DAVAO CITY (August 19) — Davao City’s P2.697 billion in confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) has entered Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial as pattern evidence, after the Senate impeachment court allowed prosecutors to question a key aide about her role in handling the city’s secret funds during Duterte’s tenure as mayor.
The ruling came despite defense objections that the Davao City expenditures were irrelevant to the impeachment case because Duterte was mayor at the time and the mayoralty was not an impeachable office.
The court’s decision opens a new line of questioning on whether practices in handling confidential funds during Duterte’s years as Davao City mayor were later carried into the Office of the Vice President (OVP).
Defense challenges relevance of Davao spending
Private prosecutor Amando Virgil Ligutan sought to question Gina Acosta, the OVP’s special disbursing officer, about her previous role as Davao City’s special disbursing officer while Duterte was mayor.
Defense lawyer Lindon Miguel Bacquel objected, arguing that activities during Duterte’s tenure as mayor could not constitute impeachment charges because they occurred outside an impeachable office.
He also noted that the Davao City confidential funds were not specifically mentioned in the Articles of Impeachment.
“Nowhere in the articles of impeachment is it stated that the confidential funds pertaining to Davao City are at issue in this case,” Bacquel said.
He cited the Supreme Court ruling in Duterte v. House of Representatives, arguing that the basis for an impeachment charge must involve an act committed in relation to an impeachable office and during the official’s tenure in that office.
Prosecution says Davao records show a pattern
Ligutan countered that prosecutors were not seeking to establish a separate impeachment charge based on Duterte’s actions as mayor.
Instead, he argued that Acosta’s experience handling Davao City’s CIF was relevant to establishing a pattern of behaviorthat could provide context for the later handling of confidential funds at the OVP.
“It is her experience as the SDO of Davao City in those inclusive years that led the Vice President to also bring her to the Office of the Vice President and do the things they did in Davao City, this time, with the money of the Office of the Vice President,” Ligutan said.
Senate President Chiz Escudero, presiding over the impeachment court, overruled the defense objection but limited the purpose of the testimony.
Escudero said Acosta’s testimony on Davao City could be considered only for establishing a pattern and would not constitute a new charge against Duterte.
“Whatever she says with respect to the acts committed by her in relation to the Vice President now, while she was mayor of Davao City, is not part of this impeachment trial and will not in any way add to the charges that [have] been filed and are pending before this impeachment court,” Escudero said.
The ruling allows prosecutors to explore the Davao City transactions while maintaining that Duterte’s actions as mayor are not, by themselves, being tried as impeachable offenses.
P2.7 billion in confidential funds
The issue involves a substantial amount of public funds.
A 2022 Commission on Audit report showed that Davao City spent P2.697 billion in confidential funds from 2016 to 2022, covering Duterte’s second and third terms as mayor before she won the vice presidency in May 2022.
The city’s confidential fund allocation increased sharply during the period.
It rose from P144 million in 2016 to P294 million in 2017, then reached P420 million in 2018. The allocation subsequently climbed to about P460 million annually from 2019 to 2022, based on the audit figures cited during the proceedings.
The amounts drew scrutiny because they exceeded confidential fund allocations reported for several wealthier highly urbanized cities.
Figures previously cited in congressional proceedings placed the confidential fund allocations at about P7.38 million for Cebu, P120 million for Manila, P240 million for Makati and P75 million for Quezon City.
The disparity later became a focus of congressional scrutiny over the use of confidential funds.
Acosta’s role bridges Davao and OVP
Acosta’s testimony carries added significance because her involvement with confidential funds continued after her work in Davao City.
She later served as a special disbursing officer at the OVP and was responsible for encashing four checks totaling P500 million in confidential funds.
The first tranche, worth P125 million, was encashed on Dec. 20 and reportedly spent by the OVP within roughly 11 days, according to CoA findings.
Of that amount, state auditors disallowed P73.3 million because supporting documents were insufficient to establish that the funds had been used for information-gathering and surveillance activities—the stated purpose of confidential funds.
The findings have become part of the broader scrutiny of how confidential funds were released, spent and accounted for during Duterte’s tenure as vice president.
The bigger fight: pattern or new charge?
The dispute over Acosta’s testimony highlights a central legal battle in the impeachment proceedings: how prosecutors can use past conduct as context without turning it into an additional impeachment charge.
The defense maintains that Duterte’s actions while mayor cannot serve as the basis for impeachment because she did not occupy an impeachable office at the time.
The prosecution, meanwhile, argues that the Davao City experience is relevant because the same aide later handled confidential funds at the OVP and can potentially shed light on similarities in their administration.
Escudero’s ruling draws a boundary between the two positions: Davao City’s CIF spending may be examined as pattern evidence, but it cannot independently expand the Articles of Impeachment.
That distinction puts the focus on Acosta’s testimony and whether prosecutors can establish a meaningful connection between the handling of confidential funds in Davao City and the later controversies surrounding the OVP.
Duterte has denied wrongdoing and has not attended the trial.
But with Davao’s P2.7 billion in confidential funds now formally part of the evidentiary discussion, the city’s spending record during her mayoral years is poised to become an important backdrop to the impeachment court’s examination of how confidential funds were handled after she moved to national office.
