There is something unconvincing about Sara Duterte and her defenders suddenly discovering the virtues of a full and fair hearing after prosecutors withdrew three of the four articles of impeachment against the Vice President this week.

The complaint is not entirely without merit. The prosecution spent over a month presenting evidence on grave threats and the alleged misuse of confidential funds, only to abandon those charges, including the one on bribery, after it was done with its case on unexplained wealth. 

Articles 1, 3, and 4 are gone, leaving Article 2 to carry the entire burden. What looked like a broad prosecution has become a concentrated gamble. The prosecutors have narrowed their battlefield and staked their chances of conviction on a single front.

It is possible to question the wisdom of this decision without pretending that it constitutes some monumental injustice. Lawyers are entitled to decide which charges they believe could get the job done. The objective of a prosecution is not to accumulate the largest number of accusations, like stamps in a passport, but to secure a conviction. Al Capone was not undone by a full catalogue of his crimes but by tax evasion. Sometimes, it can only take one to do someone in.

But what is hard to stomach is the sudden eruption of indignation from a camp that has spent some time behaving as though the very act of asking questions was an intolerable persecution.

Where was this appetite for giving answers before the impeachment trial? Where was it during the House hearings? Where was it when Sara Duterte was repeatedly asked to explain her finances and responded with verbal evasion? Her celebrated answer, “shimenet,” was not an explanation. It was a noise made in place of one.

Sara has perfected the art of substituting grievance for argument. She presents herself as the victim of political persecution, accuses her critics of malice, and wraps herself in the familiar costume of the embattled underdog. Her defenders dutifully repeat the performance. 

Yet the essential questions remain stubbornly unanswered. Where did the money come from, where did it go, and why do the figures appear so difficult to reconcile?

When her lawyers were pressed during the early weeks of the impeachment trial, their refrain was that they would answer “at the proper time.” One might wonder whether this proper time belongs to the same category as the mythical land of milk and honey, forever promised but never reached.

Now that prosecutors have withdrawn three of the four articles, the defense has discovered a fresh cause for outrage. Its leader has lambasted the prosecution, as though the abandonment of charges were an assault on the accused rather than a tactical decision by the accusers. Did I get it right that they want four instead of one charge against their client, or was it just to feed the Duterte trolls?

One is also tempted to wonder whether the outburst has anything to do with the consequences of a shorter trial, including fewer appearances and potentially lower lawyers’ appearance fees. As I watched the defense lawyer throw a tantrum, one sentence kept playing at the back of my head: “Your Honor, we respectfully appeal this decision on financial grounds.”

That is speculation, of course, and should not be mistaken for an established motive. But the spasm of indignation did invite an uncomfortable question about who benefits from dragging proceedings out.

The withdrawal may also have upset the Duterte camp‘s apparent penchant for delay. A defense that had contemplated presenting more than 90 witnesses might now find that the stage has become considerably smaller. 

This brings to mind Sara’s own advice about the need for a Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C. Applied to this situation, it is sound advice, though rather less impressive coming from someone whose political survival increasingly depends on never having to explain herself. One wonders what comes after indignation, evasion and the familiar claim of persecution. Is there a Plan D, or does the alphabet run out before the excuses do?

What is done is done. The prosecution has made its decision, and the impeachment court has accepted the withdrawal. The remaining business is therefore quite straightforward. Sara and her lawyers should answer the allegations that remain, rather than continue to manufacture distractions around the manner in which the case is being prosecuted.

The unexplained wealth allegations cannot simply be waved away as fabrications. The prosecution has presented financial documents and called witnesses from the Office of the Ombudsman, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System, the Anti-Money Laundering Council, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, banks and insurance companies. A financial forensic analyst has also presented his findings. They are substantial enough to merit answers.

It is difficult to imagine why all those bankers would lie, and how they could possibly have managed to do so in concert. And the figures are not difficult to understand. 

• Sara’s declared net worth rose from P7.2 million in 2007 to P98.6 million in 2025. 
• Even when she was already Vice President, she did not divest and retained a stake in at Metro City Chow Foods Corporation and Gencorp Industries Incorporated, a firm which secured Davao City government contracts worth P34.2 million. Her brother, Mayor Baste Duterte, claimed he did not know Sara had interests in the firm even as he said that he merely appointed a representative to sign the contracts.
• Authorities also reported P4.4 billion in covered and suspicious transactions linked to Sara and her husband between 2007 and 2025, including P319 million in remittances from China to Cale88 Foods Corporation. Later, Sara asked whether it was wrong to do business with Chinese firms, stopping just short of admitting what the question plainly invited her to confront. If one happens to be the vice president, the answer is yes.
• The proceedings examined properties linked to her husband, 19 insurance policies, and questions about Sara’s compensation income and constitutional restrictions on outside employment. The BIR cited records showing she received compensation from the Davao City Hall even when was already getting paid as vice president. If it wasn’t double compensation, I don’t know what is.
• On October 9, a financial forensic analyst reported over P817 million in allegedly undeclared assets and income from 2022 to 2025. He said the figure could reach P1.5 billion without his conservative assumptions, citing discrepancies between companies’ declared capital and earnings and the extent of alleged under-reporting.

Let’s return to the question: Was all this wealth declared in her SALNs? Did she disclose the full extent of her wealth? Given the documented figures, “persecution” hardly qualifies as a financial explanation.

If the figures are wrong, identify the errors. If the assets were lawfully acquired, explain their source. If the properties and income were properly declared, produce the records. If the companies’ accounts have been misread, demonstrate how. The defense has every right to dismantle the prosecution’s case, but it must do so with something more substantial than indignation.

Sara is entitled to answer, and answer she should. What she is not entitled to is the presumption that demanding answers from her constitutes an act of political persecution. Public office comes with obligations, and declaring one’s assets is not an optional exercise.

The withdrawal of three impeachment articles may have changed the prosecution’s strategy, but it did not magically resolve the questions raised by the financial evidence. The point is to establish the facts, not to award victory to whichever camp shouts loudest.

Sara has told people to always have a back-up plan. Perhaps it is time to try a more radical proposition. Go to the impeachment court, answer the questions, produce the documents, and let the evidence speak pertaining to the unexplained wealth charge.

So who is behind Sara’s problems? Sara, chiefly. If all that documented wealth was not declared in her SALNs, she has no one but herself to thank for the questions it raises.

She wants to answer? Then answer she must. Pastilan. – Rappler.com