unvalidated."

Their supposed main source, "Princess Maui," was invited for validation. She did not appear.

Malacañang said no "Operation Romanov" could justify threatening the President.

They pointed out that it was Sara's own camp that raised Romanov and challenged her lawyers to show proof if they had any.

The PNP and AFP both said they had no evidence of any assassination plot against the Duterte family.

Right now, every single member of the Duterte family is still alive.

No attack. No injury. No concrete proof that someone was about to kill them on orders of the state.

So when Sara went live and said she had already spoken to someone who would kill Marcos, his wife, and his cousin if something happened to her, what was that based on in real life?

If "Romanov" is just a rumor and she still said those words, what does that say about her judgment?

WHAT SARA'S WORDS REVEAL

I am not a lawyer. I am not arguing jurisprudence. I am just looking at this as a Filipino watching a vice president speak.

You are the second highest official of the country. Your aide is in trouble. You believe she is being abused by people in power. You have options.

You can file cases. You can go to the Ombudsman. You can go to the courts. You can tell the public what is happening, present documents, and demand accountability.

Sara chose to go live and brag about having a man ready to kill the President and his family.

No one forced those words out of her mouth. There was no gun pointed to her head. There was a camera, an audience, and a habit of talking like everything is a street fight.

My mother-in-law put it in one line while we watched the clips: "napaka palengkera niya ano?" It sounds funny at first. But it's also a better character assessment than most legal arguments I have seen. It points to a way of talking and thinking that feels more palengke baranggayan drama than vice president.

If there was even a small sense of being a statesman in her, those words would not have left her mouth. She would have been angry. She would have been loud. But she would not casually dangle a kill order on the President as a punchline.

THE SENATE IS NOT A NEUTRAL COURTROOM

This is the part that makes me nervous.

Sixteen out of twenty four senators are needed to convict. That is already a high bar.

Some senator judges look like they are doing the defense's job for them, even if they will never admit it.

Pia Cayetano has been very active in "reminding" the prosecution about rules and framing. On Day 2 she pushed back on the way prosecutors were speaking and wanted parts of their remarks stricken. On Day 5 she again raised questions on what counts as "grave threats."

During Lotoc's testimony, Alan Peter Cayetano left the hall for almost an hour. Robin Padilla, Mark Villar, Camille Villar, and Imee Marcos also left for long stretches. The explanation is that there are monitors in the lounge, so they can still watch.

For me, that image is enough. While the country is trying to figure out if a sitting vice president should be removed, some senator judges are not even in their seats for full hearings.

These are the people who will get to decide whether Article IV is impeachable or not.

A senator who keeps trimming the prosecution's language. Senators who leave the room while key witnesses testify. A Senate that already spent the past year dodging this case on technicalities and Supreme Court rulings.

In that kind of chamber, you do not relax just because the defense "admits" that the threat was said. You build every layer you can. You put every insider who saw and felt that night on the record. You force the Senate to see, not just hear, what kind of leader is on trial.

INSTEAD, THEY BLINKED

The prosecution said Article IV was their strongest article. They chose to start the trial there. They lined up NBI, House security, and then Lopez.

Then, after two NBI witnesses, they declared Lopez and Bello redundant.

So what do we have now?

We have the threat itself, basically admitted.

We have "Operation Romanov" hanging in the air with no solid proof that anyone wanted the Dutertes dead.

We have a vice president whose own words reveal more about her character than any legal defense ever could.

And we have a Senate that does not look like a quiet, focused jury. It looks like a room where some people are half-listening while already drafting the acquittal in their heads.

ONE MORE THING I WANT TO SAY

I will be honest about something.

Beyond the legal arguments, beyond the witnesses and the articles and the constitutional thresholds, I wanted to see Zuleika Lopez on that stand for a different reason.

I wanted to see her grilled. And I wanted to watch Sara Duterte squirm.

Not out of cruelty. Out of years of watching a public official talk like she is untouchable, perform for cameras like accountability is something that happens to other people, and treat the weight of her office like background noise to whatever she is feeling that day.

Lopez on the stand, under cross-examination, with Sara in the room watching her closest aide answer questions neither of them could control, would have been one of the rare moments in this trial where Sara could not perform her way out.

That is the trigger point. That is where her palengkera character, as my mother-in-law would say, would have shown itself in a room full of senator judges who are supposed to be paying attention.

Kapunan made a legal call. I understand it.

But for the Filipinos watching at home who have waited a long time for this, the prosecution did not just drop two witnesses today.

They dropped the moment.

THE PRESIDENT'S SIGNATURE AND THE GREEN BOX NOBODY WANTS TO OPEN

Gino Borlado — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 06:13:47 GMT

[An MCT Commentary]

There's a box. Green, sealed, and sitting in the middle of one of the messiest political trials this country has seen in years.

And somehow, the only person who can legally open it is the very president who has the most to gain from keeping it shut.

I've been curious about this one for a few days now.

THE BOX

The BIR sent a sealed green box to the Senate impeachment court.

Inside, supposedly, are the tax records of Vice President Sara Duterte. The House prosecution panel, the side pushing for her conviction, wants those records opened.

They believe it'll help prove the unexplained wealth charges against her.

Open the box, check the records, case proceeds.

Except it's not that simple. And Ping Lacson was the one who explained why.

WHAT LACSON SAID

Sen. Panfilo "Ping" Lacson came out on July 4 and told the Senate impeachment court, clearly: you have no business keeping that box. Send it back.

His point wasn't really about VP Sara. He was making a legal argument. Under Sections 71 and 270 of the NIRC (National Internal Revenue Code, the main law governing how taxes work in the Philippines), tax records are confidential. The BIR cannot share anyone's tax information with anyone else, and that includes courts, unless two things happen: either the taxpayer gives written consent, or the President of the Philippines signs a written authorization.

That's the law. It applies to everyone, including a sitting vice president on trial.

So when the prosecution handed that sealed box to the Senate without getting that presidential authorization first, Lacson basically said: wait, you handed over something you don't even have permission to use yet.

The Senate agreed. The box got returned to the BIR on July 7.

WHY THE PRESIDENT SPECIFICALLY

The law requires the president's signature because tax records sit under executive authority.

The president, as head of the executive branch, oversees both the BIR and the Department of Finance (DOF). Under the NIRC, presidential authorization is the legal mechanism for releasing confidential tax data outside of the normal collection process.

It's not some weird rule someone invented to protect politicians.

If you're in a civil case and the other side wants your tax records, they can't just subpoena the BIR and get them.

There's a process. There's a chain of authority.

Lacson said clearly he wasn't taking sides. "I am not favoring the defense. I am invoking the law," he told reporters.

I'll take that at face value.

He's been consistent. But invoking the law and being blind to how the law gets used politically are two different conversations.

BUT WAIT, WHAT ABOUT THE IMPEACHMENT ITSELF?

And this is where the legal fight stops being just about procedure.

The prosecution isn't asking for VP Sara's tax records out of curiosity. They need them to prove Article II of the impeachment charges: unexplained wealth and failure to truthfully disclose assets in her SALNs (Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth) from 2022 to 2024.

If her declared income doesn't match what she spent or owned, that's a constitutional violation.

But the law, as written, didn't build a clear lane for impeachment proceedings to access tax records.

Under Section 270 of the NIRC, disclosing a taxpayer's records without legal authority is a criminal offense.

A BIR official who opens that box without the right clearance can be fined up to P100,000 and jailed for up to five years.

The people who physically hold the evidence are personally at risk if they hand it over the wrong way.

The NIRC does have an exception.

Under Section 20 of the same code, the BIR commissioner can share tax records with Congress, but only if the inquiry is in aid of legislation (meaning Congress is using the information to write or review a law), and only if it's done in executive session (a closed-door, private hearing).

An impeachment trial is not an inquiry in aid of legislation. It's a separate, constitutionally mandated accountability process.

The NIRC does not list it as an exception.

The BIR commissioner himself said this in a House hearing back in April: there is no legal basis for disclosure in an impeachment proceeding under current law.

THE ARGUMENT ON THE OTHER SIDE

Rep. Leila de Lima argued that during impeachment, Congress is fulfilling a constitutional duty that sits above an ordinary statute like the NIRC.

The Constitution is the highest law. A tax code provision cannot block a constitutionally mandated process.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros made a similar point, saying constitutional accountability proceedings should override NIRC confidentiality.

The NIRC is specific. It criminalizes disclosure.

Impeachment isn't listed as an exception, so by the letter of the law, the confidentiality holds.

But the counterargument isn't weak either.

The Constitution built impeachment as the highest accountability tool available.

If a tax code provision can neutralize it, then the accountability process has a ceiling, and powerful people already know where that ceiling is.

No Philippine court has definitively resolved this tension. And that's exactly why it's still being argued.

SO WHAT HAPPENS IF MARCOS ACTUALLY SIGNS IT?

Signing that paper is a political act. Marcos knows it. His allies know it. Sara’s camp knows it.

Marcos and Sara Duterte were once the UniTeam.

They ran together in 2022, swept the elections, and presented themselves as the great Filipino unity tandem.

That alliance is now completely gone.

The relationship broke beyond repair by end of 2025, and today Marcos's own House allies are the ones prosecuting his former running mate.

Something people keep getting tangled on: Marcos cannot run for president in 2028. The Constitution prohibits a sitting president from seeking reelection. So this isn't about protecting his own 2028 prospects.

What it is about is his political legacy, his coalition, and deciding who gets to compete in 2028 and who doesn't.

A convicted Sara Duterte, barred from running, removes someone whose presence alone destabilizes whatever room she's in. And the Marcos political family has always played a longer game than just the next election cycle.

If Marcos signs, the prosecution gets the tax records, the unexplained wealth charges get a direct evidentiary foundation, and the trial moves toward a possible conviction.

Marcos has no seat at the 2028 table. But he can still decide who sits there, and a convicted Sara Duterte is one less problem for that plan.

Signing that authorization isn't a neutral legal act. And everyone in Malacañang knows it.

ON SARA DUTERTE, PERSONALLY

I don't view VP Sara Duterte primarily as a political threat. A governance threat is a different problem altogether.

Her conduct throughout this entire saga, the press conferences, the public statements, the theatrics, the rhetoric about killing public officials, the November 2024 Zoom presser that the prosecution literally played as evidence in court, none of it reflects the temperament, judgment, or character of someone who should be anywhere near the highest offices of this country.

Not because of politics. Because of basic fitness for leadership.

The unexplained wealth charges, the SALN (Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth) questions, the secrecy around her financial records, these aren't just legal issues. They reflect a pattern of someone who doesn't believe the rules apply to her and doesn't feel the need to explain herself to the public she's supposed to serve.

Good governance requires more than political survival skills. You have to believe in the thing you're governing. From everything I've watched and read, I'm not convinced she does.

THE DDS SOCIAL MEDIA MACHINE

Sara's political camp has inherited the DDS (Diehard Duterte Supporters) online machinery, and it's one of the most organized social media operations in Philippine political history.

The playbook was written under Rodrigo Duterte: drown the conversation in noise, reframe every attack as persecution, and keep enough noise going that finding the truth requires more energy than most people have.

The machine is already running.

The framing they're pushing is consistent: this is political persecution, a coordinated takedown designed to silence the Dutertes.

In Mindanao, that framing doesn’t need much selling. The Duterte name still means something there. And the millions who voted for Sara in 2022, many of them still feel the Marcos-Duterte split was a deal they didn’t agree to break.

If Marcos signs that authorization, expect the volume to go up several levels.

The line they'll push: the president is now literally signing documents to destroy the woman his own voters chose as VP.

Pages will flood with selective clips. Senators who vote to convict will get tagged as puppets.

The trial will be reframed, not as accountability, but as dynastic war.

The frustrating part is that the framing works because it's not completely false.

This is a trial where the prosecutor's side also has deeply political motivations.

Accountability and political interest aren't mutually exclusive, but they're not the same thing either.

The DDS will exploit that gap, and they'll have enough material to keep millions of Filipinos confused about where the law ends and the politics begin.

WHERE IT STANDS NOW

After the box was returned to the BIR, the prosecution filed a formal subpoena request with the Senate impeachment court, asking the court to compel the BIR to produce the records.

Presiding officer Sen. Francis "Chiz" Escudero ordered both panels to submit written legal arguments, and oral arguments on the subpoena are scheduled for July 15.

By this week, the Senate impeachment court will have to take a position.

Either it has the constitutional authority to override the NIRC's confidentiality rules through a subpoena, or it doesn't.

The prosecution has 92 trial days approved for the proceedings.

Today is already Day 4, and the most important piece of evidence is still sealed in a box that almost nobody has the legal authority, or the political will, to open.

THE QUESTION I CAN'T SHAKE

If Marcos is genuinely serious about accountability, the path is straightforward.

Sign the authorization. Release the tax records. Let the evidence speak for itself.

The law gives him that power precisely for situations like this.

The question is whether he actually has the stomach for it.

The easier move is to let the subpoena question drag through oral arguments, let the court carry the weight of the constitutional call, and keep his own hands clean on paper.

Waiting for the court to carry the weight isn't accountability. It's just better-dressed avoidance.

If he signs, the prosecution gets its ammunition and Marcos owns whatever follows. If he doesn't, his own allies start asking why he's protecting someone they've been prosecuting for months. Neither option is clean.

A president who has the legal authority to act and chooses not to has already made a decision. He just hasn't signed anything yet.

Sources

WHAT KIND OF MEDICAL EXAM DOES AN ACCUSED PERSON ACTUALLY GET?

Gino Borlado — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 06:04:30 GMT

[An MCT Commentary]

I had my coffee cold this morning because I got distracted reading about Senator Rodante Marcoleta's arrest. Specifically, the tests he underwent at the PNP (Philippine National Police) General Hospital in Camp Crame.

Blood chemistry. ECG (electrocardiogram, or the test that reads your heart's electrical activity). Chest X-ray. 2D echocardiogram (an ultrasound of the heart). X-ray of the cervical spine.

That's a lot of tests for a booking procedure.

So I asked the obvious question: is that what all arrested persons get? Or did Marcoleta get something closer to what corporations give their senior executives before they board a plane?

Turns out, this is worth looking into.

WHAT THE PNP MANUAL ACTUALLY SAYS

The Revised PNP (Philippine National Police) Operational Procedures Manual of 2021 is clear about this.

Under Section 2.6, before any arrested person is detained, the Desk Officer of the receiving station must prepare a Request for Medical Examination of the Suspect.

The suspect is then brought to a government hospital for a physical or medical examination.

The rule also says the arrested person has the right to be examined by a doctor of their own choice.

That's the standard. One doctor. One exam.

Results attached to the arrest and booking form.

The purpose is basic: document the person's condition at the time of arrest, so nobody can claim later that injuries or illness happened while in police custody.

It's a human rights protection measure as much as anything else.

The standard booking exam is simple.

It documents bruises, injuries, vital signs.

It answers one question: was this person healthy when we got them, or did something already happen?

It's not meant to be a comprehensive health assessment.

SO WHAT DID MARCOLETA GET?

Now compare that to what happened on July 7, 2026. Marcoleta was arrested on a plunder charge connected to P75 million in undeclared campaign funds.

During the booking procedure at CIDG (Criminal Investigation and Detection Group) headquarters in Camp Crame, he complained of chest pains and his blood pressure spiked.

At that point, the PNP brought him to the PNP General Hospital. That part, nobody can argue with. The man had symptoms. You bring someone with chest pains to a hospital. That's basic.

But then Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla said the medical check-up would take up to two days. The goal, he said, was to produce a full health report for submission to the Sandiganbayan (the anti-graft court).

Two days. A full health report. ECG. Blood chemistry. Chest X-ray. 2D echo. Cervical spine X-ray.

[Correct me if I am wrong but is’t that a comprehensive health screening?]

The kind you see in corporate executive check-up packages here in the Philippines, which typically include expanded cardiac evaluation, blood panels, imaging studies, and organ function tests, and take hours to complete.

THE BONOAN PRECEDENT

Here's where it gets more interesting.

Marcoleta isn't the first high-profile accused to go through extended medical accommodation at the PNP General Hospital.

Former DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) Secretary Manuel Bonoan went through something similar.

He had multiple serious conditions, including acute coronary syndrome, heart failure, Stage 4 chronic kidney disease, hypertension, diabetes, and prostate cancer.

The Sandiganbayan's Fifth Division eventually allowed him to be under hospital arrest at the PNP General Hospital.

The PNP itself even cited Bonoan's case as a precedent when explaining how they handled Marcoleta's situation.

A senior CIDG official acknowledged that they were taking a prudent approach given Marcoleta's age of 72.

So there's a pattern. High-profile accused. Elderly. High blood pressure during booking. Extended medical hold at the PNP General Hospital. A full health workup. Transfer to regular detention delayed.

IS THIS STANDARD FOR ALL ACCUSED?

No. And that's the honest answer.

The basic booking medical exam, the one the PNP manual requires, is meant to be brief, functional, and protective of the accused's rights. It's available to every arrested person.

But a two-day comprehensive workup including 2D echocardiography and cervical spine imaging?

That's not in the standard procedure.

When Marcoleta's blood pressure spiked and he complained of chest pains, the extended medical care became medically justified in the moment.

The PNP Health Service chief of Internal Medicine was monitoring his fluctuating blood pressure even two days after his arrest.

The Sandiganbayan itself later ordered an independent medical examination by the director of the PNP Health Service to verify his condition.

But here's the thing most Filipinos know without anyone having to spell it out: the kind of attention, the speed of the response, the quality of the facility, the completeness of the tests — these tend to scale with the profile of the accused.

An ordinary drug suspect arrested at two in the morning in a barangay in Nueva Ecija? They get the booking exam.

A senator with a plunder charge? They get ECG, 2D echo, blood chemistry, spinal X-ray, and their own room at the PNP General Hospital while their results come in.

The procedure is technically the same. The application is different.

THE BIGGER QUESTION

The PNP's handling isn't necessarily wrong on the legal or procedural level.

The law says medical care must be provided. If someone shows cardiac symptoms during booking, the responsible thing is to hospitalize them.

The Sandiganbayan is the one calling the shots on detention status, and they ordered continued custody while the medical evaluation was happening.

But the question worth asking over coffee, which is really all this is, is whether the system consistently applies the same standard of care to every accused person who shows distress during booking.

Whether the 22-year-old who clutches his chest during arraignment in a provincial court gets the same 2D echo and blood chemistry panel.

Whether the ordinary Filipino who gets arrested and complains of high blood pressure in a cramped police station gets transferred to a hospital with a prepared room, a nurse, and a monitoring team waiting for him.

I'm not saying the PNP did something wrong. I'm saying the way the system responds to illness during detention often depends on who's in detention.

That's worth knowing.

Sources

THE FUCK CHINA POLICY: A FILIPINO’S RESPONSE TO THE BATANES CLAIM

Gino Borlado — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 01:52:35 GMT

[An MCT Opinion]

I saw the headline this week and laughed. Then I got angry.

Chinese academics sat in a room in Guangzhou last June 30 and said Batanes belongs to China through Taiwan. They argued that our northernmost province is just an extension of Taiwan, and since China claims Taiwan, it can claim Batanes too.

Batanes. Home of the Ivatans. A province that votes in Philippine elections, pays Philippine taxes, and lives under Philippine law. And yet, on a Chinese campus, it turns into somebody else’s territory.

Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro called the claim a joke. AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) spokesperson Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad asked, “What’s next, Jupiter?”

That is basically how a lot of us feel.

WHAT THEY ARE CLAIMING

The Chinese scholars built their argument on three points.

One, they said the Batan Islands are a natural geographical extension of Taiwan, so if China controls Taiwan, it controls Batanes.

Two, they pointed to cultural similarities between the Ivatan people and Taiwan’s Tao community, like shared language roots and traditional boats, and used that as proof that Batanes used to be under Taiwan’s jurisdiction.

Three, they used their reading of the 1898 Treaty of Paris and the 1946 Treaty of Manila to argue that Batanes sits outside the lines that define Philippine territory.

On that last part, our own records already corrected the treaty language.

A committee report to the Philippine Senate clarified that the original description of the northern boundary had an error and that the actual line runs along the Bashi Channel at 21°25' north latitude.

Batanes is inside that line. It is not floating on the wrong side of the map.

On culture, the link between Ivatan and Tao communities is real. People crossed those waters long before anyone drew borders. But shared ancestry does not hand over a province. If it did, half of Latin America would still be under Madrid.

WHY THIS IS NOT JUST ACADEMIC TALK

SeaLight, a group that tracks ships and maritime activity, warned that this is part of lawfare, using law and research to slowly build a story that supports future moves.

After that symposium, Chinese media started talking about protecting China’s “sovereignty” in Batanes and about their coast guard needing to patrol those waters.

We have seen this style before. In the West Philippine Sea, it started with arguments about history and maps.

Then Chinese fishing boats stayed longer. Then the coast guard showed up.

Then ships began blocking and ramming Filipino vessels.

Then structures appeared on reefs, even after the 2016 arbitral ruling said China had no legal basis for its nine-dash line.

Batanes already felt some of that presence.

In April 2025, a Chinese research vessel stayed inside our exclusive economic zone near Batanes for several days, sailing in tracks that looked like survey work, without asking permission from Manila.

A year before that, another Chinese ship passed through Itbayat and Basco in Batanes before lingering off Catanduanes.

So when I see scholars talk about “natural extension of Taiwan,” and I know ships have already been moving near Batanes, it is hard to pretend this is just theory.

BATANES IS A REAL PLACE, NOT A CONCEPT

Batanes is not a line on a slide. It is a set of islands that get hit by multiple typhoons every year.

Ivatan families live there, farm there, fish there, and send their kids to schools funded by the Philippine government.

Florencio “Butch” Abad, a Batanes native and former representative of the province, called the Chinese scholars’ claim wishful thinking with no basis in history or law.

He said it looks like a setup to excuse future actions, like ships showing up where they should not.

For the people who actually live there, the argument is personal. It raises a hard possibility: another government turning up one day and insisting their land and sea were never really theirs.

HOW DUTERTE HELPED CHINA PUSH

China is this bold now partly because of what it learned during Rodrigo Duterte’s time in Malacañang.

In 2016, the Philippines won a major victory. The arbitral tribunal in The Hague rejected China’s nine-dash line and said Beijing’s so-called historic rights claims in the South China Sea had no basis under UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea).

We had a strong ruling. Duterte chose not to push it.

He went to Beijing in October 2016 and announced his separation from the United States, saying he would depend on China instead. He talked about billions in Chinese investments and loans. Many of those pledges never really took form. Reviews of his term later showed that Chinese financing stayed small compared to other countries like Japan, and that several promised railway projects never moved forward.

At sea, his decisions did more damage.

Duterte admitted that he agreed to maintain the status quo at Ayungin Shoal. That meant the Philippines would not bring construction materials to repair the BRP Sierra Madre, the rusty ship we grounded there as our outpost.

His former spokesperson, Harry Roque, later confirmed that Duterte and Xi had a gentleman’s agreement: we could bring food and water, but no materials that would strengthen the ship or build new structures.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio said Duterte had no authority to give up the country’s right to maintain that outpost and that such a concession would surrender our rights over Ayungin Shoal.

Duterte also talked about a fishing understanding with China, that Filipino and Chinese fishermen could both access certain waters around Scarborough Shoal.

Even when his spokesperson tried to deny there was a formal deal, China later cited that arrangement to justify limiting our military and coast guard activities near those areas.

The result was simple. China saw a Philippine leader willing to joke about the ruling, make quiet side arrangements, and keep confrontations downplayed. They saw a country that would not fully use the legal victory it had just earned.

Duterte is now facing a separate case at the ICC (International Criminal Court) over the drug war. He is no longer in office. But the way he handled China still shapes the map we are living with.

WHY SARA DUTERTE AND 2028 WORRY ME

Now we are looking at 2028, and the timing of this Batanes claim hits a nerve.

Vice President Sara Duterte has already said she will run for president.

She is facing an impeachment trial in the Senate over alleged misuse of hundreds of millions of pesos in confidential funds and for plots against President Marcos and other officials. Even with all that, some analysts still think she can win.

On the West Philippine Sea, her record is very clear.

When Chinese ships were repeatedly blasting Filipino sailors with water cannons at Ayungin Shoal in early 2024, she stayed silent. When reporters finally asked her about it, she replied, “No comment,” and said the Department of Foreign Affairs and the defense secretary should answer.

When she later commented on foreign policy, she questioned Marcos for allowing the deployment of US missiles in the country, saying the Philippines needs to fix relations with all neighbors and avoid antagonizing them.

Malacañang described those remarks as exactly what people would expect from someone pro-China.

Her brother, Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte, went even further. He called China a loving neighbor that shares its growth and prosperity. He welcomed Chinese Ambassador Jing Quan to Davao City in January 2026, in the middle of tensions between Chinese diplomats and Philippine lawmakers over West Philippine Sea issues.

PCG (Philippine Coast Guard) spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela has said openly that the outcome of the 2028 presidential election will matter to China.

He believes Beijing will favor a candidate who will not stand up firmly for Philippine rights. He also noted that under Rodrigo Duterte, only a few West Philippine Sea incidents were ever disclosed to the public. Many confrontations stayed off the radar.

Foreign policy observers worry that a Sara Duterte presidency could take us back toward Beijing and away from closer defense cooperation with the United States and other allies.

In that scenario, it becomes much easier for China to push new stories and new lines, over reefs, shoals, and now provinces like Batanes.

WHAT A FUCK CHINA POLICY LOOKS LIKE IN REAL TERMS

The title is emotional. The policy idea under it has to be practical.

Defending Batanes means keeping AFP troops and coast guard presence in the province strong.

When China complained about increased military presence there, Philippine officials were right to say we do not need Beijing’s permission to secure our own territory.

It also means investing in infrastructure in Batanes, ports, roads, communication facilities, so the province is not treated as a distant edge but as a clearly connected part of the country.

Defending the West Philippine Sea means using the 2016 arbitral ruling consistently, not occasionally. It is the clearest legal document we have on our side.

It also means rejecting and exposing secret deals that limit our ability to repair or supply our own outposts.

Agreements like the gentleman’s arrangement over BRP Sierra Madre should not be treated like harmless diplomacy. They gave China room to push.

Defending the story means answering Chinese lawfare with clear explanations that ordinary Filipinos can actually read.

When scholars claim Batanes, our own lawyers, historians, and researchers should answer with short, readable pieces that explain the record and expose the lie.

It also means calling out local politicians who keep sounding like Beijing’s backup singers. Their words have real effect on how firmly this country can push back.

Defending the future vote means understanding that this issue does not stop at ships and treaties. It reaches the ballot box.

An OCTA Research survey in 2026 showed that most Filipinos are willing to support defending our territory and sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea. This is not just a Manila issue. Filipinos already know what is at stake.

The danger is not that people do not care. The danger is that we put people in power who say “no comment” when our sailors are attacked, who call China a loving neighbor while its coast guard harasses our boats, and who treat legal victories like something to set aside quietly.

A CALL TO ALL NATION-LOVING FILIPINOS

If you care about keeping Batanes, the West Philippine Sea, and the rest of our territory ours, then pay attention.

Watch every China-related headline closely, especially anything about agreements, understandings, or joint development. That is usually where quiet concessions hide.

Support leaders who clearly defend the arbitral ruling, reject secret arrangements with Beijing, and speak plainly against Chinese harassment at sea.

Push back against politicians who stay silent when our sailors are attacked or who keep praising China while our own fishermen are being pushed aside.

Talk about Batanes, Ayungin, Scarborough, and the West Philippine Sea with your family, your friends, and the people you work with. When these places become part of our normal conversations, it gets harder for anyone to quietly trade them away.

The sea and the islands will not defend themselves. If we want a real Fuck China Policy, it starts with us refusing to vote for, applaud, or stay quiet for anyone who treats our sovereignty as something they can bargain away.

For me, the anger over Batanes is tied to one worry. Chinese scholars are testing stories now. Chinese ships have already sniffed around the province. The next line they cross will depend a lot on who is sitting in Malacañang in 2028.

That is the part I am most afraid of.

Sources

WHY SARA WOULD BURN THE HOUSE DOWN FOR ZULEIKA LOPEZ

Gino Borlado — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 02:02:33 GMT

[An MCT Opinion]

There is a detail from the night of November 23, 2024, that gets buried under the bigger headline.

That infamous Zoom press conference, the one where the sitting Vice President of the Philippines said she had instructed someone to kill the President if she herself were assassinated, was not originally a Sara Duterte show. It was supposed to be a Zuleika Lopez briefing.

Lopez was inside the Batasang Pambansa Complex, detained after being cited in contempt by the House committee investigating confidential funds.

She started the Zoom call, cried on camera, railed against congressmen, and then suffered an anxiety attack. Sara, who had been in her brother Paolo Duterte’s office the entire night, took over.

What came out of her mouth turned into Article IV of the impeachment case now being heard in the Senate: grave threats and an alleged assassination plot against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former Speaker Martin Romualdez.

All of it, because of one woman.

WHO ZULEIKA LOPEZ IS IN SARA’S WORLD

Atty. Zuleika Tanglao Lopez, often called “Lyka” or “Zu,” has been orbiting Sara Duterte’s political life for almost two decades. She first appears in public records in 2007 as secretary to the Davao City Council, at a time when Sara was still vice mayor.

When Sara became mayor in 2010, she appointed Lopez as Davao City administrator.

A SunStar report from that period described Lopez as a “little mayor,” leading city hall meetings, running Sara’s 10-point agenda, and acting as the operational driver of the administration.

Her appointment was contentious.

Rodrigo Duterte, then vice mayor, openly grilled Lopez in council deliberations.

Sara pushed back, warned of a communication breakdown between city hall and the council, and still got Lopez confirmed.

That early story already shows the pattern. Even when her own father was skeptical, Sara chose Lopez.

Fast forward to 2022. Sara wins the vice presidency.

Lopez follows her to Manila and becomes Chief of Staff of the Office of the Vice President (OVP).

Constitutional lawyer Howard Calleja later calls Lopez the VP’s “alter ego” and says she would know “both legally and factually” what happened inside the office.

She was not just an aide. She was the person through whom everything flowed.

THE MONEY UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

By the time Lopez was sitting at that House hearing in November 2024, the issue on the table was not small.

In 2022, the OVP received P125 million in confidential funds, released from the Office of the President’s contingent fund only months after Sara took office.

Those funds were reportedly exhausted in 11 days.

In 2023, the OVP’s confidential fund allocation jumped to P500 million.

When you add the P112.5 million confidential funds given to DepEd while Sara was education secretary, the total amount tied to her offices being scrutinized hits P612.5 million.

The receipts tied to those funds became their own kind of scandal.

Names on the acknowledgment receipts could not be found in PSA records.

“Mary Grace Piattos” signed for medicines worth P70,000. The PSA later confirmed no such person exists in its birth, marriage, or death databases.

Then came more names that sounded made up: “Jay Kamote,” “Miggy Mango,” “Dodong Alcala,” “Dodong Bina,” and eventually names similar to public figures or their relatives.

Out of 1,992 payees in the OVP’s list, 1,322 had no corresponding PSA record.

[Side comment: The question in my head has always been is this an accounting oversight or a structural lie?]

This is the backdrop against which Lopez appears before the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability and says, under oath, that she does not know how OVP confidential funds were used.

THE TESTIMONY THAT BROKE THE ROOM

Lopez’s official position at that hearing was simple and almost unbelievable.

She told lawmakers she was not involved in the disbursement, liquidation, or utilization of the confidential funds.

Yet OVP administrative and finance director Rosalynne Sanchez testified that three people had direct access to confidential fund transactions: Lopez, Special Disbursing Officer Gina Acosta, and Sara Duterte herself.

Lawmakers started pressing.

Deputy Speaker David Suarez pointed out that Lopez signed the OVP’s responses to COA about the funds.

Rep. Romeo Acop asked if she had written a letter to COA requesting that audit observation memoranda not be furnished to the House committee yet. She admitted it.

That letter is what pushed things over the edge.

Lopez had asked an independent constitutional body to hold back documents requested by congress, effectively interfering in an ongoing inquiry.

Rep. France Castro moved to cite her in contempt for undue interference. The committee agreed.

[Side comment: this should give you an idea kung bakit galit na galit si Sara kay France.]

Lopez tried to apologize, describing the letter as just a request. The committee was unmoved. She was detained within the House complex.

A few days later, the committee ordered her transfer to the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong.

That is the moment Sara Duterte walked into the picture.

THE NIGHT SARA WOULD NOT GO HOME

Sara did not send a lawyer to handle the situation. She became the lawyer.

She went to the Batasang Pambansa Complex, presented herself as Lopez’s legal counsel, and physically blocked the execution of the transfer order moving Lopez from House detention to the correctional facility. She stayed inside, occupying Paolo Duterte’s office, and told reporters she was not leaving.

[Note: Per my research, Sara violated the law here. Full‑time government officials are barred from private law practice unless a specific legal exception applies, so walking into Batasan as Lopez’s “lawyer” was not just dramatic, it was improper.]

The House Sergeant-at-Arms Napoleon Taas later described her behavior as a “blatant disregard for institutional authority.”

By then, Sara and Marcos were already on opposite sides of the political field. Sara had resigned from the cabinet in June 2024, stepping down as DepEd secretary and NTF-ELCAC vice chair, without giving a clear reason.

Analysts read that resignation as the formal collapse of the Marcos-Duterte alliance.

From that point on, she was a likely 2028 presidential contender operating outside Malacañang’s control.

So when she turned the House into an overnight campsite, it was not a small act. She did it with full knowledge of how it would look.

Then Lopez’s Zoom briefing melted down, Sara stepped into the call, and the words that came out have been replayed across every platform since:

“‘Huwag kang mag-alala, Ma’am, sa security ko, kasi may kinausap na ako na tao. Sabi ko sa kanya, kapag pinatay ako, patayin mo si BBM, si Liza Araneta, at si Martin Romualdez.’”

She later confirmed to the media that she had spoken to this person.

She called her words “a plan without flesh.”

The NBI opened an investigation. Article IV of the impeachment complaint was built around that statement.

It began as a reaction to what was happening to Zuleika Lopez.

WHAT THE PROSECUTION SEES IN LOPEZ

When the Senate impeachment court released its pre-trial order, it listed Article IV—grave threats and an alleged assassination plot—as the first article to be heard, with eleven trial days assigned to it.

The prosecution’s witness list for that article includes three key names: NBI lawyer Jeremy Lotoc, House Sergeant-at-Arms officer Capt. Belinda Bello, and Atty. Zuleika Lopez. Lopez is explicitly described as “a key figure” in the allegations that Sara made grave threats against Marcos, Araneta-Marcos, and Romualdez.

On July 8, 2026, the Senate impeachment court formally issued a subpoena ad testificandum to Lopez, ordering her to appear on July 13 and 14 at 2 p.m. and testify on what she knows. The subpoena has been served and received by the OVP.

Court spokesperson Reginald Tongol confirmed that Lopez is being summoned specifically in relation to Article IV.

In parallel, the prosecution has already told the court it intends to call Sara herself as a hostile witness later on. They are reserving that right for Article V, but the intent is clear: they want Sara on the stand.

That is the courtroom reality: Lopez is positioned as the bridge between the confidential funds scandal, the night in Batasang, and the assassination threat article.

WHY SARA’S PROTECTION MAKES SENSE AND DOESN’T

You can lay out all of this and still dodge the actual conclusion. I do not want to do that here.

Sara Duterte protected Zuleika Lopez because Lopez is both her closest ally and her most dangerous witness.

Lopez sat at the center of the confidential funds transactions, signed letters to COA, faced congress saying she knew nothing, and was physically present the night Sara said she had ordered revenge killings if she were assassinated.

If Lopez speaks freely at trial, she can connect three things that Sara has been trying to keep separate:

- The fake names and irregular receipts tied to the confidential funds.

- The internal operations of the OVP that made those transactions possible.

- The emotional and political context of the night in November 2024 when Sara lost control in front of a camera.

That’s the political side of it: protecting herself by protecting the one person who knows the most.

But when you watch how Sara behaved—blocking the transfer order with her own body, sleeping inside the House, refusing to leave, taking over a Zoom call in the middle of the night—you feel something else sitting underneath the strategy.

You see someone who could not emotionally separate the political risk from the personal loyalty.

In November, 2024, Veteran columnist Ramon Tulfo claimed it was an “open secret” in Davao that Sara and Lopez had been in a romantic relationship “matagal na,” and framed their bond in terms of long-term partners rather than boss and subordinate.

Senator Bato dela Rosa slammed him for it, calling him a malicious person.

I am not treating Tulfo’s claim as proven fact.

What matters is how widely that possibility was already being discussed, and how easily the public mapped it onto Sara’s behavior that night.

Because through the lens of an ordinary boss-employee relationship, her decisions do not make sense.

A politician protecting an asset releases statements, hires a legal team, and keeps distance. She does not risk a charge of inciting sedition, grave threats, and contracting a hitman just to keep a chief of staff from a correctional facility.

The protection was too intense, too physical, too self-destructive to be purely transactional.

[Side note: look at what’s happening to Rodante Marcoleta. He’s facing a non‑bailable plunder case and you don’t see Sara camping out in the courthouse for him. Anyway….]

THE BLUNT PART

So here is what I think…

Sara Duterte was protecting Zuleika Lopez for two reasons at once: the political need to keep the wall intact, and the personal bond built over almost twenty years.

She could not separate those reasons during the crisis in November 2024.

The result was a decision that felt deeply human and at the same time politically suicidal.

If she had seen Lopez only as a strategic asset, she would not have camped out inside the House.

She would not have taken over that Zoom call, live, in front of the country, and said what she said.

She would have kept her own hands off the scene and let the lawyers handle it.

She did not. She stayed. She spoke. And that choice is now being dissected, frame by frame, at her impeachment trial.

There is another line worth saying out loud.

If there is one person who can make Sara Duterte truly appear in this trial, beyond the formal presence of her lawyers, it is Zuleika Lopez.

Not the NBI, not the senators, not the spokespeople.

The woman Sara burned her future for is also the woman who can strip away every layer of distance she has tried to maintain between herself and the truth of what happened to those funds and what really happened that night.

The irony is brutal.

Sara chose Lopez over institutional decorum, over political caution, over her own safety as a public official.

She went to war for her. She turned a House detention drama into a national security crisis.

And now Lopez is scheduled to walk into the impeachment court on July 13 and 14 and speak under oath.

Whatever Lopez says, history has already recorded the most important part: on that night in November, when the stakes were highest, Sara Duterte did not protect the office. She protected Zuleika Lopez.

The trial will tell us if Lopez is ready to protect her back.

Sources

THE FACEBOOK LIVE THAT CAME BACK TO HAUNT THEM

Gino Borlado — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 22:41:07 GMT

[An MCT Commentary]

There’s a particular kind of irony that only Philippine politics can produce.

Harry Roque, the former presidential spokesperson who has been a fugitive since September 2024, wanted by the House of Representatives on POGO-related contempt charges and qualified human trafficking cases, is now sitting at the edge of Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial. Not because he showed up in court. Not because he surrendered.

His Facebook page did it for him.

THE NIGHT SARA TALKED TOO MUCH

On November 23, 2024, Vice President Sara Duterte held a late-night Zoom press conference. It was long. Messy. Tense.

Congress was already digging into the Office of the Vice President’s alleged misuse of confidential funds, and Sara sounded like someone speaking from the middle of a political breakdown, not from a position of control.

Then she said the line that would come back months later in a Senate impeachment court.

“Huwag kang mag-alala, Ma’am sa security ko, kasi may kinausap na ako na tao. Sabi ko sa kanya, kapag pinatay ako, patayin mo si BBM, si Liza Araneta, at si Martin Romualdez. No joke, no joke. I already gave instructions, ma’am. That if I die, I said, ‘do not stop until you kill them.’”

That press conference was streamed live on Harry Roque’s Facebook page.

Roque, at that point, was already gone.

During the same press conference, Sara herself appeared to hint that he had already left the country despite previously saying he would not. Since then, his situation has only become heavier.

He is now facing non-bailable qualified human trafficking charges tied to the Porac POGO case. His passport has been cancelled. He has been described by authorities as a fugitive.

And yet his Facebook page carried what may be the most politically damaging video of Sara Duterte’s career.

THE VIDEO ENTERS THE COURTROOM

On July 7, 2026, Day 2 of the Senate impeachment trial, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Senior Agent John Mark Calilung took the stand.

He told the court that the November 23, 2024 recording, a full two hours and 26 minutes long, had been collected from Harry Roque’s Facebook page. The NBI also asked Meta to preserve a copy so it could not be altered or quietly taken down.

The prosecution then played a two-minute and 18-second clip from the longer recording.

That was the part where Sara Duterte said she had already instructed someone to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and Martin Romualdez if she herself were killed.

Sara has since argued that this was an exercise of freedom of expression.

The prosecution sees it differently.

Private prosecutor Amando Ligutan told the court that this was not just an emotional outburst. He linked it to another 2024 video where Sara spoke about wanting to cut off Marcos’ head and dig up Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s remains and throw them into the West Philippine Sea. For the prosecution, the pattern is critical.

The defense objected again and again.

It questioned Calilung’s qualifications. It challenged whether the recording was properly authenticated. It pushed back on whether he was the right person to explain how the video was preserved.

Presiding officer Senator Francis Escudero overruled those objections and let the evidence in.

The prosecution also said it wants to call Sara Duterte herself as a hostile witness.

THE MAN BEHIND THE STREAM

This is the part that kept bothering me.

Roque is not just some random page owner who happened to host a video. He was a Duterte ally.

He accompanied Sara and Senator Robin Padilla to The Hague in March 2025 for Rodrigo Duterte’s International Criminal Court proceedings.

Even while staying abroad, he kept posting pro-Sara content on Facebook and Instagram.

As recently as June 2026, he was still boosting her and expressing support for Rodrigo Duterte.

So when Sara needed a platform for that November 2024 press conference, Roque’s page was there.

That is what makes this so strange.

Harry Roque did not testify. He did not turn state witness. He did not cooperate with the prosecution in any formal way.

But his Facebook Live did something none of those things needed to do.

It gave investigators a public, time-stamped copy of the most explosive part of Sara Duterte’s own words.

Lawyer Jesus Falcis pointed this out online, and for once the observation was hard to ignore: one of Sara Duterte’s own allies helped create the chain that turned her remarks into impeachment evidence.

A LIABILITY WITH A RING LIGHT

There is something worth pausing on here.

While Roque kept defending the Duterte family online, the family itself had already started creating distance.

By July 2025, Rodrigo Duterte’s lead counsel Nicholas Kaufman publicly said that Duterte no longer wanted Roque involved in his International Criminal Court case and wanted him to return to the Philippines to face his own charges.

That says a lot.

When the person you are trying to defend starts telling people you should stop interfering, you are no longer just an ally. You are becoming a problem.

Roque now moves like a man who still thinks he is in an official briefing room, except he is not.

There is no Palace podium. No staff. No message discipline.

No one checking whether a livestream helps or harms the people he says he wants to protect.

He is just abroad, posting and reacting and going live whenever he wants.

The Sara video is the clearest example of the damage that can do.

Vera Files also documented how one of Roque’s videos discussing the International Criminal Court was later recycled by a YouTube channel into a false claim that Marcos Jr. was about to be charged.

That kind of noise does not strengthen a legal defense. It makes the whole thing look sloppier.

A loyal ally who cannot be controlled starts turning into a liability. And the Dutertes seem to be learning that in public.

NOW HE “WANTS” TO BE THE WITNESS???

Last night, Roque added one more twist.

In a new post and video, he insisted that he, not NBI Senior Agent Calilung, is the one who should authenticate the Sara Duterte press conference recording. His point was simple: he streamed it, so he should be the one to vouch for it.

I had to look up how this works. From what I understand, he is not completely wrong.

The rules on electronic evidence do say that the person who made or broadcasted a video is a natural witness for it.

That part makes sense. But the rules do not stop there.

They also allow other people who handled the file, like investigators who found it, preserved it, copied it, and kept it intact, to explain what they did.

That raises an obvious question.

If Roque really believes he is the strongest witness for the Duterte side on this issue, why is he not in the country offering that testimony himself?

The answer is sitting in his own legal mess.

Roque is a fugitive. His passport has been cancelled. He is facing non-bailable qualified human trafficking charges.

He has also spent the past year telling foreign authorities that the cases against him support his asylum claim abroad.

Coming home to authenticate Sara Duterte’s video would not just expose him to arrest. It would also weaken the story he has been using to justify staying away from the Philippines.

So he is trapped by his own position. He wants to be seen as the best possible witness for the defense, but he cannot step into that role without stepping straight into the cases he has been avoiding. 🤷‍♂️

Meanwhile, the NBI has already explained its side.

Calilung told the court that he found the livestream on Roque’s Facebook account, asked Meta to preserve it, recorded the content together with its source and timestamp, compared that recording to the original, and used hash values to show the file had not been altered.

The Senate impeachment court accepted that explanation and allowed the video in.

So Roque may be partly right on the theory. But he stretches it too far when he acts like only he can authenticate the recording.

And that brings us back to the irony.

The person now arguing that he is the best witness for Sara Duterte is also the same person whose own Facebook page helped make the case against her possible.

He is not in the country. He has no valid passport. He is facing non-bailable charges.

And somehow, he is still in the middle of the story.

THE BROADER PICTURE

Sara Duterte faces four articles of impeachment. Article IV, which the prosecution is currently presenting, accuses her of culpable violation of the Constitution for allegedly making grave threats and plotting the assassination of the President, the First Lady, and the former House Speaker.

Her lawyers have gone back to the Supreme Court asking it to stop the trial, arguing that the proceedings are being handled improperly. That request is still pending.

So this is where things stand now. A vice president is fighting for her political survival.

One of the key pieces of evidence against her came from the Facebook page of a fugitive ally.

That same ally is now arguing online that he, of all people, should be the one authenticating the video.

If this were fiction, it would sound overwritten.

But here we are.

And the question that stays with me is simple: who exactly was Harry Roque helping when he pressed “go live”?

Sources

THREE WITNESSES, ONE CHAIN OF EVENTS: WHO THE PROSECUTION IS CALLING TO THE STAND JULY 13-15

Gino Borlado — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 12:31:33 GMT

[An MCT Commentary]

The Senate impeachment court is back in session next week, and the prosecution has already named who it wants on the witness stand from July 13 to 15.

Three people. All subpoenaed.

Each one connected to a chain of events that started with a congressional hearing about missing funds and ended with a Vice President threatening the life of a sitting President on a Zoom call at midnight.

Their names are Jeremy Lotoc, Zuleika Lopez, and Capt. Belinda Bello.

You may not know all three yet. After next week, you probably will.

JEREMY LOTOC: THE NBI MAN WHO INVESTIGATED THE THREAT

Lotoc is the Regional Director of the NBI-BARMM (National Bureau of Investigation, Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao).

He was part of the NBI team that investigated what Sara Duterte said during her online press conference on November 23, 2024.

That press conference is the core of Article IV of the Articles of Impeachment, the formal charges listing the grounds for her removal.

In that early-morning Zoom session, Duterte publicly stated she had already contracted an assassin to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and then-House Speaker Martin Romualdez, in the event that she herself was killed.

At an April 29, 2026 hearing of the House Committee on Justice, Lotoc confirmed that the NBI had invited Sara Duterte twice to explain her side. She never showed up.

When he takes the stand on July 13, his testimony is expected to help authenticate the video evidence tied to that threat and establish that Sara refused to cooperate with the investigation.

ZULEIKA LOPEZ: THE CHIEF OF STAFF WHO SPARKED THE ENTIRE NIGHT

Atty. Zuleika Lopez is Sara Duterte's Chief of Staff at the OVP (Office of the Vice President).

She has been with Sara for years, first as city council secretary during Duterte's vice mayorship in Davao, then as acting city administrator when Sara became mayor.

When Sara moved to the national stage as Vice President in 2022, Lopez came with her.

In November 2024, the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability was demanding audit documents from the COA (Commission on Audit) in connection with the alleged misuse of OVP confidential funds.

Lopez sent a letter to the COA asking it not to comply with the House subpoena for those documents.

That letter got her cited in contempt for "undue interference" in legislative proceedings.

She was detained inside the Batasang Pambansa Complex on November 20, 2024.

While Lopez was detained, Sara held that midnight press conference. Infuriated over her chief of staff's detention and the looming transfer to the CIW (Correctional Institution for Women) in Mandaluyong, Sara went on Zoom and said what she said about the assassin.

Lopez's detention did not cause the threat in a legal sense. But it was the match that lit the room.

The prosecution subpoenaed Lopez to appear on July 14 to tell that story from the inside.

CAPT. BELINDA BELLO: THE ONE WHO SERVED THE TRANSFER ORDER

Capt. Belinda Bello is the Executive Director of the House Legislative Security Bureau, the security arm of the House of Representatives.

Her role in the story is more procedural, but it fills in a critical gap: she was the person who physically served the order to transfer Atty. Lopez from the House detention facility to the CIW in Mandaluyong on November 22, 2024.

That transfer order was what Sara Duterte was reacting to in real time during the press conference.

Sara was watching her most trusted aide get moved to a women's prison, and she broke publicly.

Capt. Bello is on the witness list for July 15 to testify about the circumstances of that transfer and the sequence of events that night.

WHY ALL THREE MATTER TO THE IMPEACHMENT

The prosecution's case for Article IV is not just "Sara said something threatening."

The prosecution is building a chain of events: the confidential funds investigation leads to Lopez getting detained, Lopez's detention triggers Sara's press conference, the press conference contains the assassination threat on video, and the NBI investigated the threat afterward.

Lotoc establishes the investigation and Sara's refusal to cooperate.

Lopez is the human center of the chain of events.

Bello is the person who executed the very action that set Sara off.

The defense's counterargument, raised in the early days of the trial, is that Sara's words were a reaction to what they described as "systematic oppression" of her staff by the House.

But as Senator-judge Risa Hontiveros already pointed out during cross-examination: whether or not Lopez was oppressed does not make a threat against the President legally acceptable.

These three witnesses are not peripheral characters. Each one holds a piece of the timeline the prosecution needs to prove that November 23, 2024 was not just a bad night for Sara Duterte, but a criminal one.

Sources

IMPEACHMENT TRIAL DAY 3 HIGHLIGHTS.

Gino Borlado — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:34:46 GMT

[These are only the highlights of Day 3 of the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, held July 8, 2026. This is a watching-along notebook, not a full transcript. Not everything that happened is here. What is here is what stood out.]

NARVASA GOT HIS TURN AT THE MIC.

Day 3 was cross-examination day. Defense counsel Atty. Carlo Joaquin Narvasa took over the questioning of NBI Senior Agent John Mark Calilung, who had spent all of Day 2 being direct-examined by private prosecutor Atty. Amando Virgil Ligutan. The witness left the Senate premises at 4:42 p.m. The prosecution decided not to conduct a redirect. Trial adjourned at 4:57 p.m. and resumes Monday, July 13, at 2 p.m.

If Day 2 belonged to Ligutan and the video, Day 3 belonged to Narvasa and the paper trail.

THE PIVOT: FROM WHAT WAS SAID TO WHO INVESTIGATED IT.

Narvasa did not spend his cross re-litigating what Duterte said on November 23, 2024. He spent it dismantling how the NBI handled it.

He asked Calilung about his qualifications. Calilung had two weeks of digital forensics training with a company called Maxcor Inter-Ventures Co.

Narvasa produced Maxcor's corporate documents and its website. Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian later pointed out that Maxcor looks like a supplier of equipment.

Calilung explained the training was included in the procurement of digital forensic tools.

Sen. Kiko Pangilinan followed up on Calilung's educational background and training after the defense had already pressed him on digital and cybersecurity competency.

Narvasa then moved to the affidavits of investigation.

There were two: one in January 2025 and a revised one in February 2025 dated February 10.

The January affidavit was returned to the NBI for seven reasons, including the absence of an affidavit of the person who recorded the November 23, 2024 video.

Narvasa pointed out that even the revised February 10 affidavit did not attach the affidavits of the offended parties — President Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former Speaker Martin Romualdez. Calilung confirmed he did not have personal knowledge of whether the three ever filed any criminal complaints.

The revised affidavit also did not attach affidavits from the journalists who attended the November 23 briefing.

Then came the line that framed the day. "Did you really investigate this case?" Narvasa asked. Calilung's answers were shorter than the questions.

NO PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE.

Narvasa walked Calilung through what he did and did not know.

Narvasa: "You only acquired knowledge about it when you started investigating?" Calilung: "Yes, sir."

Narvasa: "You also don't have personal knowledge of the alleged assassin that was allegedly hired by the vice president?" Calilung: Answered no.

Later Sen. Bam Aquino returned to the same territory and gave Calilung a way to explain himself.

Aquino asked whether he investigated the hitman apart from the video. Calilung said he was only tasked to investigate the video.

Aquino then asked the prosecution if it would call another witness on the alleged hitman. Ligutan said yes.

MOTU PROPRIO, AND WHO WAS "HIGHER."

Calilung said the NBI started the investigation motu proprio — on its own initiative — upon order from the Department of Justice.

When Narvasa pressed on what was "higher than the DOJ," Calilung clarified that in this case it was only the DOJ that ordered the investigation.

Escudero cut in and said the objection was argumentative and that Calilung had used "above" as a general term but was referring only to the DOJ.

Calilung also said the NBI complied with DOJ requirements and secured a second certification stating its documents were sufficient for preliminary investigation.

THE ZULEIKA LOPEZ VIDEO.

Narvasa played a portion of a video of Zuleika Lopez, then Duterte's chief of staff and OVP undersecretary, taken during her detention at the House of Representatives.

In the clip, Lopez is heard objecting to her transfer to the Women's Correctional and saying her life was being threatened.

She had been cited for contempt by the House quad committee, chaired by Rep. Joel Chua who is now a House prosecutor, over an OVP letter to state auditors requesting that certain audit documents be withheld. Lopez had signed the letter.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros asked Narvasa what the relevance was. Narvasa said the issue was broader than one incident.

"There was a systematic oppression made by the House of Representatives dating back...even before their mini-trial, your Honor, the Committee headed by Cong. Chua began investigating the Vice President and her people.

Even when Atty. Zuleika is being interviewed by the QuadComm even if she was answering the questions faithfully and the best of her ability, she was cited in contempt and detained. Her lawyer was not allowed to be with her when they were trying to detain her in the Women's Correctional Facility."

Hontiveros pressed. She asked whether the defense's position was that grave threats are acceptable when there is a legitimate reason. Narvasa said that is not the point.

The defense's argument was that Lopez's detention, and what happened to Duterte's people around it, was the trigger for what Duterte said on November 23, 2024. Not a plan. A reaction.

THE VIDEO WAS NOT AI.

Sen. Raffy Tulfo asked how Calilung could tell the November 23 press conference was not AI-generated. Calilung said he had enough experience to know, and pointed out that AI-generated videos generally last only a few seconds while the material here was hours long. He maintained the video was authentic.

ABSOLUTE OR CONDITIONAL — CALILUNG SAID BOTH.

Asked by Sen. Joel Villanueva what factors make a statement a serious threat, Calilung said the key factor was whether the person making the threat had the capability to carry it out. He then argued that Duterte's remark opened a loophole: even if Duterte herself dies, a third party can execute the statement. "The threat is absolute, Sir," he said.

But when Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano asked whether the NBI's own affidavit described the remark as a conditional threat, Calilung answered directly. "Based on our affidavit, sir, I believe it's conditional."

That concession will be argued for weeks. Was it a real order, or a hypothetical uttered under duress? The prosecution has already telegraphed that it will invoke the rule on statements showing "specific intent, knowledge, identity, plan, or system."

The defense has already telegraphed that it will call the whole thing a wife's reaction to a threat against her family.

ESCUDERO TOLD BOTH SIDES TO STICK TO THE EVIDENCE.

Escudero warned prosecutors and defense counsel to stop making arguments that sound like closing statements. He said this is not yet the time for concluding remarks.

He directed lawyers to confine their arguments to pending objections and questions about the evidence.

He reminded senator-judges to be careful about pushing counsel into conclusions of law and fact instead of allowing them to present evidence.

He also allowed questioning to continue in most instances, signaling a preference for letting the record fill up before weighing what it means.

He also reaffirmed the 16-vote threshold for conviction. Twenty-four sitting senators, two-thirds is 16. The number does not move even if senators are absent. This ruling had already been made on Day 1. On Day 3 he stood by it.

He also reiterated that Duterte is not required to attend her own trial.

PIA CAYETANO WITHDREW HER MOTION.

Sen. Pia Cayetano confirmed she was withdrawing the motion she made on Day 2 to strike out Ligutan's answer to Hontiveros — the one several senators said sounded like a premature closing statement. In exchange, the defense was given equal time to make its own remarks at the end of the day.

VINLUAN CLOSED FOR THE DEFENSE.

Atty. Mark Vinluan delivered the defense's end-of-day remarks. His argument had three moves.

First, the evidence gap. "The prosecution admitted that the video does not prove any fact other than its existence. In simple words, there is no proof of any contracting of an assassin. The prosecution has no other competent evidence to prove that VP Sara contracted an assassin."

Second, the character of the speaker. Duterte was not speaking in her capacity as vice president when she made those remarks, Vinluan said. "When VP Sara uttered those words, she was not responding as Sara Duterte, the Vice-President, but Sara Duterte, the wife, mother, daughter, and sister who only sought to protect her own and her family members' lives."

Third, the missing perspective. The NBI, Vinluan argued, ignored Duterte's side and skipped over the alleged plot against her family that she called Oplan Romanov.

PRINCESS MAUI AND OPLAN ROMANOV.

Alan Peter Cayetano asked whether Princess Maui, identified as a Duterte ally, complied with the NBI's invitation to give details about the alleged plot against the Duterte family known as Oplan Romanov. Calilung said the NBI had invited both Duterte and Princess Maui to appear. Neither came.

Calilung added that the NBI did include the alleged threats against Duterte in its investigation and had asked her about them.

Sen. Erwin Tulfo followed up on jurisdiction. He asked whether the NBI has the power to investigate threats against the President, Vice President, Senate President, House Speaker, and Chief Justice even without a request from the person threatened. Calilung cited Republic Act No. 10867, the law creating the modern NBI, and said the bureau files a case when the evidence is enough.

ONE WITHDRAWN QUESTION.

During the cross, Narvasa withdrew a question he had put to Calilung about his role in investigating the video. The withdrawal became one of the session's talking points on TV and online. Small in the record, big in the clip cycle.

NEXT WEEK'S LINEUP.

The prosecution moved its second witness, NBI-BARMM Regional Director Atty. Jeremy Lotoc, from Wednesday to Monday, July 13. Ligutan's reasoning was that the prosecution would utilize the 11 days allotted to Article IV in full and did not need to rush a second witness in on Day 3.

The plan for the week of July 13:

- Monday, July 13 — Jeremy Lotoc, NBI Regional Director.

- Tuesday, July 14 — Zuleika Lopez, OVP chief of staff, whose subpoena Escudero granted on Day 3.

- Wednesday, July 15 — Capt. Belinda Bello, executive director of the House Legislative Security Bureau.

Also next Wednesday, July 15: 10-minute oral arguments on the prosecution's request for a subpoena on the tax documents of Duterte, her husband Manases Carpio, and 22 businesses. Both sides were ordered to submit memoranda.

Separately, the tax records of Duterte and Carpio that were in the impeachment court's custody were returned to the Bureau of Internal Revenue at 11:07 a.m. The BIR received them through Atty. Anne Loraine Garcia-Marquez of the Office of the Commissioner.

BOTH SIDES SAID THEY WON.

Defense spokesperson Atty. Michael Poa gave the defense team a 10 out of 10 for the day. He said the targets were to establish the extent of the NBI investigation, expose the nature of the affidavits, and give context to portions of the November 2024 video. He said Narvasa executed the cross "to the T."

Prosecution adviser Rep. Robert Ace Barbers said the testimony was "neither shaken nor punctured." Legal spokesperson Benjamin Tolosa Jr. said the prosecution did not need to redirect because the defense had not undermined the principal testimony authenticating the November 23 video.

Both statements can be true at the same time. The prosecution kept its authentication on the record. The defense put daylight between "the video is real" and "the video proves she contracted an assassin." Neither side moved the ball to the finish line.

WHAT DAY 3 DID.

Day 3 was not spectacle. It was housekeeping done in public.

The defense moved the ground under the case from what Duterte said to how the state pursued it. The prosecution kept its witness intact but did not add new material to the record. Escudero told both sides to stop arguing the case before all the evidence is in. And the trial calendar reset with Lotoc, Lopez, and Bello lined up for next week.

Week 1 ends here. Article IV still has eight more days of hearings allotted to it. Whether the prosecution needs all of them is the question the next witness will start to answer.

WHAT EXACTLY IS A CABINET SECRETARY? AND WHY IS ABALOS ONE NOW?

Gino Borlado — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 04:35:12 GMT

[An MCT Commentary]

People saw the announcement and did a double take. Benhur Abalos, appointed as Cabinet Secretary. And the immediate question online was something like: wait, isn't that office gone? Cabinet secretary ng ano?

FIRST, A QUICK REFRESHER

The Cabinet, as most Filipinos understand it, is the group of department heads sitting around a very long table in Malacañang. You have the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Finance, the Secretary of Health, and so on. Each one runs a department. Each one has a clear mandate, a clear budget, and a clear sign on their office door.

The Cabinet Secretary is different. The Cabinet Secretary does not run a department. The role sits inside the Office of the President itself.

Historically, the Cabinet Secretary's job was to keep the Cabinet running as a machine.

That means preparing agenda items for Cabinet meetings, facilitating discussions, making sure the President gets timely information, and acting as a liaison between the President and the rest of government.

Think of it less like a department head and more like a very senior chief of staff with political reach.

THE OFFICE THAT MARCOS HIMSELF ABOLISHED

Here is where it gets worth talking about.

On his very first day in office on June 30, 2022, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed Executive Order No. 1.

Among other things, EO 1 abolished the Office of the Cabinet Secretary, saying the administration wanted to streamline government by removing "duplicated and overlapping official functions".

So the man abolished the position. Four years later, the same man is reviving it to appoint someone he clearly trusts.

That tells you something. Not necessarily bad, just telling.

Marcos Jr. is bringing back a post he once said was redundant.

The reason, according to Palace press officer Claire Castro, is that Abalos will provide "timely, relevant, and strategic advice on emerging national, local, and international issues affecting the political landscape".

He will also serve as Marcos' liaison to government agencies, LGUs (local government units), political organizations, civil society groups, and sectoral organizations on matters of political concern.

And there is the STAR (Strategic Action and Response) Office, which Abalos will head.

That office handles citizen concerns, the 8888 Complaint Center, and government responsiveness functions.

It is a real operational desk, not just a ceremonial one.

So the role being revived here is part political fixer, part institutional coordinator, part early warning system for the President.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EXECUTIVE SECRETARY AND CABINET SECRETARY

The Executive Secretary is the President's primary alter ego. The office directly assists the President in managing the whole executive branch, implements presidential directives, decides on matters that do not need the President's personal attention, and exercises supervision and control over units in the Office of the President and many attached agencies.

In practice, the Executive Secretary can issue orders in the name of the President and review or modify decisions made by other Cabinet secretaries on appeal.

The Cabinet Secretary, by contrast, sits inside the Office of the President but does not function as the President's alter ego.

The role heads the Cabinet Secretariat, which is tasked to organize Cabinet meetings, monitor implementation of presidential directives and Cabinet decisions, coordinate policy discussions among departments, and help integrate and implement the administration's programs across agencies.

The Cabinet Secretary is more of a coordinator and integrator of the President's initiatives, while the Executive Secretary is the chief manager and controller of the executive branch.

NOW, ABOUT ABALOS

I have been watching Benhur Abalos for a while.

And the one word that keeps coming up around him, from his own allies and even his critics, is that he is a man of action.

The MMDA (Metropolitan Manila Development Authority) itself described him that way when he left the post in 2022, saying he "initiated vital projects, such as flood control mitigating measures, traffic reduction initiatives, sanitation" programs.

Before MMDA, he was mayor of Mandaluyong City for years.

Under his watch, Mandaluyong was recognized twice as the most business-friendly city in the country.

He launched Project TEACH, which gave free therapy, education, and medical assistance to children with disabilities, and it won a UN (United Nations) Public Service Award. He built the Garden of Life Park out of an overcrowded cemetery, which won the Galing Pook Award.

When he moved to the DILG (Department of the Interior and Local Government), he did not coast on the desk job.

He pushed the BIDA (Buhay Ingatan, Droga'y Ayawan) anti-drug program hard, reporting that in its first year alone, the program aided in the seizure of over P10 billion worth of illegal drugs and the arrest of more than 56,000 drug suspects.

He pressed for BFP (Bureau of Fire Protection) modernization and digitalization of LGU frontline services.

DILG won its competence award for the fifth time under his tenure.

He reportedly rated number one among top-performing Cabinet officials with a 93 percent performance rating.

Then he stepped down in 2024 to run for senator. He got 11.5 million votes and placed 16th, four spots short of the winning circle.

Now he is back.

THE HONEST ASSUMPTION I AM MAKING

I want to be straight about this because I could be wrong.

A Cabinet Secretary role, as structured, is largely a behind-the-scenes post.

You coordinate, you advise, you facilitate.

The wins are not always visible.

Your name does not make headlines when a barangay gets a new fire truck or when a drug lord gets caught.

You are the oil in the engine, not the engine itself.

Abalos has spent his career being the engine.

Mayor, MMDA chair, campaign manager for Marcos, DILG secretary, senatorial candidate.

Every single post he has held required him to be publicly visible, operationally hands-on, and directly accountable for results you could count or photograph or protest.

A Cabinet Secretary who primarily advises and coordinates? That is a different rhythm entirely.

And for someone who is clearly wired to deliver tangible, measurable outcomes, sitting in a room making sure Cabinet meetings run smoothly might feel like wearing shoes two sizes too tight.

I am being obvious about this assumption. I could be completely wrong.

But based on what I have observed, Abalos tends to find his energy in the field, not in the palace corridors.

WHAT WE SHOULD EXPECT

That said, the job is what the job is. And given the specific mandate Marcos gave him, this is not exactly a ceremonial posting.

He heads the STAR Office, which means citizen complaints and government responsiveness will go through him.

He will serve as political liaison, which in the Philippines means he will be managing relationships with governors, mayors, civil society groups, and organized political blocs.

He will be Marcos' political eyes and ears, the man who tells the President what is actually happening out there before it becomes a problem.

That last part, frankly, does suit him. Abalos has spent decades building relationships across LGUs.

He knows how barangays work, how local chief executives think, and how political alliances form and fall apart.

If anyone can make that liaison role actually functional and not just ceremonial, it is probably him.

In Kazan last June, Marcos said he wanted Abalos to "play a more active role in government" because he had already been helping the administration informally for a while. Reading between that, Abalos was already doing the work without the title. The appointment just makes it official.

So the post may be a desk job on paper. But the man holding it has never treated any post like a desk job.

We will see if that changes here, or if he finds a way to make the Cabinet Secretariat into something people actually notice.

CAVEAT:

This piece is not a favor to Malacañang or to Benhur Abalos. I have been harsh on officials who do not perform, and the record is there in what I wrote about Jonvic Remulla and Sara Duterte.

Abalos is now back inside government, which means he joins the long list of names I watch closely, not a short list of people I cheer for.

The rule is simple: praise what works, even if I dislike the person, and criticize what fails, even if I am personally inclined to like them.

Sources

THE NAME THEY KEEP SAYING IN THAT SENATE CHAMBER

Gino Borlado — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 11:11:24 GMT

The name Romanov came up during Day 3 of the Senate impeachment trial today, and I got curious enough to stop scrolling and actually look into it.

I already know who the Romanovs are. But I figured, for the sake of the MCT community, it's worth laying out the full picture of why that name is being dropped in a Philippine Senate chamber in 2026, who brought it up first, what it was supposed to mean, and what investigators have actually found since then.

WHERE IT STARTED

Before there was a trial, there was a video.

On November 23, 2024, Vice President Sara Duterte held an online press conference that has since become the single most damaging piece of evidence against her.

At one point, a pro-Duterte blogger who goes by the handle "Maharlika" asked her about a supposed plot by the Marcos administration to eliminate the Duterte family entirely, allegedly codenamed "Operation Romanov."

Sara's response wasn't a denial. She turned it around. She said she already had a hitman ready.

If she died, that person had instructions to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (BBM), First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez. She repeated, "No joke. No joke."

The question about Romanov became secondary very fast. Her answer consumed everything.

But the name stuck. And it's why we're here now.

WHAT THE ROMANOVS MEAN IN THIS CONTEXT

For those in the MCT community who need the quick context: the Romanov family was Russia's last imperial dynasty.

On July 17, 1918, Czar Nicholas II, his wife, and all five of their children were taken to a basement in Yekaterinburg and executed by Bolshevik forces.

No trials. No exile. The entire family, wiped out in one night.

In political language, invoking the Romanovs means total elimination. Not removal from power. Not exile. Everyone.

That's the reference Sara's camp used for what they claimed was being planned against the Dutertes.

No government body has ever confirmed Operation Romanov as an actual state-sanctioned plot. It came from a question by a Duterte supporter, and Sara ran with it.

THEN BASTE OPENED HIS MOUTH

This is where it gets harder to dismiss as metaphor.

On January 27, 2024, almost a year before Sara's press conference, Davao City Mayor Sebastian "Baste" Duterte spoke at a prayer rally in Davao and delivered what he called "a simple message" for the President.

He said: "From now on, before you go to bed, think of the Romanovs. Think of Benito Mussolini and his wife. Think of what happened to you in 1986. Maybe you'll reconsider the direction that you are taking."

The target was clear. He was speaking to Marcos. Only Marcos.

Consider what each reference actually points to.

The Romanovs: an entire ruling family executed by force.

Benito Mussolini: Italy's World War II fascist dictator and his mistress were caught while trying to flee the country, executed by partisans, and their bodies were hung upside down in public in Milan.

1986: the year Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was driven out of Malacañang through People Power (the EDSA Revolution), fled the country, and died in exile in Hawaii.

Three references. Three violent or humiliating ends for leaders who overstayed. All directed at one man.

When this video resurfaced during House Justice Committee (HJC) hearings in April and May 2026, lawmakers called it "nakakabahala," deeply troubling.

Rep. Benny Abante Jr. called on the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) to investigate not just Sara, but the entire Duterte family for a possible destabilization plot.

His reading: if Sara threatened the hitman route, and Baste was publicly cataloguing violent ends of rulers, the family wasn't speaking in hypotheticals.

WHAT RODRIGO WAS ACCUSED OF

In April 2026, Ramil Madriaga, the alleged former bagman (someone who handles unofficial funds on behalf of a political figure) of VP Sara, came forward with testimony that added another layer.

He told investigators that Rodrigo Duterte had discussed extraordinary measures to remove Marcos if political pressure failed, including the assassination option as a possible last resort.

Madriaga's credibility is contested. He's in detention, he's cooperating with the state, and his claims carry the usual caveats.

But the NBI took his statements seriously enough to continue building leads from them.

One detail that barely got coverage: after Madriaga began cooperating, the NBI confirmed Sara visited him in jail twice.

Around the same period, he reportedly received death threats while incarcerated.

WHAT THE NBI ACTUALLY FOUND

The NBI did not treat Sara's November 2024 statements as political theater.

NBI Senior Agent John Mark Calilung, the prosecution's first witness at the Senate impeachment court, was the agent-on-case for the video authentication investigation.

He confirmed the November 23, 2024 video is authentic.

The NBI ran hash value computations, a digital verification process that checks whether a file has been altered, coordinated with Meta to preserve the original URL, and found no evidence the footage was edited, spliced, or AI-generated.

Calilung also told Senator-judge Raffy Tulfo that AI-generated videos typically run only a few seconds.

Sara's press conference ran over two hours.

Beyond the video, NBI Director Melvin Matibag told the House Justice Committee that suspects had already been identified, including individuals within the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines), who may have been hired as the alleged assassins.

He did not name them because the investigation was ongoing.

NBI Regional Director Jeremy Lontoc went further, confirming to the House panel that there was a real person connected to Sara's statements as the alleged hitman.

The NBI filed criminal cases before the DOJ (Department of Justice): one count of inciting to sedition and multiple counts of grave threats. The DOJ resolution was still being processed as of late April 2026.

WHAT HAPPENED ON DAY 3

Today, Sara's defense team, led by Atty. Carlo Joaquin Narvasa, spent the session cross-examining Calilung.

The defense took two angles.

First, they questioned Calilung's qualifications, presenting documents about MaxCor Inter-Ventures Co., the company that provided his two-week digital forensics training.

The implication: was his authentication testimony credible?

Second, they pointed out procedural gaps in the NBI's affidavit of investigation.

Calilung confirmed the NBI's first affidavit, submitted to the DOJ in January 2025, was returned with seven deficiencies, including the absence of an affidavit from the person who originally recorded the November 23 video.

A revised affidavit was submitted in February 2025.

Narvasa pressed on why journalist affidavits referenced in the investigation were not attached to the revised document and asked Calilung directly: "Did you really investigate this case?"

The prosecution responded that a separate witness will still testify on the actual alleged hitman. That testimony hasn't happened yet.

Senator-judge Risa Hontiveros asked the defense whether it was their position that grave threats are acceptable if there is a "legitimate reason."

The defense said that was not the point.

Presiding officer Sen. Chiz Escudero reminded both sides to focus on evidence, not conclusions.

THE HARDER QUESTION

Sara's camp has always framed her November 2024 statements as conditional.

If I die first, someone dies. The argument is that a conditional threat is not an actual threat.

The DOJ prosecutor who reviewed the case disagreed.

The position was stated plainly: a threat delivered with intent does not stop being a threat because it comes attached to a condition.

The Senate is now working through 92 trial days covering all four articles of impeachment: misuse of P612.5 million in confidential funds, unexplained wealth, constitutional violations, and the assassination plot.

What makes Article IV stand out from the rest is not just the video.

The prosecution is trying to establish a pattern: Baste warns Marcos about the Romanovs in January 2024. Sara threatens Marcos directly in November 2024. Rodrigo allegedly discussed removal options behind closed doors.

And throughout all of it, a real person with a real identity was allegedly being paid to carry something out.

The NBI called the video authentic. Hitman suspects were identified.

The DOJ received charges. A cross-examination today didn't erase that.

The Romanovs fell when no one in power was willing to stop what was coming.

The Senate is now sitting in judgment of whether someone in Philippine power was planning to make that reference literal.

Sources

WHEN THE OMBUDSMAN DOES ITS JOB, THE GUILTY START FILING COMPLAINTS

Gino Borlado — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 10:14:18 GMT

There is a pattern that plays out every time a government institution actually works the way it is supposed to. The people it is going after stop talking about their alleged crimes. They start talking about the institution instead.

That is what is happening right now with Ombudsman Jesus Crispin "Boying" Remulla.

Before we go any further, let me put something on the table.

When word got out that Boying Remulla was being positioned as the next Ombudsman, I wrote against it. I was among the first few who did.

I raised the patterns of behavior, the cases, the questions about whether a man with his political history and alliances could genuinely run an office that exists to go after people exactly like the ones who put him there.

I had doubts about his sense of justice and fairness as the role demands. I still do.

I am not a fan of how he runs the office.

The constant press briefings. The public telegraphing of moves before cases are even filed.

Announcing plunder charges in press conferences before the paperwork is done, which his own spokesperson had to walk back at least once.

An Ombudsman who holds weekly press conferences is an Ombudsman who has turned a prosecutorial office into a performance.

That is a real problem, and I will not pretend otherwise.

So understand this clearly: what I am about to write is not a defense of Boying Remulla the man or Boying Remulla the administrator.

It is a defense of what happens when an office does its job, and the people being charged respond by trying to destroy the office.

Those are two VERY different things.

THE CASES PILING UP

In early July 2026, reports surfaced that an impeachment complaint against Remulla was being circulated among members of the House of Representatives.

Political commentator Jesus Falcis was among the first to mention it publicly, saying his source told him the complaint was being passed around Congress and had the support of some religious groups.

The Ombudsman's office did not miss the timing. They called it the "galawan ng mga guilty," or the moves of the guilty.

Look at what happened just days before this complaint started making the rounds.

On July 3, 2026, the Office of the Ombudsman filed a plunder case against Senator Rodante Marcoleta before the Sandiganbayan (anti-graft court) over a P75 million campaign donation that Marcoleta admitted receiving but never declared in his Soce (Statement of Contributions and Expenditures).

The Ombudsman did this despite three straight days of unsanctioned Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) rallies along EDSA, which ground traffic to a halt and, for a time, forced thousands of commuters to suffer while their senator's legal problems were turned into a religious cause.

Remulla told reporters his office would not be stopped. And they were not.

The Marcoleta case is not even the biggest thing on the Ombudsman's desk right now.

As of June 2026, the Office of the Ombudsman had 209 active investigations into flood control projects, with four cases already filed in court.

Former senators Bong Revilla and Jinggoy Estrada are back in the crosshairs, facing plunder and graft charges tied to the flood control mess.

Former contractor couple Curlee and Sarah Discaya are also facing charges.

And then there is former House Speaker Martin Romualdez, who the Ombudsman was preparing to hit with five to six plunder cases linked to the same flood control scandal, involving an alleged P56-billion kickback scheme.

Romualdez's lawyers moved to disqualify Remulla's entire office from investigating their client, arguing the Ombudsman had already made up his mind.

Remulla refused to step aside. He said there is no such concept as Ombudsman inhibition (stepping back from a case due to alleged bias).

The Office of the Ombudsman was also preparing plunder charges against former Senate President Chiz Escudero for his alleged role in the same flood control mess. And separately, the Ombudsman's office was looking at the cases of Vice President Sara Duterte, involving the alleged misuse of P500 million in confidential funds at the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and P112.5 million at the Department of Education (DepEd).

Marcoleta. Romualdez. Escudero. Estrada. Revilla. Sara Duterte.

These are not small names. And every single time Remulla moved, someone pushed back.

THE IMPEACHMENT THREAT: ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK

The timing of the impeachment threat against Remulla is not subtle.

In July 2026, the plunder case against Marcoleta drops.

Within days, an impeachment complaint is reportedly being circulated in the House, reportedly with support from some religious groups.

The sequence is not hard to follow. The Ombudsman charges someone. The allies of the someone find a way to go after the Ombudsman. The institution doing the charging suddenly becomes the one that has to defend itself.

This is not new in Philippine politics.

When Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez was in office under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's administration, the opposite problem existed.

She was protecting the powerful instead of prosecuting them.

The House eventually impeached her in 2011, with 212 votes, on grounds including failure to act on the fertilizer fund scam and the selective absolution of powerful officials linked to Arroyo.

The people cheered because the institution had become a shield for the corrupt. It needed to be removed.

The situation today is reversed. The Ombudsman is doing what the office was built to do. And now the people whose interests are threatened are the ones pushing for his removal.

Former President Arroyo, now a representative for Pampanga, reportedly said she will "vote against it" if an impeachment complaint against Remulla reaches the House floor.

Her camp denied she was leading any plot to file one.

But that these denials even needed to be issued tells you how much political pressure is already building.

HOW AN IMPEACHABLE OFFICE GETS WEAPONIZED

Under Article XI, Section 2 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution, the Ombudsman is an impeachable officer. That means the only way to remove Remulla is through the House filing impeachment articles and the Senate sitting as an impeachment court.

That is supposed to be a safeguard against arbitrary removal. The bar is high on purpose.

But the same mechanism designed to protect the office can also be weaponized.

File a complaint.

Drag it out.

Force the Ombudsman to spend time defending himself instead of building cases.

Use the spectacle of proceedings to paint the institution as politically compromised.

Hope that the noise creates enough doubt in public opinion that the prosecutorial momentum breaks.

The Ombudsman's office, to its credit, has not shown signs of backing down.

When the INC held its EDSA rally without a permit on June 30, 2026, and the Quezon City government eventually gave it retroactive permission, Remulla still filed the case two days later.

When Romualdez's lawyers demanded the entire office recuse itself, Remulla said that was not how the law works.

When the rumor of an impeachment complaint started floating, the Ombudsman's response was to name it for what it was: a move by those who have something to hide.

That kind of institutional backbone is rare in this country. And that is exactly why it is being tested.

THE PERSONAL INTERESTS RUNNING THE SHOW

Who actually benefits from a weakened or distracted Ombudsman?

Marcoleta's plunder case involves a P75 million undeclared donation.

The senator himself confirmed he received the money.

His allies in Congress and within the INC organized mass mobilizations to pressure the Ombudsman into dropping it.

Romualdez, who was the most powerful man in the House for years, faces a P56-billion flood control scandal.

His lawyers tried to legally bar the Ombudsman from investigating him.

When that did not work, reports began suggesting certain legislators close to his camp were involved in the impeachment complaint being circulated.

Former President Arroyo, who has cases of her own from earlier administrations and who reportedly had Ombudsman Martires installed under Duterte, now sits as a House representative.

Read that list again.

Marcoleta. Romualdez. Arroyo.

Each of them, through different channels, has pushed back against the Ombudsman since the cases started moving. The approaches vary. The interest is the same.

Senator Imee Marcos, the president's sister, was already warning in September 2025 that appointing Remulla as Ombudsman was a plot to jail the Duterte family and their allies.

She vowed to block it. She did not succeed.

Remulla was appointed in October 2025, after serving as the 59th Secretary of the Department of Justice (DOJ), and he hit the ground running.

Retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio warned from the start that Remulla must avoid selective prosecution or he would lose public trust.

So far, the evidence suggests Remulla has gone after both Duterte allies and Marcos allies.

Estrada and Revilla have old connections across political lines.

Escudero and Romualdez served under the Marcos-allied House leadership. [Note: Escudero’s loyalty is still debatable at this point.]

Marcoleta is INC-backed.

Sara Duterte's cases remain active.

The variety of targets is what has everyone rattled.

THE COST OF THIS NOISE

Every time an impeachment threat gets floated, every time a rally shuts down EDSA, every time a legal motion forces the Ombudsman to respond to accusations of bias, the actual work of building corruption cases slows down.

There are 209 flood control investigations still running.

The Sara Duterte cases are still being processed.

Romualdez's freeze orders are still working through the courts.

All of that requires the Ombudsman's office to be focused, resourced, and functioning.

Forcing it into a defensive posture does not just waste time.

It breaks momentum. It discourages witnesses from cooperating. It gives the accused more room to maneuver legally. It creates enough public confusion that ordinary Filipinos start asking whether the Ombudsman is actually impartial, or just another tool of whoever appointed him.

And that confusion, manufactured and sustained, is the entire strategy.

When the institution doing the prosecuting looks embattled, the accused look less guilty.

The question worth raising now is not whether Remulla deserves impeachment.

Based on what is publicly known, no formal complaint has even been filed yet.

The complaint is still being "circulated," which in Philippine politics means it exists as a threat more than a formal proceeding.

The more honest question is: what kind of country are we running when doing your job correctly becomes grounds for being politically targeted?

The Office of the Ombudsman was built to be independent.

It was given a fixed term, financial autonomy, and constitutional protection specifically so that it could go after powerful people without fear of political retaliation.

The moment the system allows powerful people to launch impeachment proceedings every time the Ombudsman does something they do not like, that independence collapses.

Through political harassment alone, no dramatic ruling required.

I do not like the way Boying Remulla runs his press conferences. I do not think announcing cases before they are filed is how a serious prosecutor's office should operate. I had doubts about him when he was appointed, and those doubts have not fully gone away.

But I can hold two things at once. I can think Remulla is an imperfect Ombudsman and still recognize that what is being done to him right now has nothing to do with accountability.

The people circulating that impeachment complaint are not concerned with institutional integrity.

The Ombudsman's independence is just collateral damage on the way to protecting their own.

One step forward. Two steps back. And it starts again.

And again. Until we learn to elect the right people.

Sources

INVICTUS WASN'T WRITTEN FOR A PRESS BRIEFING

Gino Borlado — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 03:04:31 GMT

I almost scrolled past it.

Sara Duterte showed up at the Senate on July 7, 2026, said one line to the media, and walked off.

"In this bloodbath and bludgeoning, I will be bloodied but unbowed."

Then she skipped her own impeachment trial.

Most people probably nodded along or ignored it entirely. The line sounds strong. It sounds literary. And if you don't know where it comes from, it works exactly the way it was designed to: as a signal of defiance, masked in borrowed dignity.

But I know where it comes from. And I think William Ernest Henley deserves better than this.

THE MAN WHO ACTUALLY EARNED THOSE WORDS

Henley was twelve years old when tuberculosis invaded his bones. Not his lungs. His bones. Tubercular arthritis is the kind of disease that eats at your skeleton from the inside. By the time he was sixteen, doctors had no choice. They amputated his left leg below the knee.

That should have been the end of it. It wasn't.

A few years later, the disease came back for his right foot. Local surgeons told him the other leg had to go. Henley refused.

He had heard about a surgeon in Edinburgh named Joseph Lister, who was pioneering a then-radical idea: that infection could be controlled through antiseptic techniques.

In 1873, Henley packed up and traveled to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, alone, to find this man and beg him to save what was left.

Lister saved the leg. But it took twenty-one months.

Henley lived in that hospital ward for nearly two years. He watched people come in and not come out. Gangrene was common. Death was the expected outcome for most amputees of the era.

He wrote an entire collection of poems from that ward, documenting the smells, the sounds, the faces of the nurses and the other patients, the dread of every morning. One of those poems was Invictus.

He wrote it in 1875, at twenty-six years old, with one leg already gone and the other still uncertain. He never published it immediately. It sat for over a decade before appearing in his first volume, Book of Verses, in 1888.

He was not writing it for anyone. He was writing it to hold himself together.

One more detail worth knowing: Henley became close friends with Robert Louis Stevenson during his hospital stay. Stevenson later modeled the character of Long John Silver on him. A one-legged man who refused to be diminished, and who carried himself with a kind of reckless, full-bodied defiance. That was Henley. In real life.

Here's the actual line from the poem: "My head is bloody, but unbowed."

Sara said bloodied. The poem says bloody. Small difference on the surface.

THE POEM AND WHAT IT ACTUALLY SAYS

Invictus is Latin for "unconquered."

The whole poem is about one thing: enduring suffering without drama. Henley wasn't performing for anyone. He was in a hospital bed, in real physical pain, writing something private and defiant just to stay sane.

The poem opens with Henley in darkness, thanking "whatever gods may be" for his "unconquerable soul."

Second stanza: he has not winced, has not cried aloud, even under the "bludgeonings of chance."

Third stanza: death looms, and he is still unafraid. The last lines are the ones everyone quotes: "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul."

That closing is not a rallying cry. It is a statement of accountability. It says: whatever happens, I own it. No excuses. No blame. No one else to point to.

WHAT SARA'S VERSION ACTUALLY REVEALS

Henley's defiance was quiet and inward. He wrote from a hospital bed, not from a Senate hallway with cameras rolling. The poem does not ask for witnesses. The whole point is that you face your situation alone, without needing an audience to validate your endurance.

Sara's version was a performance. She walked in, said the line, and walked out without attending the proceedings.

She called the impeachment trial a "bloodbath," the same word she has used repeatedly in recent weeks.

She borrowed the poem's imagery of being battered, but left out the part where Henley accepts accountability and faces what is in front of him.

The line she left out, "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul," is the poem's whole point. You are responsible. You own the outcome. You do not deflect.

Invoking Invictus while framing your legal proceedings as something being done to you is a contradiction. The poem does not allow for victims. That is the whole design of it.

THE DUTERTE FAMILY AND THIS POEM

This is not the first time Invictus has appeared in Duterte family politics.

After the International Criminal Court (ICC) upheld its jurisdiction over Rodrigo Duterte's crimes against humanity case in April 2026, his daughter Kitty Duterte quoted the same poem outside the ICC detention facility.

She relayed that her father's message to supporters was simply: "Invictus." He emphasized "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul," and described his head as "bloodied but unbowed."

The poem has become a Duterte family symbol of political defiance. The question is whether the usage holds up to the poem's actual standards.

Henley wrote about accepting suffering without complaint, without performance, without pointing fingers at who caused the bludgeoning.

Rodrigo Duterte is at the ICC facing crimes against humanity charges. Sara Duterte is at an impeachment trial.

Both have described their situations as persecution. Both reached for a poem that, at its core, tells you to stop making excuses and own your fate.

Private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan, after Sara's Senate appearance, described the statement as inappropriate given the context.

WHAT IS ACCURATE AND WHAT IS NOT

The paraphrase is close but not exact. The original says "bloody." Sara said "bloodied." One is an adjective describing a state of being. The other implies something was done to you. One word. That's where the whole thing falls apart.

Henley chose bloody because it was descriptive. He was describing his own condition, not assigning blame for it.

"Bloodied" subtly shifts responsibility outward. Someone bloodied you. Something was done to you. The poem does not work that way.

The entire poem is built on the opposite premise: you are not a victim. You are the author of your own endurance. Stripping that out and replacing it with grievance politics is not just a misquote. It's a rewrite of what the poem stands for.

The Malaya Business Insight editorial wrote: "Quoting poetry does not make one profound. Memorizing a famous line does not make one resilient. And invoking Invictus without grasping its core does not make one unbowed."

William Ernest Henley spent twenty-one months in a hospital ward earning the right to write those lines. He had already lost one leg. He was staring at the possible loss of the other. He wrote without an audience, without cameras, without a press briefing.

The least anyone can do is get the words right.

Sources

THE LAWYER MOVE THAT LOOKED LIKE SOMETHING TO HIDE

Gino Borlado — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:00:57 GMT

In November 2024, Harry Roque livestreamed a press conference on his Facebook page.

Buried inside that recording is a moment that changed everything Sara Duterte thought she could control about her public image. Vice President Sara Duterte, during that virtual press briefing, said:

"Huwag kang mag-alala sa security ko kasi may kinausap na ako na tao. Sabi ko sa kanya, kapag pinatay ako, patayin mo si BBM, si Liza Araneta, at si Martin Romualdez. No joke. No joke. Nagbilin na ako, Ma'am. 'Pag mamatay ako, sabi ko, huwag ka tumigil ha, hanggang hindi mo mapatay sila. And then he said yes."

That video is not a secret. That video is the internet.

And yet, during Day 2 of the impeachment trial on July 7, Sara Duterte's defense team, led by Atty. Sheila Sison, a partner at Fortun Narvasa & Salazar (FNS) law firm, threw objection after objection at the prosecution just for trying to play a two-minute, 18-second clip of it.

From the outside, watching the proceedings on live TV or social media, it looked like the defense was trying to stop everyone from watching something they had already watched a hundred times.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN THAT COURTROOM

The prosecution's first witness was National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Senior Agent John Mark Calilung.

He was there to authenticate the video, specifically the portion uploaded through Harry Roque's Facebook page, and to confirm that Meta had been asked to preserve the recording.

Atty. Carlo Narvasa, one of Sara's defense lawyers, objected almost every step of the way.

He questioned Calilung's qualifications to testify on Meta's evidence preservation process.

He questioned the certification documents and affidavits.

He questioned the flash drive.

And then, when the prosecution asked to play a two-minute, 18-second clip from the full recording, Narvasa insisted the entire video had to be shown, citing Rule 132.

His argument was legal. Under Rule 132, when a part of a record is given as evidence, the remainder is also admissible. He said the defense wanted the full video played for "full context."

Presiding officer and Senator-Judge Francis "Chiz" Escudero denied the motion. He ruled it was entirely up to the prosecution to decide what part of the evidence to present, and that the defense could play the whole video when it was their turn.

The impeachment court denied several other defense motions that day too. House prosecution trial spokesperson Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong called it a Day 2 victory for their side.

WHY THE DEFENSE SAYS IT WAS FINE

After the proceedings, defense spokesperson Atty. Michael Poa explained that the objections were "natural" in any trial, especially during witness examination.

He said the defense did not care if the objections were overruled, as long as they were on record.

He framed the day as neither a win nor a loss for either side, saying it was too early to keep score.

Legally, that reasoning holds. Placing objections on record is standard procedure.

It protects the right to appeal.

It forces the court to rule on contested issues.

And there is something else worth noting: the defense filed a formal written answer before the trial even began, arguing that the charges are built on "statements taken out of context" and "interpretations unsupported by competent and admissible evidence."

Sison herself said impeachment is not just political theater but a legal, political, and constitutional mechanism.

That is exactly why the communication side of this matters. On law and procedure, the defense is fighting hard. On public communication, they are leaving Sara exposed.

So the context argument exists. They made it in writing. The question is why that argument never showed up in the room when it would have actually done some public good.

But here is where the courtroom logic and the kitchen table logic split completely.

THE PROBLEM WITH OBJECTING TO WHAT EVERYONE HAS ALREADY SEEN

Ordinary Filipinos watching the trial on television or on their phones do not think in terms of Rule 132. They think in terms of: if you have nothing to hide, why are you fighting this hard to stop the video from playing?

Public interest lawyer and good governance advocate Dino de Leon said it outright after the session: the defense team's repeated objections to the video could create a negative public impression, the kind of optics that suggests "parang may tinatago" (like something is being hidden).

That phrase, "parang may tinatago," is almost universally understood by Filipino voters. It does not require a law degree. It does not need a three-paragraph explanation.

You feel it in your gut when you see a politician's lawyers fighting to delay what everyone knows is already out there.

The video was originally broadcast on a public Facebook live stream. It was watched, shared, screenshot, clipped, and posted across every social media platform.

During Day 2, the defense raised no formal objection to the authenticity of the video itself. What they objected to was the way the prosecution was presenting it: the length of the clip, the qualifications of the witness, the format of the documents.

Legally, those objections may have had some basis. Publicly, they looked like stalling. Legal analysts watching the proceedings were already saying before the trial started that the defense appeared to be leaning heavily on technicalities to slow the process down.

THE OPTICS PROBLEM IS DEEPER THAN ONE OBJECTION

The optics issue did not start on Day 2. It started on Day 1.

Lead counsel Sheila Sison was called out twice by Presiding Officer Escudero for rule violations on the first day of the trial.

She was reprimanded for propounding questions at the prosecution instead of addressing the presiding officer.

Prosecutor Chel Diokno noted it was already the second time she had done that.

Then came the walkout incident.

During the session, private prosecutors said Sison "gave a statement addressed to this representation and she walked out."

Sison's team later insisted she had only left for a bathroom break.

Whether it was a walkout or a comfort room (CR) break depends on who you believe.

But that is exactly the problem.

The defense has now created a situation where even bathroom trips are being reported as dramatic exits. Every small thing is being read through the lens of a team that looks like it is scrambling.

THE QUESTION THE DEFENSE SHOULD HAVE ANSWERED IN THAT ROOM

Senator-Judge Risa Hontiveros stopped the proceedings to ask the prosecution directly: "Why are these acts impeachable?" She was pointing at something the defense itself had argued in writing: that the video shows statements, not proof of an actual assassination contract, and that making a statement, however alarming, is not automatically an impeachable offense.

Then Senator-Judge Pia Cayetano moved to have the prosecution's response to that question expunged from the record.

If you're being generous, it looked like a reflex. If you're not being generous, it looked like she was more interested in countering Hontiveros than in reading what

Hontiveros was actually asking.

Because what Hontiveros was asking was not a favor to the prosecution.

She later clarified she was interrogating the prosecution's framing, not signaling sympathy for the Vice President.

She subsequently said she would block any premature move to dismiss the trial outright.

But the question itself sat in the air for a moment. And the defense said nothing useful with it. Sayang.

Why?

The defense has been running a procedural strategy from day one.

They filed motions to junk the case before the trial started.

Their written answer was a technical assault on admissibility and process.

The objections on Day 2 were consistent with that same posture.

There is a logic to it: if you can keep the evidence out, you never have to explain it.

The problem is that logic only works if your audience is the court. In an impeachment trial, it is not.

The senator-judges deciding Sara's fate are elected officials. They read the front pages. They watch the same clips on social media that everyone else watches.

A defense that looks like it is hiding something makes it harder for even sympathetic senators to justify a not-guilty vote publicly.

You cannot ask a senator to stake their political reputation on a defendant whose lawyers spent an entire day fighting to keep a video that everyone has already seen from being played in court.

The deeper issue is this: the moment you start publicly arguing "those words don't mean what they sound like," you've made the quote the center of the conversation again.

The defense may have calculated it was safer to fight procedure than to fight meaning. But fighting procedure in a room full of cameras, with the public watching every overruled objection, made the quote the center of the conversation anyway.

They just lost control of how it was being read.

Hontiveros asked the right question.

The defense had the answer on paper. They chose not to use it.

The objections kept coming. House prosecutor Terry Ridon called them "repetitive."

And the public watching at home kept getting the same signal: the defense does not want you to see this.

THE ACKNOWLEDGMENT THAT NEVER CAME

The defense had a written position that the video's words were taken out of context. They said so clearly in their formal answer. They chose not to say it out loud in court on Day 2, at least not in a way the public could hold onto.

That choice has a cost. The senators are not just judges. They face voters. The 32 million people Sison invoked in her opening statement, the same voters she said "never forget," were watching.

Fighting the clip's length told them nothing about why they should read Sara's words differently. Saying "the full video shows the full context" and then having your motion denied means the public goes home with the two-minute version anyway.

The defense lost the room, the ruling, and the narrative in one afternoon.

Communication-wise, that is where the damage to Sara becomes hardest to ignore.

The better play, from where most people sit, would have been to stop fighting the video and start fighting what the video means.

That argument is still available.

The trial has barely started. But the defense is going to have to work harder to recover the ground it lost when it spent an entire day objecting to something that lives permanently on the internet.

WHY LAWYERS KEEP SAYING "OBJECTION"

Gino Borlado — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 22:45:58 GMT

I was watching the Sara Duterte impeachment trial yesterday, Day 2, when the defense lawyer kept standing up and saying "Objection" during the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) agent's testimony. Over and over.

The comments section exploded. "Harang lang yan." "Ayaw nilang lumabas ang katotohanan." Some people started counting how many times it happened.

I get it. When you're not a lawyer, an objection looks like delay. Like someone trying to stop the truth from coming out.

I'm not a lawyer either. But I got curious enough to look it up. And what I found is that most of what happens in a courtroom actually follows a logic that, once you see it, makes a lot of sense.

So here's me trying to understand it, in plain language, for anyone else who was also watching and wondering.

SO WHAT EXACTLY IS AN OBJECTION?

An objection is a formal request from a lawyer asking the judge to stop something from happening. The lawyer stands up, says "Objection," and the judge either agrees ("Sustained") or disagrees ("Overruled").

When sustained, the evidence gets thrown out or the question gets rephrased. When overruled, the trial continues as if nothing happened.

There are two kinds: objections to questions being asked, and objections to evidence being presented.

Both have specific legal reasons behind them.

A lawyer can't just stand up and say "objection" because they don't like what's being said.

There has to be a ground, a specific rule being broken.

THE MOST COMMON REASONS LAWYERS OBJECT

Hearsay is the big one. "Objection, hearsay, your Honor." You hear this a lot.

Hearsay means the witness is repeating what someone else told them, not what they personally saw or heard.

So if a witness says, "My friend told me he saw the accused at the crime scene," that's hearsay.

The friend isn't in court. Nobody can cross-examine the friend. So the statement doesn't count.

Leading questions come next. When a lawyer asks a question that already has the answer baked in, like "You saw him leave at midnight, didn't you?", that's leading.

The lawyer is basically feeding the answer to the witness.

Courts don't allow this during direct examination (the part where your own lawyer questions you) because the witness should be the one telling the story, not the lawyer.

Relevance is another one. If a prosecutor in a theft case suddenly starts asking about the accused's old traffic violations from 2015, the defense can object.

The question has nothing to do with the current case. Judges can be distracted or biased by information that has no bearing on the actual charge.

Speculation is when the witness is asked to guess. "What do you think the accused was feeling when he left?"

A witness can only testify about facts they personally observed, not about what someone else was thinking or feeling.

If the question can only be answered through guessing, it gets objected to.

Compound questions happen when two separate questions are crammed into one. "Did you see him there, and were you afraid?" That's two questions.

The witness might answer one and not the other. The record becomes confusing. So lawyers object.

Asked and answered is when the opposing lawyer keeps asking the same question, maybe with slightly different words, hoping to get a different answer.

Courts allow one go at a question. After it's been answered, you move on.

Non-responsive is when the witness goes off on a tangent. The lawyer asked a yes-or-no question, but the witness delivers a speech.

The objecting lawyer can ask the judge to strike the extra parts from the record.

WHAT ABOUT THE RIGHTS ANGLE?

There's also privilege. Some information is legally protected and cannot be forced into court.

A conversation between a lawyer and their client stays private. What you told your doctor stays private. What you confessed to your priest stays private.

These are called privileges, and they exist for a reason: people would stop talking honestly to their doctors, lawyers, and priests if they knew everything could end up in court.

When a lawyer objects on the basis of privilege, they're not hiding something dirty. They're protecting a legal right that exists in the system.

DOES OBJECTING MEAN SOMEONE IS LYING?

No. That's the part that surprised me most when I looked this up.

An objection doesn't mean the truth is being hidden. It means a rule is being violated.

Courts follow rules of evidence not to protect the guilty, but to protect the process.

Unreliable testimony, second-hand stories, and guesswork can mislead a judge. The objection system is there to filter those out.

Think of it this way: if someone accuses you in your barangay (village) and the barangay captain just accepts everything the accuser says without letting you question anything, you’d call that unfair.

The courtroom works on the same idea. Both sides have to follow the same rules. An objection is just one side saying, “Wait, that’s not how this is supposed to work.”

Now, yes, some lawyers do abuse objections.

Some use them to break the rhythm of a damaging testimony, to give their witness time to collect themselves, or just to frustrate the other side. That's a real thing.

Experienced trial lawyers know how to use objections strategically, not just technically.

But the existence of abuse doesn't mean the system itself is wrong.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER AN OBJECTION?

The judge rules. Two words: Sustained or Overruled.

Sustained means the objection is valid. The question gets thrown out, or the evidence is excluded. The witness doesn't answer.

Overruled means the judge disagrees with the objection. The trial continues. The witness answers.

And here's something I didn't know before I looked this up: objections also serve a future purpose.

If a lawyer fails to object during trial, they generally lose the right to raise the same issue on appeal.

So even when an objection seems futile in the moment, the lawyer might be doing it just to preserve the record, to keep the option open if the case eventually goes to a higher court.

WHAT SHOULD YOU ACTUALLY WATCH FOR

If you're watching the impeachment trial, pay attention to what kind of objection is being raised.

Hearsay and leading questions are almost always about procedure.

Relevance objections are about what the case is actually supposed to be about.

Privilege objections are about protected relationships.

When a lawyer objects a lot, it usually means the opposing counsel is pushing the boundaries of what's allowed. It can also mean the case is tight and every question is heavy.

The courtroom is not a talk show. The rules exist because bad evidence leads to bad verdicts. And bad verdicts, as we've seen too many times in this country, can put innocent people away while guilty ones walk free.

I'm still not a lawyer. But at least now I know why they keep standing up.

A note before you go: I deliberately left out the discussion on pre-trial proceedings, specifically how a properly conducted pre-trial can narrow down the issues, mark evidence in advance, and significantly reduce the number of objections during actual trial. That deserves its own piece. This one was only ever meant to answer the basic question: what does “objection” mean in the first place.

Sources

SARA DUTERTE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL: DAY 2 HIGHLIGHTS

Gino Borlado — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 21:17:01 GMT

[An MCT Tracker]

[These are only the highlights of Day 2. Many exchanges, motions, and details from the session are not included here. For the complete record, refer to the Senate’s official journal and the live coverage of the trial.]

The impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte resumed on Tuesday, July 7, 2026 at 2:00 PM. The prosecution opened its case on Article IV, the alleged grave threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

Vice President Duterte visited the Senate at noon but did not attend the proceedings.

Here is what happened on Day 2.

THE VICE PRESIDENT ARRIVED. THEN LEFT

Vice President Duterte arrived at the Senate shortly after noon, wearing a green polo shirt, a color closely associated with her political brand.

She met with her defense team, spoke briefly to reporters, and did not attend the trial proper.

She told reporters: “In this bloodbath and bludgeoning, I will be bloodied but unbowed.” The line is drawn from the 1875 poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley.

Presiding officer Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero reiterated that Duterte cannot be compelled to appear.

DEFENSOR OPENED FOR THE PROSECUTION

Rep. Lorenz Defensor delivered the House prosecution’s opening statement for Article IV.

He argued that Duterte’s alleged threats to have President Marcos, the First Lady, and former Speaker Romualdez killed “went beyond ordinary criminal conduct and amounted to a violation of the Constitution.”

The prosecution asserted that Duterte’s remarks were not isolated statements but part of a “series of statements” indicating a genuine intent to have the three killed.

KAPUNAN RESERVED THE RIGHT TO CALL DUTERTE AS A HOSTILE WITNESS

Private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan filed a manifestation reserving the prosecution’s right to call Vice President Duterte herself as a hostile witness.

“On the first article that we will be presenting, which is grave threats and acts of sedition, one of the key witnesses, albeit hostile, would be the vice president,” Kapunan told the court.

Escudero did not act on the motion, saying the court will act “once it is made or filed.”

Kapunan replied: “We will reserve the right — we are not waiving the right — to do call her at the appropriate time and to do file the appropriate request for a subpoena duces tecum and subpoena testificandum.”

CALILUNG TOOK THE STAND. THE FLASH DRIVE WAS UNSEALED

NBI Senior Agent John Mark Calilung, of the NBI Cyber Investigation and Assessment Center, took the witness stand as the first witness in the substantive phase of the trial.

He was presented by private prosecutor Atty. Amando Virgil Ligutan.

Calilung unsealed the flash drive containing the video evidence related to Article IV.

He testified that the NBI Cybercrime Division team investigated Duterte’s statements made during an online media briefing on November 23, 2024.

Calilung testified about the chain of custody: the NBI requested Meta Platforms to preserve the recording, made screen recordings of the livestream, and computed hash values to detect any modifications.

He described the hash value as a “digital fingerprint” that would change if the video were altered. He also testified that the NBI subpoenaed journalists who participated in Duterte’s late-night Zoom press conference on November 23, 2024, including Inquirer reporter Dempsey Reyes and former Rappler journalist Bonz Magsambol.

Both provided sworn affidavits affirming they heard Duterte’s remarks.

THE VIDEO PLAYED IN COURT

The impeachment court viewed the November 23, 2024 clip. In it, Duterte said in Filipino:

“Huwag kang mag-alala ma’am sa security ko kasi may kinausap na ako na tao. Sinabi ko sa kanya, kapag pinatay ako, patayin mo si BBM, si Liza Araneta at si Martin Romualdez. No joke, no joke. Nagbilin na ako ma’am. ’Pag namatay ako, sabi ko, huwag ka tumigil hanggang hindi mo mapatay sila. And then he said yes.”

Translated: “Don’t worry, ma’am, about my security because I already talked to someone. I told that person that if I am killed, kill BBM, Liza Araneta, and Martin Romualdez. No joke, no joke. I already gave instructions, ma’am. If I die, I said, don’t stop until you kill them. And then he said yes.”

The court also viewed an October 18, 2024 clip in which Duterte said she had imagined cutting off Marcos’s head.

A third video, from the Presidential Communications Office, showed the President responding to those statements.

NARVASA OBJECTED. REPEATEDLY. ESCUDERO OVERRULED. REPEATEDLY

Defense counsel Atty. Carlo Joaquin Narvasa raised objections through most of the questioning. Escudero overruled nearly all of them but refrained from declaring the defense out of order.

At least eleven distinct defense objections and motions are documented in the record on Day 2.

They are listed here with the ground raised, what triggered each, and how the presiding officer ruled.

1. “Your honor, I object. Is this a speech or an offer?” Ligutan was enumerating details on Duterte’s alleged threats. Overruled. Ligutan was allowed to proceed.

2. Continuing objection registered by Narvasa on the record. No specific ground stated beyond preservation. Escudero did not rule; the objection stood as noted.

3. Motion to exclude Calilung as a witness. Ground: Calilung was not named in the Saballa and Cabrera complaints that formed the basis of the articles of impeachment. Ligutan argued the Saballa complaint had “lived its natural life” once the articles were transmitted. Denied, citing Enrile v. Sandiganbayan: prosecutors may add or rely on evidence during pre-trial even if the evidence is not stated in the complaint or articles, because only a summary is required.

4. Leading or vague question. Triggered by Ligutan asking Calilung: “In what particular portion of the subject video did the respondent utter that she already contracted a person to kill the president, the first lady and the former speaker of the House?” Overruled. Escudero told the defense to let the prosecution finish: “Counsel for the respondent, patience. Let the counsel finish.”

5. “The question is misleading. There is no mention anywhere before that, that the video mentioned the killing.” Same prosecution question to Calilung. Overruled.

6. Challenge to Calilung’s qualifications to testify regarding Meta’s evidence preservation process. Overruled.

7. Challenge to the certification documents and affidavits tied to the video’s preservation and authentication. Overruled.

8. Challenge to the authenticity of the flash drive containing the video. Overruled.

9. Challenge to the duration of the clip presented, a two-minute excerpt from a roughly two-hour press conference recording. Overruled.

10. Motion that the entire recording be shown for full context, citing the Rules of Court. Denied. Escudero ruled that both sides had the discretion to determine how to present their evidence, and that showing shorter clips was not inappropriate.

11. Narvasa seconded Senator-judge Pia Cayetano’s motion to strike Ligutan’s answer to Senator-judge Risa Hontiveros off the record. Cayetano argued Ligutan’s response — that Duterte’s statements showed “specific intent, knowledge, identity, plan, system and the like” — was “like a closing statement” and a “shortcut in the process.” Deferred. Escudero: “No need, counsel. Most of them will be taken up at the proper time by this court.”

Of the eleven items, seven were overruled outright, two motions were denied, one motion to strike was deferred, and one continuing objection was noted for the record without ruling.

This is a floor, not a ceiling. Several individual leading-question objections during Calilung’s testimony ran back-to-back and are captured here in aggregate rather than one by one.

Senator-judge Alan Peter Cayetano expressed a personal preference to view the full video. Senator-judge Risa Hontiveros asked whether Duterte’s remarks alone constituted an impeachable offense.

Ligutan answered that they did, arguing the videos illustrated that Duterte’s statements were part of a genuine intent to have Marcos killed.

TONGOL EXPLAINED WHY THE DAY RAN LONG

Impeachment court spokesperson Atty. Reginald Tongol addressed the length of the proceedings: “Today it was long because of the technicality of the law.”

He added, in Filipino: “Sana maintindihan natin na kasama po ang mga ganoong procedure at formalities, pag-iidentify ng ebidensya, mga technicalities to establish the chain of custody at pag-iidentify at authenticate ng ebidensya.”

He said the process is part of what lawyers do in every court, and both sides have the right to raise objections and to seek rulings on them.

NEW SUBPOENAS REQUESTED

The House prosecution asked the impeachment court to issue subpoenas ad testificandum for OVP Chief of Staff Zuleika Lopez and NBI Director Melvin Matibag. Both are directed to appear and testify before the impeachment court on July 13 to 15, 2026 at 2:00 PM.

The prosecution said the testimonies of Lopez and Matibag are material, relevant, and necessary to establish the allegations under Article IV.

Separately, the impeachment court disclosed that the prosecution’s renewed subpoena request for Duterte’s bank records, addressed to AMLC Chairman Eli Remolona Jr., was received on July 6 at 3:35 PM.

A separate request for tax documents covering Duterte, her husband Manases Carpio, and 22 businesses in which Duterte allegedly has an interest was received at the same time.

Both requests were forwarded to the defense, which has five days to file a comment or opposition.

THE SUPREME COURT PETITION IS STILL PENDING

A group of lawyers led by Atty. Israelito Torreon filed a 16-page very urgent manifestation with motion before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, reiterating their plea for a temporary restraining order against the impeachment trial.

The manifestation cited supervening events during the trial, including the election of Escudero as presiding officer, as reasons for the High Court to act.

The petition argues that Escudero lacks constitutional authority to preside because the June 3, 2026 Senate rule amendment allowing a senator other than the Senate President to preside was itself procedurally defective.

As of Tuesday evening, the Supreme Court had not publicly ruled on the petition.

Impeachment court spokesperson Tongol said the trial will proceed regardless. If the Supreme Court issues a TRO, he said the impeachment court will vote on it.

WHAT DAY 2 SIGNALED

The prosecution moved from procedural setup to substantive evidence. It presented its first video exhibits, its first witness, and reserved the right to call the respondent herself.

The defense contested nearly every move.

The presiding officer overruled nearly every contest but never silenced the defense.

The trial ran long.

Cross-examination of Calilung by the defense is scheduled for Wednesday, July 8, at 2:00 PM.

THE ILLOGICAL OPENING STATEMENT OF THE SARA DUTERTE DEFENSE

Gino Borlado — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 05:42:15 GMT

[An MCT Commentary]

I watched people online praising Sheila Sison's opening statement like she had just argued the greatest legal defense in Philippine history.

Natawa ako.

Because when she was done, the best I could muster was: what the fuck was that?

That is the opening for the most consequential impeachment trial the Philippines has seen? That is what 16 lawyers, months of preparation, and the full weight of a Fortun Narvasa law firm produced for Day 1?

Let me tell you what I mean.

THE 32 MILLION VOTES ARGUMENT

Sison opened with this: Sara Duterte was elected by more than 32 million Filipinos. More than the votes of the sitting president. More than any single House member who is now prosecuting her.

I understand the rhetorical weight of that number. Thirty-two million is supposed to make you feel like the impeachment is an attack on the people who voted for her.

But Article XI, Section 2 of the 1987 Constitution is clear. The Vice President may be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust.

No exception for officials who win by large margins. None.

Joseph Estrada won the presidency in 1998, but he still got convicted in the Sandiganbayan (the anti-corruption court that handles cases against public officials). Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo won elections and still faced plunder charges. Popularity has never been a legal shield in this country, and the Constitution was never written to make it one.

What Sison essentially argued is that removing Sara Duterte would undo the will of 32 million voters. But the Constitution specifically created impeachment for exactly this situation: when an elected official commits impeachable offenses. The provision exists because the framers knew that winning an election does not place a person above accountability. If vote count were a defense, the Constitution would say so.

It does not.

TURNING THE TABLES ON THE HOUSE

Sison's second major point was about the House Committee on Justice's conduct. She called it a "mini-trial," a "vast fishing expedition," and accused the committee of curating evidence to construct a case against the Vice President even before the case reached the Senate.

(I will be honest. When I heard the prosecution use that "mini-trial" framing during one of their press conferences weeks before July 6, I cringed. I knew someone on the other side was writing it down. And sure enough, there it was on Day 1, turned into a weapon and aimed right back at them.)

The Supreme Court (SC) did, in fact, rule in July 2025 that the first set of impeachment articles was unconstitutional, specifically for violating the one-year bar rule. The SC voided those articles. That is on record. The defense cited this ruling repeatedly as proof that the House had a pattern of acting improperly.

The SC's ruling voided the first impeachment on a procedural issue: the one-year bar. The Court explicitly stated it was not absolving Vice President Duterte from any of the charges against her. The ruling did not say she was innocent. It said the process that produced that particular set of articles was flawed. Those are two very different things.

The impeachment trial that opened on July 6, 2026 is based on articles filed through a separate, new process that began in February 2026, after the SC's ruling lifted the one-year bar. The charges themselves, the confidential funds, the unexplained wealth, the threats, largely mirror what was in the first impeachment. The SC did not void those allegations. It voided the procedural path that brought them to the Senate the first time. Using that ruling to discredit the substance of what is now on trial is a different argument entirely, and the defense knows it.

The defense is asking the Senate to focus on how the House gathered evidence rather than on what the evidence actually shows. "The process was messy" does not automatically mean "the facts are wrong."

ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THEE, NOT FOR ME

Sison told the court that public office is a public trust, and that this obligation applies not just to the Vice President but also to the prosecutors.

She is right. In principle.

But there is something odd about spending your opening statement reminding the court that the other side also has constitutional responsibilities. The four articles of impeachment are about Sara Duterte. Not about the House prosecutors. Not about Gerville Luistro or any of the 11 lawmakers sitting at the prosecution table.

The defense tried to turn a trial about one person's conduct into a referendum on everyone's conduct. When you cannot easily answer the charges, you question the motives and character of the people bringing the charges. Classic.

What stood out to me is that the opening spent more time on what the prosecution allegedly did wrong than on what Sara Duterte allegedly did right. When your client faces allegations of P612.5 million in questionable confidential fund disbursements, fabricated receipts, non-existent payees, and a Commission on Audit (COA) disallowance, your opening statement is the best time to start building a counter-story.

The defense did not do that.

THE COA ANGLE

Sison acknowledged the COA's findings but argued that the notice of disallowance is "not final" because there is a pending motion for reconsideration.

Technically accurate as a legal point. COA decisions go through a process, and a notice of disallowance can be appealed.

But the COA issued a notice of disallowance covering P73,287,000 of OVP (Office of the Vice President) confidential funds in 2024. The OVP appealed. The COA denied the appeal in April 2026, affirming that the funds were spent on activities unrelated to their intended purpose. Intelligence-gathering and surveillance funds were spent on furniture, tables, chairs, and computers. And P69.78 million was listed as "rewards" for informants, with no documentation proving the success of any intelligence activity.

The commission has already denied the appeal once. Framing the findings as though they are in genuine doubt stretches the argument thin.

THE MARCOS APPROVED IT ARGUMENT

Sison raised one more point on the confidential funds that got less attention than it deserved.

She told the court that it was then-Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Amenah Pangandaman who issued a memorandum recommending the approval of the OVP's request for confidential funds. That former Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin signed the approval on November 28, 2022, by order of the president. That the DBM issued a Special Allotment Release Order on December 13, 2022. And that the funds were released to the OVP on December 20, 2022.

Her point: President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. approved this. The DBM approved this. The money was released through a documented process with signatures from people appointed by and answerable to the President.

So how can it be a crime?

On the surface, that sounds like a reasonable argument. If the President approved the release, if the DBM signed off, if everything followed the proper channel, then the Vice President was just receiving funds she was authorized to receive.

The release was not the crime. And to be fair, whether the OVP should have been entitled to confidential funds in the first place is a separate conversation worth having on another day, because that question alone has enough material for its own piece.

What the COA flagged was not the approval. It flagged the spending. The disallowance is not about whether Sara Duterte had the right to receive confidential funds. It is about what she did with them after they landed in the OVP account. Intelligence and surveillance funds spent on furniture and computers. P69.78 million in informant rewards with no documentation of any intelligence activity. Receipts signed by people the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) says do not exist.

Getting approval to receive money and spending that money properly are two different things. Sison conflated the two, and she did it in a part of the speech most people were not paying close attention to.

Marcos approved the release. Marcos did not approve spending surveillance funds on office chairs.

That distinction the defense glossed over. And the prosecution will spend 31 trial days making sure the senator-judges do not miss it.

THE EMPTY CHAIR

Sara Duterte did not attend her own impeachment trial on July 6. Her camp confirmed this beforehand. The defense's position was that the Vice President has a right to appear through counsel, and that choosing not to personally appear does not imply a lack of transparency.

True as a matter of law. Defendants can appear through counsel.

But Sison's opening spent considerable time on accountability, fairness, and the rule of law. It quoted the Supreme Court on justice. It invoked the Constitution. It talked about public trust.

The person at the center of all of it was not in the room.

THE DAMAGE THEY DID TO THEMSELVES

Step back from the legal arguments for a second and look at what the public actually saw on July 6.

They saw a lead counsel spend the better part of an opening statement talking about process violations, prosecutorial abuse, and the sanctity of 32 million votes. They saw a defense team that came prepared with grievances but not with answers. And they saw an empty chair where the Vice President was supposed to be.

For someone who still has political ambitions, and the 2028 presidential race is not a secret whisper anymore, that is a terrible picture to put in front of the Filipino public on the first day of the most watched trial in recent memory.

Sara Duterte's greatest political asset has always been her image as someone who does not flinch. Her father built a career on showing up, on being present, on projecting toughness even when things were ugly. She inherited that brand. It is why 32 million people voted for her in 2022. They believed she would not run from a fight.

She did not show up to her own fight.

And the opening statement her lawyers delivered did not help. A weak opening in a high-stakes trial does not just hurt the legal case. It plants a question in the mind of every voter watching: if she is innocent, why does her defense sound like it is buying time? If she has nothing to hide, why is her team redirecting to the House instead of redirecting to the facts?

Perceptions calcify fast in Philippine politics. The Marcoses know this. The Estradas know this. Once the public starts reading a politician as someone on the run, that reading sticks.

Day 1 gave the public a reason to start reading Sara Duterte that way. Her lawyers gave it to them. And she was not even there to push back.

I UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY ARE DOING. THAT IS THE PROBLEM.

Some people will read this and say: you do not understand the strategy.

I do.

Atty. Michael Poa, the defense team's spokesperson, told reporters before the trial even started that public opinion could play a significant role in the proceedings, that senator-judges can be swayed by public perception, and that the defense was "very conscious" of embedding public opinion awareness into their legal strategy.

The opening statement was not designed for the Senate. It was designed for the comment section.

The 32 million votes line was not a legal argument. It was a talking point for supporters to repeat online. The "mini-trial" and "fishing expedition" language was not for the senator-judges. It was for the Facebook posts and YouTube comment threads that would run all week. The goal was to give Sara Duterte's base something to rally around: the House is corrupt, the process was rigged, and the votes of 32 million people are under attack.

A real strategy. One that has worked before in this country. You do not always win in the courtroom. Sometimes you win in the court of public opinion, and that pressure eventually finds its way back into the proceedings, because the senator-judges are also politicians watching their own numbers.

I understand that. And that is exactly why it needs to be called out.

If the defense wins this case by drowning the substance in procedural noise and social media momentum, then what we just watched was not a legal defense. It was a performance designed to exhaust the public's attention before the actual evidence gets a chance to speak.

Thirty trial days. The prosecution has 62.

The evidence has not been presented yet. The witnesses have not taken the stand. The documents have not been authenticated and cross-examined.

If Day 1 is any indication, the defense's plan is to make sure you are already tired and confused long before any of that happens.

And if this is the kind of argument this defense team plans to continue with for the next 30 trial days, then Sara Duterte deserves a refund.

Sources

MCT IMPEACHMENT CASE TRACKER, DAY 1: THE TRIAL OPENS

Gino Borlado — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 02:07:19 GMT

[An MCT Commentary|Tracker]

The impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte opened at the Senate of the Philippines on Monday, July 6, 2026. Twenty-one senator-judges were present. Three were absent. The trial ran past 2:00 PM. Vice President Duterte did not attend. Her lawyers appeared in her place.

Here is what happened on the first day.

[Note: These are only the highlights of Day 1. Many exchanges, motions, and details from the session are not included here. For the complete record, refer to the Senate's official journal and the live coverage of the trial.]

THE COURT SAT WITH 21 OF 24 SENATORS

Three senator-judges were unable to participate. Senator Jinggoy Estrada was in the custody of the Sandiganbayan on a separate plunder charge.

Senator Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa remained out of public view following the confirmed International Criminal Court arrest warrant against him. Senator Rodante Marcoleta was arrested at approximately mid-morning on Monday, hours before the trial opened.

Marcoleta had gone to the Sandiganbayan Third Division that morning to file a motion to quash. The court, composed of Associate Justices Karl Miranda, Ronald Moreno, and Fritz Brian Anthony Delos Santos, denied his motion and issued the warrant in his presence.

Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla and Criminal Investigation and Detection Group personnel executed the arrest at the Sandiganbayan. He was transferred to Camp Crame for booking procedures, arriving at 11:25 AM, and was later brought to the PNP General Hospital after reporting chest discomfort.

He is to be detained at the New Quezon City Jail in Payatas. The plunder charge stems from an alleged P75 million in undeclared campaign donations received during his 2025 Senate run. Twenty-one senator-judges sat in the session hall in Oxford crimson robes.

GATCHALIAN OPENED THE COURT. ESCUDERO WAS ELECTED PRESIDING OFFICER

Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian opened the court and presided over the first hour and a half of the proceedings. Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson nominated Senator Francis "Chiz" Escudero as the impeachment court's presiding officer. Senator Alan Peter Cayetano and members of the minority bloc objected, arguing that the Senate President should preside.

The impeachment court voted 12 in favor, 8 against. Escudero was elected presiding officer. Gatchalian, as Senate President, did not cast a vote in the tally.

He remained seated next to Escudero at the front of the chamber for the rest of the day.

In taking the chair, Escudero clarified the conviction threshold. "With 24 members of the Senate, a literal interpretation of this means that conviction requires the affirmative vote of at least 16 senator-judges." Sixteen votes to convict, regardless of how many senators attend or can participate.

DUTERTE DID NOT SHOW UP. POA APPEARED IN HER PLACE

Vice President Sara Duterte, 48, was not present at the opening. Her lawyer Atty. Michael Poa confirmed her absence in a press briefing minutes before proceedings began.

Duterte, in a statement issued through counsel, said that appearing only through counsel "does not diminish accountability or imply a lack of transparency."

She dismissed President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s comment that it would be "much easier" for her to appear personally, calling his opinion "of no importance" and saying the proceedings must be guided only by the Constitution.

Senate impeachment court spokesperson Atty. Reginald Tongol confirmed that Duterte cannot be compelled to attend her own trial. "It is up to Duterte if she wants to voluntarily attend the impeachment trial, but no one can actually force her to do so." He cited her right against self-incrimination and the fact that she is being represented by her lawyers.

Poa said her physical presence would depend on how the proceedings unfold.

THE PROSECUTION MOVED TO ARRAIGN DUTERTE. THE COURT SAID NO

Lead prosecutor Batangas 2nd District Rep. Gerville "Jinky Bitrics" Luistro delivered the House prosecution's opening statement.

The prosecution argued that Duterte "betrayed the public trust" by allegedly resorting to violence, threatening to kill the President, and misusing public funds.

Luistro moved to have Duterte arraigned under Rule 7 of the Senate impeachment rules, which covers situations where a respondent fails to appear or respond. The impeachment court denied the motion. The first courtroom clash of the trial went to the defense.

House prosecution spokesperson Benjamin Tolosa Jr. addressed a separate question that had been circulating in the run-up: whether the trial would end if Duterte resigned. He said it would not. "Conviction carries two penalties: removal from office and perpetual disqualification from holding public office. A resignation would address only the first."

ESCUDERO ORDERED THE BIR BOX RETURNED, CLOSED AND SEALED

The sealed box containing tax records for Vice President Duterte and her husband, Atty. Manases "Mans" Carpio, had been in Senate custody since being turned over during pre-trial. The prosecution had wanted it opened to support the Article 2 unexplained wealth charge. The defense had opposed opening it. Escudero ordered the box returned to the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

"This box was turned over to the Senate as part of the documents, including the Articles of Impeachment. However, the Court is not yet in custodia legis of this box given that there is no lawful order issued by the court for this box to be turned over to the Senate. Moreso that it is not yet offered in evidence, not even, as of yet, marked."

"The chair therefore orders that the BIR box, closed, sealed, and as it is received, be sent back to the BIR, without prejudice to any action that the court may take."

The BIR box goes back closed and sealed. If the prosecution wants its contents in evidence, it will have to move separately for its production.

SUBPOENAS ISSUED FOR TWO NBI OFFICIALS

Escudero ordered the issuance of subpoenas ad testificandum and subpoenas duces tecum for two officials of the National Bureau of Investigation.

The first is NBI Bangsamoro Autonomous Region regional director Jeremy Lotoc. The second is John Mark Calilung, senior agent of the NBI Cyber Investigation and Assessment Center.

Both are directed to appear, testify, and produce documents. Their testimony is expected to be tied to Article 4, the alleged assassination threats against the President, First Lady, and former Speaker.

COURT ACTED ON BANK RECORDS. AMLC MOTION GOT A COMMENT PERIOD

The House prosecution panel asked the impeachment court to issue subpoenas directing banks to produce the bank records of Vice President Duterte and her husband. The subpoenas would also require bank officials to testify on the transactions.

The court issued subpoenas directing at least nine banks to submit bank records of Duterte and Carpio covering the period from 2006 to 2025.

Separately, the prosecution asked the court to subpoena Anti-Money Laundering Council chair Eli Remolona and Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura to submit reports on covered and suspicious transactions involving Duterte and Carpio from 2006 to 2025. The prosecution also asked for an expanded list of BIR records for the couple and their businesses.

On these two motions, Escudero granted both parties five days to file their comments and positions. Oral arguments will follow.

SECURITY AND PROTESTS OUTSIDE

The Philippine National Police deployed 3,250 officers to the Senate premises with 2,900 more on standby. The National Capital Region Police Office had more than 4,000 personnel deployed across Metro Manila.

More than 300 individuals held protests near the Senate's premises in Pasay City. National Capital Region Police Office remained on full alert.

WHAT IS SCHEDULED NEXT

The impeachment court adjourned. Proceedings resume this week. The trial will run Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoons at 2:00 PM through the fifth State of the Nation Address of President Marcos on July 27, then Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons at 2:00 PM after the SONA.

The Senate has approved 92 trial days. Sixty-two for the prosecution. Thirty for the defense.

Lead prosecutor Luistro has said the trial is expected to wrap up in October or November.

The prosecution has said it will present its four Articles of Impeachment in this order: Article 4, the alleged assassination threats, first. Then Article 1, misuse of confidential funds. Then Article 3, alleged bribery of Department of Education officials. Then Article 2, unexplained wealth and false SALN.

WHAT DAY 1 SIGNALED

The trial started. Twenty-one senators sat. Three were absent, one of them arrested that morning. Duterte did not appear. Her lawyers did. The court elected a presiding officer over the Senate President by a 12-8 vote. The first prosecution motion was denied. The court sent a contested evidence box back. It issued its first subpoenas.

The trial has begun.

I'll be honest. I still don't fully trust Chiz Escudero.

Gino Borlado — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 09:19:58 GMT

The 2025 delay did that. Months of sitting on the Articles of Impeachment while the country waited, and then the whole "forthwith" debate that somehow became a philosophy seminar.

Civil society groups said it when his name came up again: putting him back at the helm was "perhaps the most imperfect and one of the most dangerous" options. Hard to argue with that.

The apprehension is still here, today, as I write this. But MCT doesn't work that way. Praise the good. Criticize the bad. Whoever it is.

So. If you've been watching the trial today, you probably saw the same thing I did.

Objections come in, he addresses them before they stack. Documents get raised, he moves them through without losing the thread.

A senator-judge cuts in mid-argument, he rules and the room keeps moving.

You can see the experience in how he traffics everything. No wonder the majority pushed for him as presiding officer. That efficiency is real.

That's what I expected from him in 2025 and never got. Doesn't erase anything. But it's there, and I'm not going to pretend it isn't just because it's him.

And I'll be watching. Because from where I'm standing, Escudero is operating on a very short leash. The goodwill runs exactly as far as the next bad ruling.

WHY ESCUDERO IS PRESIDING, AND WHY CAYETANO WON'T ACCEPT IT

Gino Borlado — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 07:37:28 GMT

[An MCT Commentary]

The trial of Vice President Sara Duterte officially opened on July 6, 2026. And before the proceedings even properly began, the Senate was already fighting itself.

The question on the floor: who gets to preside?

The majority chose Senator Francis "Chiz" Escudero. Twelve senators voted yes. Eight voted no. Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson was the one who moved for the election. And the Cayetano bloc spent the opening minutes of the historic trial trying to kill the idea before it took hold.

THE MAJORITY'S ARGUMENT

Three things pushed the majority toward Escudero.

One: he is a lawyer. Senate President Sherwin "Win" Gatchalian is not. When you are presiding over what could be the most consequential trial in recent Philippine constitutional history, having someone with a legal background at the helm is not a small thing.

Two: Escudero has been here before. He already served as presiding officer when the Articles of Impeachment (the formal charges voted by the House) were first transmitted to the Senate last year. He knows the procedure. He knows the rules. Lacson explicitly cited that experience as part of the rationale.

Three: the Senate already amended its own rules to make this possible. Senate Resolution No. 48, passed during a special session on June 17, removed the old provision that automatically assigned the Senate president as presiding officer in all impeachment cases. Under the new rules, the Senate can elect an alternative presiding officer through a simple majority vote of members present. Senator Kiko Pangilinan argued that this is well within what the Constitution allows, because the charter does not actually specify that the Senate president must preside when the Vice President is on trial.

The majority had the votes, the legal cover, and a candidate with prior experience. They moved.

THE CAYETANO GROUP'S PUSHBACK

Senator Alan Peter Cayetano and his bloc have been fighting this from multiple angles, and the opposition goes deeper than just the presiding officer question.

The first objection is constitutional. Cayetano argued on the floor that Senate Resolution No. 48 is "null and void." His position is that bending the rules to allow someone other than the Senate president to chair the trial could compromise the entire proceedings. He told his fellow senators directly: "Why don't we follow the Constitution? Amending the rules implementing a null and void rule and violating the Constitution will endanger this hearing."

But the legal argument does not fully explain the intensity of the pushback.

Escudero used to be on Cayetano's side. He was part of the Cayetano majority bloc until June 3, when his surprise appearance at the plenary hall created a quorum and triggered the Senate shakeup that ended with Gatchalian replacing Cayetano as Senate president. Cayetano called that a constitutional crisis and an "illegal coup d'etat." The Supreme Court was even asked to intervene.

So when the majority now installs Escudero as the presiding officer of the most high-profile trial of the current political era, the Cayetano group is not just opposing a procedural choice. They are watching the man who dismantled their majority now be handed the chair of the most watched hearing in the Senate. The anger is personal. The legal arguments came after.

There is also the flood control angle. Cayetano had insisted, back when he was still Senate president, that the Blue Ribbon Committee probe into the multibillion-peso flood control scandal would continue under his watch. He claimed the leadership shakeup was designed precisely to kill those hearings.

Escudero, meanwhile, is reportedly under investigation in connection with the same controversy. Putting him in the chair of the Duterte impeachment trial also conveniently keeps him off the witness list in another investigation.

And then there is history that civil society groups keep raising. When Escudero was Senate president last year, he refused to immediately start the Duterte trial after the House transmitted the Articles of Impeachment. He argued the Constitution did not mandate a "forthwith" resolution.

The case eventually ended up archived after the Supreme Court dismissed it for breaching the one-year bar rule. Groups like 1Sambayan and Tindig Pilipinas have raised this track record directly, calling Escudero as presiding officer "perhaps the most imperfect and one of the most dangerous" choices available to the majority.

THE PART THAT WAS DIFFICULT TO WATCH

Before we get to the vote tally, let us talk about what played out on the floor.

Pia Cayetano and Alan Peter Cayetano were not just arguing a legal position. The way they carried themselves, the clipped tone, the pointed questions, the barely concealed impatience, it read less like constitutional objection and more like two people who had decided that Gatchalian simply does not belong at the head of the table.

Pia has been in this mode for weeks. She questioned orders at the Senate, went on Facebook Live to challenge directives she attributed to Gatchalian's bloc, and when pressed about the leadership change, her response was "common sense" in a tone that made clear she was not offering analysis, she was talking down.

Alan Peter, for his part, spent weeks calling Gatchalian an illegitimate usurper, took the matter all the way to the Supreme Court, and then showed up on July 6 to lecture the Senate floor about constitutional purity while sitting in the minority bloc he helped create by refusing to recognize the writing on the wall.

Fighting for a legal position is legitimate. Treating a duly elected Senate president, one who secured 13 votes, the constitutionally required number, like he wandered into a room he was not supposed to be in, is something else.

You can disagree with Gatchalian on substance. But the register the Cayetano siblings chose, especially on a day as historically significant as the opening of a Vice Presidential impeachment trial, made the whole institution look petty from the outside.

The constitutional questions they are raising are not all without merit. They just chose contempt as the delivery method.

A TRIAL WITHIN THE TRIAL

The vote was 12-8 in favor of Escudero. The trial is now underway. The procedural dispute is not over.

Gatchalian said any formal challenges to the rules must be settled in plenary, not argued as points of order while the trial is running. Pangilinan, for his part, pointed out that the June 17 amendments were unanimously ratified during a special session, which should have cured any procedural defect.

But "unanimously ratified" is a claim worth scrutinizing, because some of the senators who are now objecting were part of that same special session. Whether they voted then and are objecting now, or whether they are making a different argument, has not been fully reported.

The Philippines is attempting to conduct a historic constitutional trial, and the legitimacy of the man in the chair is being contested before a single witness has testified. The Senate has gone through three different Senate presidents in just a few months. Every bloc claims the Constitution is on their side. Every bloc has political reasons to want this trial to go a certain way.

The Cayetano group's opposition has real legal substance buried somewhere inside it. But you cannot fully separate those arguments from the fact that Escudero is the person who broke their majority in the first place.

So here is the question left hanging over all of this. Can you run a credible impeachment trial when the fight over who holds the gavel is still being settled in real time?

[Note: I am aware that Alan Peter raised issues as part of his continuing objection, but they were stricken from the record. I will write about them in the future when more information is available.]

Sources

THE WORDS GET PRAISE. THE COUNTRY DOESN'T CHANGE.

Gino Borlado — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:54:16 GMT

I've written over five thousand articles.

Some for clients. Brands, businesses, companies abroad that needed sharp copy with a clear purpose: move people toward a decision. Sell this. Get attention. Convert. That work has a simple measure. It either worked or it didn't.

MCT is different. No client. No campaign. Just me at a kitchen table, trying to say something honest about politics and how we got here.

For years, the honest thing I kept writing about was good governance. Accountability. Corruption. The same recurring wound. People respond. Someone says it helped them see things clearer. Someone else shares it. Tags a friend. Calls it important.

And then the week passes and nothing outside the screen moves.

THE WEIRD GAP

That gap bothers me more than I usually admit.

I get told the writing is good. I get hired because of it. I've built a career around putting words together so other people can sell things. That part works.

But when the writing is about good governance? It feels heavier. Slower. Like I'm doing something that people appreciate but nobody acts on.

I know the term for that feeling. Impostor syndrome. The sense that your success isn't real, that you're one step away from being exposed, even when the evidence says otherwise. High performers are supposed to be more prone to it because their own expectations rise faster than the proofs in front of them.

I recognize that in myself.

Because on paper, I should be confident. Five thousand articles is not an accident. But the part of me that cares most, the part that wants a Filipino voter somewhere to rethink one pattern, one habit, one name on a ballot, that part doesn't feel successful.

It feels like I built something sharp and pointed it at nothing.

WHY FACTS DON'T MOVE PEOPLE

In my head, the logic was always simple.

Show people COA (Commission on Audit) findings. Show the numbers. Show how much money was stolen that could have gone to schools, to hospitals, to flood control. Explain it plainly. Connect it to daily life.

But that's not how political beliefs move.

People don't treat political information like a quiz they want to pass. They treat it like a loyalty test. They defend family. They defend tribe. They defend the leaders they’ve already decided are “ours.”

A voter who trusts a certain politician will bend every new detail to keep that trust intact. He'll say, "They're all corrupt anyway." He'll say, "At least he helps our barangay." He'll say, "The rich steal more than he ever will."

My carefully written piece turns into one more thing to explain away.

I don't take that personally. He's defending his place in the world. His community. His history. His feeling that this man is one of them.

That feeling is more ancient than my article.

HOW DO YOU SELL GOOD GOVERNANCE TO AN EMPTY STOMACH

This part keeps me up.

I know how to sell a product. I know how to write about a service. Translate features into benefits. Benefits into reasons to act. That side of my brain works like a well-trained muscle.

Good governance is not like that.

You can't put a price on it. There's no delivery date. No guarantee. No receipt. It’s slow, abstract, and fragile.

And the people who most need it are often the ones with the least reason to wait for it.

When poor Filipinos accept money for their vote, the driving force isn’t stupidity, it’s the need to get through the week.

A few hundred pesos today means food. Medicine. A break from the constant pressure of not having enough.

Good governance is a promise that might pay off years from now, if the system doesn’t betray them again.

From where they stand, that trade is not crazy.

People who live under constant financial pressure are not less rational. Their decisions just live inside shorter windows. When your brain is pulled hard toward “today,” ten years from now feels like fiction.

So I write about clean elections. Strong institutions. Accountability. And somewhere, someone is measuring rice by the cup and hoping the money holds until Sunday.

MCT article, no matter how well articulated, is not his answer. Not by a long shot.

THE TRANSLATION EXPERIMENT

People kept asking me to translate my articles into Filipino. On paper, it made sense. We live here. We talk about our own country. Filipino is what most people use at home, in the palengke, in the jeepney.

So I did it. I translated. I wrote original pieces in Filipino. I even asked others to help me. Then I watched what happened.

The English articles still did better.

Not by a little. Clearly.

How Filipinos use the internet explains a lot. We spend hours online. Most of that time goes to videos, short clips, livestreams, content you can watch while cooking, working, scrolling. Long reads are not the first choice when people open their phones.

So it wasn’t really English versus Filipino.

The problem is the format. Blogs.

My Filipino versions did not pull in a new audience. They reached the same people in a different language, and those people preferred English.

The Filipinos who do not read political blogs in English are not reading them in Filipino either.

They are on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube. They are in comment sections, group chats, live streams. They are somewhere my blog does not reach.

My own data told me something I didn’t want to see: most Filipinos don’t see much value in blogs, period.

WHO IS ACTUALLY READING THIS

That forces a harder truth.

Political blogs here are not mass platforms. They are niche. The people who read them tend to be more educated, more comfortable with English, more politically engaged than the average voter. They are already asking questions before they reach my page.

So what do my pieces actually do?

Most days, they give language to people who are already worried. They connect dots they were already trying to connect. They confirm what they suspected. They make them feel less alone in their frustration.

But if my deeper goal is to help change how Filipinos think about power, then I have to admit this: I am mostly talking to people who already care. The rest of the country is somewhere else.

WHAT MCT IS ACTUALLY TRYING TO DO

This is where I have to call out what MCT really is.

From the start, the point was not virality. Not clickbait. Not “owning” anyone.

MCT is built on two simple things: critical thinking and verified facts.

I don’t always get it right. But the target is consistent. Take something that looks noisy and confusing, strip away the drama, the noise, and thr hatred, and show the thought process. What question am I asking? What data am I using? What pattern am I seeing? What might I be missing?

It would have been cheaper and easier to join the daily bardagulan with trolls. (If I do that, I don't even have to ask for donations and risk sounding like Oliver Twist.)

I know how to do that too. One-liners. Claps backs. Screenshots. Quote-tweets. You can grow fast that way. You can build a crowd that comes back for the spectacle.

But that’s what everyone else is already doing.

If all I add to the space is one more angry voice, one more thread of insults and side comments, then what exactly am I contributing?

The country already has more than enough rage. What it doesn’t have enough of is calm, step-by-step thinking that still tells the truth.

So I chose the slower, lonelier route. Explain. Check. Connect. Admit uncertainty when the facts are thin. Lay out how I reached a conclusion so someone else can trace it, not just believe it.

I’m starting to realize this is both the strength and the limit of MCT.

Face-to-face conversations will always beat a blog post when it comes to changing a mind in the barangay. But this space is where I practice how to think, so that if I ever get pulled into those conversations, I don’t show up empty.

THE OTHER WALL: FEAR

There’s another layer I can’t ignore.

Research says what moves people most is still human conversation. Relatives. Friends. Co-workers. Neighbors. The people you share a table with. Those are the voices people listen to when they drop their guard.

So why aren’t more of us doing that? Why aren’t more people who share these frustrations talking calmly to their own circles?

Because the climate got poisoned.

We saw how harsh the attacks could get. Duterte’s most loyal base didn’t stay in discussion mode. They organized, shouted down critics, made “DDS” both a badge and a weapon. Critics got drowned in insults. Activists got red-tagged. Journalists were harassed, sued, sometimes killed.

That changes how you move.

You think twice before posting a political take under your real name. You think twice before correcting a relative in a thread. You think twice before bringing up extrajudicial killings in a family reunion where one cousin still idolizes the people who ordered them.

So we end up with this split: the people who might be able to hold soft, honest conversations on the ground are often the ones who have seen enough harassment to step back. The ones who are loudest are the ones least interested in thinking together.

And I sit here at my table, trying to improve my craft, knowing full well that the real battlefield is not my blog. It’s the conversations that do or do not happen in homes, in tricycles, in group chats, in churches, in schools.

WHAT I CAN CONTROL

So where does that leave me?

I can’t force people to value blogs. I can’t turn myself into a one-man replacement for community organizing. I can’t make trolls disappear or guarantee safety for anyone who speaks up.

What I can do is tighten what I already own.

I can write with more clarity and less jargon. I can center the thought process, not just the conclusion. I can keep the facts solid and admit the gaps instead of pretending to know more than I do. I can make it easier for someone who already agrees with the destination but doesn’t know how to explain it, to borrow my words and use them in their own circles.

Maybe that is the actual role of MCT.

Not to replace grassroots work, but to feed it. To give people who still have the courage to speak up something sharper, calmer, and clearer than pure rage. Something they can take offline.

I’m still frustrated. I’m still tired. I still wish the numbers looked different.

But for now, this is the part of the work I can improve. The writing. The honesty. The way I walk a reader through a thought instead of just dropping a hot take and walking away.

The rest—the face-to-face work, the organizing, the risk—that might not be my lane. Or at least, not yet.

What I know is this: I’m done pretending that the only thing missing is a “better” article. The writing is one tool. The country needs more than that.

And I need to keep figuring out how my small corner of the internet can actually serve the people who are still brave enough to do the rest.

Kape po tayo.

MANNY BONOAN AND THE NEGOTIABILITY OF JUSTICE

Gino Borlado — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 23:43:07 GMT

Remember when Rodante Marcoleta was leading the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing on the flood control mess, and Manny Bonoan sat there, waited for someone to ask if he needed to go, and then politely said he could no longer represent the DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) because his resignation had already taken effect?

And the Senate said sure.

No one asked a follow-up. No one said, wait, you ran this agency for three years, sit down. There was just a quiet nod, a chair being pushed back, and Bonoan walking out.

I kept thinking about that when the Ombudsman announced on June 29, 2026, that it was dropping his plunder charges in exchange for his cooperation.

When exactly did accountability become something you ask permission to skip?

THE CASE, IN SHORT

Bonoan was the 40th DPWH Secretary. He took the post on June 30, 2022 and resigned on September 1, 2025, right in the middle of the Marcos administration's probe into ghost, anomalous, and substandard flood control projects.

Before he resigned, Marcoleta's Blue Ribbon Committee had already called him in. The first hearing was August 19, 2025. Marcoleta called him out on the lack of coordination between the DPWH and the Riverbasin Control Office. Bonoan admitted it. In front of the entire Senate.

The second hearing was September 1, the same day his resignation kicked in. He showed up. Then he asked to leave. Marcoleta said okay.

Three months later, former DPWH Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo sat before the same committee and said Bonoan ran a kickback operation out of the agency.

Bernardo's claim: Bonoan got a 15 percent average "commitment" on projects. The value of projects Bernardo handled for him ran to at least P5 billion a year from 2023 to 2025. Of that 15 percent, Bonoan took 75 percent. Bernardo kept 25 percent.

Former DPWH Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral (✝️) had her own separate cut.

Bonoan said none of it was true.

In January 2026, the DOJ (Department of Justice) confirmed he was a respondent in a plunder complaint the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) had filed.

In late May 2026, the Ombudsman filed the case at the Sandiganbayan (the country's anti-graft court).

On June 1, 2026, the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division issued an arrest warrant for a non-bailable plunder case worth P573 million.

Senator Jinggoy Estrada and three other former DPWH officials were in the same warrant.

Bonoan surrendered. He was brought to the PNP (Philippine National Police) General Hospital in Camp Crame under hospital arrest.

Then, on June 29, 2026, the charges were dropped.

THE DEAL AND ITS LOGIC

The Ombudsman's reasoning was simple enough: Bonoan was in the room. He dealt with lawmakers. He knows where the money went and who told him to send it there. Nobody else at that level is willing to talk.

Assistant Ombudsman Mico Clavano said the target is former House Speaker Martin Romualdez, who the Ombudsman has tagged as the alleged "mastermind" behind a P56 billion kickback scheme.

The Ombudsman's filing describes an "interconnected network of public officers" manipulating project specs, clearing budgets, and fixing bidding to make it work.

"The reason why we made him a state witness is because of the grand case of conspiracy and plunder, and the cause and effect of this is former Speaker Martin Romualdez," Clavano said.

He also admitted it was a tough call. Bonoan, he said, was "initially uncooperative." He only started talking after the arrest warrant came out. "Now, with the case already filed, I guess we pushed on a pressure point," Clavano said.

That kind of honesty is rare. I will give them that.

THE PROBLEM WITH THE LOGIC

Here is where I cannot follow them.

Bonoan was not a mid-level official who signed off on some paperwork without knowing what was in it. He was the Secretary.

As ACT Teachers Representative Antonio Tinio put it, he was "the alter ego of the president" inside that department.

Final say on the budget. Final say on the insertions. Final say on the contracts that allegedly became the pipeline for all of this.

He was not nearby when the money disappeared. He was running the building.

Tinio put it this way: "Bonoan must not be let off the hook without delivering fish bigger than himself. Otherwise, the deal will reek."

That is the right standard. The only question is whether the Ombudsman will actually hold to it.

The corruption, as prosecutors describe it, ran like this: lawmakers directed the flow, DPWH officials processed it, contractors collected, and kickbacks went back up.

The Ombudsman says Bonoan is the person who can trace the money from the contractors all the way to the top. He sat across from the lawmakers. He knows the names behind the projects.

If that testimony holds and it actually gets to Romualdez, and anyone above Romualdez, then the deal makes sense. Cold, prosecutorial sense, but sense.

If it goes nowhere, the Ombudsman freed a man who allegedly handled at least P5 billion a year in kickbacks and got nothing for it.

THE NUMBERS BEHIND THE DISGUST

This scandal did not start with Bonoan. He is one part of something much bigger.

The DOJ said in January 2026 that out of 421 projects initially tagged as ghost or non-existent, only 14 had been confirmed truly non-existent at that point.

The investigation was still going. The DBM (Department of Budget and Management) cited P332 billion allegedly allocated for non-existent flood control projects going back to 2017. The DOF (Department of Finance) put the economic cost of the ghost projects at over P100 billion.

The PCO (Presidential Communications Office) reported that 20 percent of the total flood control budget, then estimated at P545 billion, went to only 15 contractors.

Then there is Zaldy Co. He was an Ako Bicol (Aksyon Kooperatiba-Angat Buhay ng Bayan at Kabataan) party-list representative and House ally of Romualdez who chaired the House Appropriations Committee from 2022 until Romualdez had him removed in January 2025.

When the scandal got loud, he fled. He was detained briefly in Prague for illegal entry and is now reportedly in France seeking political asylum.

Before all that, he released a video statement claiming that P56 billion in DPWH project payoffs flowed through him to President Marcos and Romualdez from 2022 to 2025. Marcos said it was a lie. Romualdez called it political.

These are the numbers that sit behind the Bonoan deal. The money that was supposed to build flood control. The money that was supposed to stop barangays from going underwater every typhoon season.

THE HEALTH QUESTION NOBODY WANTS TO ASK

The Ombudsman also brought up Bonoan's health. Remulla said the office was "concerned about his health and wish to secure his testimony as soon as possible."

Bonoan is 80 years old. Court records entered into the Sandiganbayan proceedings confirmed he has chronic renal disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, gouty arthritis, spondylolisthesis (a degenerative spinal condition), prostate cancer, acute coronary syndrome, and heart failure.

Those are serious conditions. No argument there.

But the Ombudsman already had a state witness mechanism in place.

Other DPWH officials were taken in as witnesses before charges were even filed against them.

The health argument does not explain why Bonoan specifically needed the charges dropped. What explains it is the testimony they need from him, which they only got after they arrested him first.

Tinio has called on Remulla to make the terms of the agreement public. Remulla said, "All the deals that we make here will be in open court."

That should be the floor, not a promise.

THE HARDER QUESTION

The Ombudsman is betting Bonoan delivers. You free a smaller fish to catch a bigger one. That is the logic everywhere.

The problem here is that the bigger fish is not just any politician. The Ombudsman is pointing at a man who was House Speaker while his cousin was president.

Clavano was asked: what if the evidence points to Marcos himself? He said: "We are not partial to anyone and the Ombudsman has always said we will follow the evidence. And if the evidence is there, who are we to stop that from coming out?"

I want to take that seriously.

But the graft proceedings of Estrada and Bonoan at the Sandiganbayan Second Division were still being reset as recently as July 14.

The plunder arraignment for Estrada got moved to July 28.

Bonoan is already out of the plunder case at the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division.

Does the testimony come out? Does the Ombudsman actually file against Romualdez and push it through? Or does this become another Philippine accountability story that started with a press conference and ended with nothing on the docket?

I keep going back to that September 1 hearing. Bonoan walked in. Raised his hand. Said his piece. Walked out.

No one stopped him.

That moment barely made the news. But I remember thinking: this is the part where it starts. A polite request. A courteous nod from the chair. An empty seat where accountability was supposed to be.

The floods keep coming every rainy season. The investigations keep getting reset. The chair stays empty.

The question is how long that goes on before someone in that room finally says, no, actually, sit back down.

Sources

THE DISMISSAL THAT CHANGES NOTHING

Gino Borlado — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 19:47:14 GMT

[An MCT Commentary]

Mao Aplasca has been dismissed from government service.

Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla signed the order on June 29 and announced it on radio the morning of July 4. The headlines came fast. People shared the news like that was the end of it.

I get it. A man who admitted he was the first to fire his weapon inside the Senate compound, who ordered security to "lock and load" during a confrontation with NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) agents, just lost his government post. That should feel like something.

The problem is we've felt this before.

THE SYSTEM IS BUILT FOR THIS MOMENT

We have become very good at accountability that looks exactly like accountability.

The process is familiar. Someone gets suspended. An investigation is announced. A dismissal follows. Headlines arrive, generate heat, and then cool without burning anything down. Each step looks serious. Each step is designed to look serious.

Aplasca's dismissal is inside that same pattern.

BATO HIRED HIM. TWICE.

Before we talk about accountability, we need to talk about who put Aplasca there.

In July 2025, when the 20th Congress opened, Senator Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa nominated his PMA (Philippine Military Academy) mistah, retired Police Major General Mao Aplasca, as the new Senate Sergeant-at-Arms. Bato publicly said Aplasca "helped him survive PMA days" because both were from Davao and could barely speak Tagalog back then. The Senate elected him. He took the post.

Then in February 2026, Aplasca was replaced by retired Major General Edgardo Rene Samonte.

Less than three months later, the ICC (International Criminal Court) unsealed an arrest warrant against dela Rosa tied to drug war killings.

Samonte was removed for allegedly allowing NBI agents inside the Senate grounds. And Bato again formally moved to bring Aplasca back as Acting Sergeant-at-Arms on May 11, 2026, the same day the ICC warrant was unsealed.

Aplasca himself confirmed it: he was recommended by dela Rosa for the post.

So the man who nominated Aplasca twice was the same senator the Senate was sheltering from an international arrest warrant.

When gunfire broke out inside that building two days later, on May 13, it was Aplasca's people firing at NBI agents.

Bato hired the man. The institution let it happen.

CAYETANO COVERED FOR HIM AFTER

When the Ombudsman suspended Aplasca following the shooting, Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano went on Facebook Live and said this: "Let me just appeal to the Ombudsman, suspend also the NBI Director because he is more a suspect than General Mao."

NBI Director Melvin Matibag fired back. He said if command responsibility was the standard, the first person who should face suspension was Cayetano himself, because Aplasca operated under the Senate President's authority.

He was right.

Cayetano also announced the Senate would not conduct its own investigation into the gunfire, choosing instead to defer entirely to the Ombudsman. So the institution that employed the man who fired the shots decided it had no obligation to examine how it got to that point.

Later, while already suspended, Aplasca was still photographed entering a fellowship session inside the Senate led by Cayetano.

This is what protection looks like when it wears institutional clothing.

THE DISMISSAL IS REAL. THE CONSEQUENCES AREN'T FINAL YET.

Under Philippine administrative law, an Ombudsman dismissal carries accessory penalties: forfeiture of retirement benefits tied to the government post, cancellation of civil service eligibility, and perpetual disqualification from future government employment.

Legal explainers note that perpetual disqualification is enforceable even while an appeal is pending, which limits the ability to jump into another government seat while challenging the ruling.

That sounds airtight.

But the full written decision has not been released yet. Remulla said it would be made available "within the week." Until it's out, we are working from the announcement, not the ruling itself.

And there are escape hatches the announcement does not close.

The decision can be appealed to the Court of Appeals, then to the Supreme Court. Those processes take years.

In the 2016 dismissal case against Senator Joel Villanueva, the dismissed official was still contesting the order in 2025, calling it "harassment." The machinery does not always produce closure. It often produces motion.

Aplasca also has a PNP retirement pension that predates this entire case.

The administrative dismissal from his civilian Senate post does not automatically erase that.

What it affects, and how much, will depend on the specific wording of the decision we have not yet read.

THE PATTERN IS NOT PERSONAL. THAT IS WHY IT SURVIVES.

This is the part that gets lost when we focus on one name.

The revolving door in Philippine government is not held open by one administration or one official.

It is held open by a system that rewards loyal appointees with second and third chances, that treats accountability as a performance requirement rather than an actual consequence, and that has learned to use legal process as insulation rather than resolution.

Mao Aplasca did not invent this. He walked through the door again and again because someone kept opening it.

Bato opened it in July 2025. Bato opened it again in May 2026. Cayetano stood at the door and argued it shouldn't have been closed at all.

Marcos Jr. has his own version of the same habit. He admitted in May 2025 that several officials had already been removed from their posts over the previous three years, quietly, without public announcements, specifically to manage perception rather than enforce accountability. He treats removal as a management tool. Not as a consequence.

That is what the system runs on. Quiet exits. Quiet transfers. Headlines that arrive, generate heat, and then cool without burning anything down.

One name gets dismissed. The institution that hired him, defended him, and shielded him from investigators while he was suspended stays intact.

The question you carry into the rest of your week is not whether Mao Aplasca deserved to be dismissed.

The question is who gets to go home untouched after the dismissal is announced.

Sources

This photo was shared by a batchmate from BUPES.

Gino Borlado — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 12:21:20 GMT

His name is Apidel, and he was a common sight when I was growing up in Daraga in the 80s and 90s.

I talked to him many times.

He stammers, which is why people started calling him “A‑Pidel.”

He never hurt anyone. He just walked around town—dirty, wandering, asking for food, barya, or a smoke.

His life was miserable. He was always laughed at, bullied, and treated as a joke instead of a human being.

Unlike most of us, people like Apidel cannot easily ask for help.

They have no voice, no platform, no way to demand the care and dignity they deserve.

And that silence is exactly why I’ve been wanting to write about him for so long.

The story I heard from those who were there when he was dying was that some people were laughing, but others were kind enough to call an ambulance. [citation needed]

In those final moments, our town showed both its cruelty and its compassion.

That fragile line between indifference and kindness—that is the story I’m trying to build.

I tried to research his life story but found nothing.

It’s understandable: he belongs to the pre‑internet generation, and who would bother documenting the life of someone the town only ever saw as a “taong grasa” or “village fool”?

But people like Apidel are living proof of how our communities, and our local governments, have long failed those with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities.

This post is a call for information from people in Daraga who knew him.

Maybe this time, we can finally honor his life—and, through his story, confront how society and our local governments continue to fail people like him.

So if you know anything about Apidel—if you have a story, a memory, or even a small detail you can share—please leave a comment or email me.

Piece by piece, let’s rebuild his story, learn from it, and turn it into an open letter to our LGUs: a reminder that people like Apidel are not punchlines or background scenery, but human beings who deserve to be seen, protected, and loved.

If you know anyone from Daraga, please share this with them. Help me write his story.

May God rest his soul, and may his memory move us to finally see, protect, and care for those who have been invisible and voiceless in our towns for far too long.

MIKE DEFENSOR'S FACEBOOK POST WENT VIRAL. I FACT-CHECKED IT ANYWAY.

Gino Borlado — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 01:17:26 GMT

[An MCT Commentary]

I saw Mike Mike Defensor's post on my feed yesterday and my first reaction was, okay, this sounds reasonable. He raises a real question. He mentions public records. He names names. He even ends with a declaration that he will not be silenced.

And for a second, you almost want to clap.

Then I made the mistake of actually looking into it.

THE POST, IN SHORT

Defensor is reacting to the plunder case filed against him and Senator Rodante Marcoleta before the Sandiganbayan (the special court that handles cases involving public officials) by the Office of the Ombudsman.

His argument, stripped down, is this: the accusation is anchored on campaign donations, no government money was stolen, no favor was asked or given in exchange, so how on earth is this plunder.

He then pivots to a tu quoque (that Latin phrase just means "you too" — it's when someone deflects an accusation by pointing at someone else doing something similar).

He names three donors of President Bongbong Marcos, all of whom were later appointed to senior government positions, and says: if campaign donations are the legal basis for plunder, then these three should be investigated too.

It reads like a solid argument. It is a Facebook post. And like most things on Facebook, the logic sounds better when you do not check it.

THE FIRST PROBLEM: WHAT THE CASE IS ACTUALLY ABOUT

Defensor keeps saying the accusation is "anchored on campaign donations." That framing is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

The Ombudsman's complaint against Marcoleta and his co-accused involves at least ₱75 million in funds allegedly received while Marcoleta was a sitting public official, not declared in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN), and not properly reported in his Statement of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCE).

The case actually started when the Commission on Elections began investigating Marcoleta's alleged non-disclosure of campaign contributions, and Marcoleta himself admitted in a television interview that he did not disclose these contributions from his friends. The Ombudsman then picked up from there.

That is not just a campaign donation. That is an admission that something was not disclosed, on top of an amount that allegedly sat outside the official records of a sitting legislator.

Under Republic Act 7080 (the Anti-Plunder Act), plunder is committed when a public officer accumulates wealth worth at least ₱50 million through a series of overt illegal acts, including receiving gifts, kickbacks, or any pecuniary benefit by reason of their office.

The law does not require that money be taken directly from the national treasury. That is a common misconception, and Defensor is leaning on it hard.

If an official's unexplained wealth is manifestly out of proportion to their lawful income and declared assets, that can already create a presumption under the law if linked to the overt acts RA 7080 enumerates. "Walang kinuha sa kaban ng bayan" does not automatically mean no plunder happened.

So when Defensor says "nothing was stolen from the public treasury," he is technically stating one thing while quietly ignoring another: the allegation is that it was not declared, not accounted for, and amounts to ill-gotten wealth connected to his co-accused's public office.

THE SECOND PROBLEM: "NO FAVOR WAS REQUESTED OR GIVEN"

He states this as if it is already decided. It is not.

That is his side's position, not a finding by any court or investigation body. The Ombudsman has not dropped the case. The Sandiganbayan has not ruled. The claim that zero quid pro quo existed is exactly what a trial is supposed to determine.

RA 7080 does not even require a formal, explicit "favor request" documented in writing. Benefits, advantages, or arrangements linked to the use of a public officer's position or influence are already covered under the law's definitions. He is conflating the absence of a text message saying "here's your favor" with the absence of an illegal arrangement. Those are not the same thing.

THE THIRD PROBLEM: THE MARCOS DONORS

This is the part of the post that sounds most convincing on the surface, and he is not entirely wrong on the facts.

Mel Robles donated ₱30 million to the Marcos campaign and is now PCSO (Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office) general manager. Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. donated ₱30 million and became Agriculture Secretary. Anton Lagdameo Jr. is listed in investigative reports as a major donor connected to Partido Federal ng Pilipinas and later became Special Assistant to the President.

He is broadly correct that those facts exist. But here is where his argument collapses.

The donation amounts he cites were declared. They appear in SOCE filings. The Marcos campaign received them, disclosed them, and the donors were later appointed.

That is a serious patronage problem. Political scientists and watchdog groups have called it "venture capitalism" in politics, meaning donors treat campaign contributions like investments expecting government access or appointments in return. It is an ethical question. A conflict-of-interest question.

It is not automatically a RA 7080 plunder question.

Why? Because the case against Marcoleta is built on alleged nondisclosure, concealed wealth, and amounts that crossed the ₱50 million plunder threshold in a public official's hands.

To invoke equal justice, Defensor would need to show those three Marcos donors received undeclared funds connected to their positions, had SALNs that cannot account for the money, and were part of a similar scheme. He has not shown that. He has only shown that large donors later got appointed, which, while worth scrutinizing, is a different legal conversation.

His "parehong legal theory" argument only works if the fact patterns are the same. They are not, based on available public reporting.

THE MARCOS DONORS STILL TELL THEIR OWN STORY

Even after you strip away Defensor’s spin, the three Marcos donors he named are not figments of his imagination.

Anton Lagdameo Jr. was Marcos’ top declared campaign contributor and now sits as Special Assistant to the President, one of the most powerful posts in Malacañang.

Mel Robles donated ₱30 million and is now running the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, a government-owned corporation that handles billions in gaming and charity funds.

Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. gave tens of millions and now leads the Department of Agriculture, despite being a long-time fishing and agribusiness tycoon whose sector stands to benefit from the policies he will sign.

These donations were declared in Marcos’ SOCE. That is significant legally, because it separates them from the hidden money at the core of the Marcoleta plunder case. But it does not make the pattern less ugly.

It shows a president whose campaign was heavily funded by big business and political insiders, who then turn up later as Cabinet members and key officials in agencies that affect their own interests.

This is the other reason I cannot support Marcos. Even when the law is technically followed, the message is clear: access is for those who can afford it. The fact that Defensor is abusing this to muddy his own case does not make the pattern any less real. It just means we are dealing with two problems at the same time — a plunder case that needs to go to court, and a presidency that rewards its financiers with power.

THE REAL PERSON TO BLAME HERE: MARCOLETA HIMSELF

Before we go any further, there is something that needs to be said directly.

If there is one person responsible for putting Defensor and the other co-accused in this specific legal mess, it is Rodante Marcoleta. Not the Ombudsman. Not political enemies. Marcoleta, his bravado, and his mouth.

He went on television and admitted, on the record, that he did not disclose the campaign contributions. Just like that.

It's fucking idiotic, if you ask me.

The Ombudsman did not need to go digging through buried documents or reconstruct a paper trail from scratch. Marcoleta handed them the admission. The COMELEC (Commission on Elections) investigation was already looking at the nondisclosure, and that interview made it all easy.

I have a nagging suspicion that Defensor and the rest of the co-accused are quietly furious at Marcoleta for exactly this reason.

You do not go on television and casually admit the very thing that could get you charged. You do not walk into a live interview and volunteer a statement that can later be used as the missing piece in a criminal case. That is stupidity of the highest order.

What makes this even more striking is that Marcoleta is a lawyer. A sitting senator with a law degree, armed with professional knowledge of how admissions work, how investigators use public statements, and how Philippine courts treat disclosure. And yet he went on television and said it anyway.

Which brings me to what retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio once said about Marcoleta's legal standing.

When asked about Marcoleta in the context of their public dispute over territorial law, Carpio delivered a blunt answer: "He belongs to the lowest rank."

This was not a casual dig. Carpio was responding to Marcoleta threatening to sue him for treason — a charge Carpio swatted away immediately by pointing out that "every first year law student knows that treason cannot be committed during peacetime."

A lawyer who does not remember first-year criminal law. A senator who admits on national television that he did not disclose his contributions. The same person is now at the center of a ₱75 million plunder case, and his co-accused are along for the ride.

Defensor can post all the Facebook threads he wants. But the person who opened this door was Marcoleta. His co-accused are now paying for that self-incrimination, and they have every reason to know it.

A FACEBOOK POST IS NOT A LEGAL DEFENSE

Let's get this out of the way.

A Facebook post does not change what is in the Ombudsman's complaint. It does not move a Sandiganbayan timeline. It does not replace a memorandum of law, a counter-affidavit, or oral arguments before a judge. It is, at most, a performance for an audience. And the audience it is trying to win over does not have the power to acquit him.

More than that: Defensor's reputation among a large chunk of the Filipino public is not exactly a blank slate. He has been around long enough for people to have formed opinions. The calculated outrage, the "I have nothing to hide" framing, the dramatic ending — it does not land the same way when people already know who they are watching.

Talking — in public, on camera, on social media — is precisely how Marcoleta handed investigators a piece of the puzzle they needed.

Defensor would do well to think about that before posting his next thread.

THE LAST PART: "I WILL NOT BE SILENCED"

Okay. Sure.

But here is what nobody seems to be saying flat out: whether you are silenced or not is irrelevant if you are convicted.

Under RA 7080, a conviction for plunder carries reclusion perpetua (life imprisonment, in practical terms) and perpetual disqualification from public office.

The Sandiganbayan already issued a precautionary hold departure order against Defensor and his co-accused, meaning he cannot leave the country while the case is being reviewed.

"I will not be silenced" is a great line for a political persecution narrative. The court, however, does not care about the line. It cares about the evidence. And if that evidence holds, the question of being silenced or not becomes academic. You cannot post from prison, and you cannot run for office with a plunder conviction on your record.

WHAT THIS SHOULD TEACH US

These are not dumb people

[Note: This is debatable. If these people aren't dumb, they won't be in this position in the first place. Again, thanks to Marcoleta's mouth.]

Defensor is a former congressman. He knows how law sounds. He knows how to write something that feels like a legal defense while functioning more like a public relations move.

And this is why fact-checking statements like these needs more than a casual read. You need to ask: what law is actually being cited? What does it actually say? What is in the Ombudsman complaint? What part of the "fact" being stated is complete, and what part is deliberately incomplete?

The facts about Marcos campaign donors and their government appointments are real and should be investigated on their own. But they are not a legal shield for an entirely different set of allegations involving concealed wealth, SALN violations, and ₱75 million in unexplained funds connected to a sitting senator.

The danger of a post like Defensor's is not that it is entirely false. The danger is that it is carefully arranged around enough truth to feel convincing to someone who reads it quickly and moves on. In a country where most people scroll faster than they verify, that is more than enough.

And the person who made all of this possible in the first place? The one who started the chain that led to this case, this complaint, this Facebook post, and this blog?

His name is Rodante Marcoleta. And he should have stayed off television.

Sources

THE DUTERTE ICC TRIAL BEGINS NOVEMBER 30. HERE IS WHERE THE CASE STANDS TODAY.

Gino Borlado — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 13:08:12 GMT

Former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s trial for crimes against humanity is scheduled to open on November 30, 2026 at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The date was set by Trial Chamber III on May 27, 2026. It has not changed since.

Between now and the trial, there are three status conferences and one medical evaluation still to come. The last of them will decide whether the November 30 date holds or slips.

WHAT THE CHARGES ARE

Three counts of crimes against humanity for murder and attempted murder.

Count 1: The murder of 19 people between 2013 and 2016 while Duterte was mayor of Davao City, in connection with what prosecutors describe as the Davao Death Squad.

Count 2: The murder of 14 alleged high-value targets nationwide in 2016 and 2017, when Duterte was President.

Count 3: The murder and attempted murder of at least 45 people during barangay clearance operations between 2016 and 2018, when Duterte was President.

The charges cover the period from November 1, 2011 to March 16, 2019, one day before the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute took effect. In total, the confirmation of charges decision covers 78 victims across 49 specific incidents.

Prosecutors have said they may add more incidents and victims within the framework of the confirmed charges before the final evidence deadline on August 31.

The Pre-Trial Chamber I unanimously confirmed all three counts on April 23, 2026. That is the moment the case formally moved from pre-trial to trial.

THE TRIAL CHAMBER

Trial Chamber III is composed of three judges.

Judge Joanna Korner, of the United Kingdom, presides. Judge Keebong Paek, of South Korea, and Judge Nicolas Guillou, of France, complete the bench.

Korner has been the most public face of the chamber. She has warned counsel from both sides against trying the case in the media, and directed them to raise concerns in court rather than through interviews. She said the case will be decided on evidence, not on public opinion.

THE DEFENSE HAS CHANGED HANDS

Nicholas Kaufman, the British-Israeli lawyer who led Duterte’s defense through the confirmation of charges hearing in February, is no longer lead counsel. His one-year appointment ended on March 31, 2026.

His successor is Peter Haynes, KC, a British King’s Counsel based at St. Philips Chambers in Birmingham.

Haynes is best known for securing a rare ICC acquittal for former Democratic Republic of the Congo Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba in 2018.

The ICC formally recognized his appointment on May 15, 2026.

He appeared for the first time in the Duterte case at the first status conference on May 27.

Haynes has signaled two things clearly.

First, that he intends to reopen the fitness-to-stand-trial question, arguing that Duterte’s health has continued to deteriorate.

Second, that he believes the defense needs 14 to 19 months of preparation after the confirmation of charges, which would push the trial past November 2026.

The chamber has not agreed with the second argument. It has, however, ordered the fitness reassessment Haynes asked for.

THE MEDICAL PANEL

On June 12, 2026, Trial Chamber III ordered a new medical examination of Duterte.

The same three-expert panel that assessed him during the pre-trial phase has been reactivated.

The panel is composed of experts in forensic psychiatry, geriatric and behavioral neurology, and neuropsychology.

Their December 2025 reports will serve as the baseline.

The chamber has directed them to determine whether Duterte’s condition has changed, and whether he can physically and psychologically withstand a full-time trial schedule.

The medical reports are due August 18. The ICC Registry is expected to file them on August 24.

The parties have until August 31 to submit observations, with the prosecution granted an additional week for its filing due to workload.

If the panel finds Duterte unfit to stand trial, the November 30 date is not guaranteed to hold.

THE STATUS CONFERENCES

Three more status conferences are scheduled before the trial.

July 14, 2026. This will be the third status conference. It is expected to check compliance with court-imposed deadlines and address remaining issues.

September 7, 2026. Korner has singled this one out as particularly significant.

By then, the medical panel’s report will have been filed. The prosecution will have delivered its trial brief. The defense will have received its observation period.

Korner has told Haynes she expects Duterte to personally attend this conference unless medical issues prevent it.

October 13 and November 2, 2026. Two additional conferences on the calendar, which the chamber said may be vacated if there is nothing left to discuss.

Duterte has waived his right to be present at every hearing so far.

Rome Statute rules require his presence at the actual trial.

WHAT THE PROSECUTION AND DEFENSE ARE PREPARING

The prosecution has until August 31 to file its final list of witnesses and evidence, its trial brief, and to include any additional incidents in the case.

Prosecutors have said they expect to call between 60 and 70 witnesses at trial.

The defense has until October 30 to file its indication of issues and lines of defense.

The Common Legal Representatives of the Victims must file the victims’ trial brief by September 28.

Any suggestions on amendments to the conduct of proceedings had to be filed by June 5. That deadline has passed.

THE JURISDICTIONAL QUESTION IS SETTLED

On April 22, 2026, the ICC Appeals Chamber rejected all four grounds of the defense’s jurisdictional appeal. Three of the grounds were rejected unanimously.

On the second ground, the chamber ruled by a 4-1 majority, with Judge Gocha Lordkipanidze partially dissenting.

The appeals judges affirmed that the court retains jurisdiction over crimes allegedly committed during the period the Philippines was a State Party to the Rome Statute. The ICC has said this ruling is final and not subject to further appeal.

The Philippines withdrew from the Rome Statute on March 17, 2019. The ICC’s jurisdiction over the case runs up to March 16, 2019, the day before.

WHERE DUTERTE IS NOW

Rodrigo Duterte, 81, remains in ICC custody at the detention facility in The Hague. He has been there since March 12, 2025.

He has been denied interim release multiple times.

The most recent rejection was on October 10, 2025, when the Pre-Trial Chamber ruled that his continued detention was necessary.

The Appeals Chamber affirmed that ruling on November 28, 2025.

In May 2025, he was re-elected as mayor of Davao City in absentia.

WHAT COULD STILL CHANGE THE NOVEMBER 30 DATE

The medical panel’s report on August 18 is the primary variable.

If the panel determines that Duterte cannot physically or psychologically sustain a full-time trial schedule, Trial Chamber III must issue a separate fitness ruling for the trial phase.

That ruling could postpone the trial.

If the panel finds him fit and no other pending matter derails the schedule, the trial opens on November 30, runs Monday to Friday until the judicial recess, and continues into 2027 and beyond.

Judges have consistently held that Duterte’s age and health do not, on their own, meet the ICC’s high threshold for finding a defendant unfit. The court has never found any defendant fully unfit for trial, elderly or otherwise.

The date on the calendar is November 30. Whether it holds is a question the chamber will answer between August 18 and late September.