Impeachment
Sara Duterte Impeachment Trial: What Days 4, 5 and 6 Established
The impeachment trial's second week put the NBI's threats case against Vice President Sara Duterte before the court, then turned into a fight over document errors and access to her bank records. This recap covers Days 4 to 6, July 13 to 15.
Key takeaways
- The defense's sharpest move this week was procedural, hammering typos and document errors in the NBI paperwork rather than the content of the video.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did senator-judges leave the hall during testimony?
On July 13, minority bloc senators including Alan Peter Cayetano, Robin Padilla, Imee Marcos, and Mark and Camille Villar were seen leaving the plenary while NBI witness Jeremy Lotoc testified. Cayetano was out for nearly an hour. Impeachment court spokesperson Regie Tongol defended the exits, saying a monitor and speaker in the senators' lounge let them follow the session and that they stay counted as present once they answer the roll call.
Day 4: A Second NBI Witness and a Row of Empty Chairs
The court reconvened on Monday, July 13 for the trial's second week. The prosecution called its second witness on Article IV, NBI Regional Director Jeremy Lotoc, who previously led the bureau's Cybercrime Division that investigated the case. Lotoc testified that Duterte's alleged threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez were serious and fell outside the protection of free speech, which he said covers lawful expression but not words that meet the elements of a crime.
Lotoc said the bureau had enough basis to investigate because Duterte admitted speaking to a supposed assassin before her November 23, 2024 online briefing. Pressed on that person, he said the NBI found no validated information on the identity of the alleged hired killer. That gap, intent on record but no confirmed hitman, is the same weakness the defense probed in the first week.
The day's most talked about moment came from the gallery view, not the witness stand. Several senator-judges left the session hall while Lotoc was testifying. Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano stepped out at 2:51 p.m. and returned near 3:48 p.m. Robin Padilla, Imee Marcos, and Mark and Camille Villar were also seen leaving for stretches at a time. All belong to the Senate minority bloc.
A language dispute also broke out when private prosecutor Amando Virgil Ligutan questioned Lotoc in Waray. Defense counsel Mark Vinluan objected that he could not understand it and asked that questions be put in Filipino or English.
Day 5: Typos, the ICC Link, and Oplan Romanov
On Tuesday, July 14, the prosecution closed its Article IV presentation as Lotoc finished his testimony. He told the court that the NBI weighed former President Rodrigo Duterte's pending case at the International Criminal Court, over alleged extrajudicial killings, when it assessed whether the vice president had the capability to carry out the alleged threats. Investigators, he said, factored in her relationship to her father and that case.
Cross-examination turned into the week's hardest fight over paperwork. Defense counsel Mark Vinluan pressed Lotoc on typographical errors, mismatched docket numbers, and a date stamp that appeared to have been altered in the NBI subpoena and affidavit, including a wrong count of grave threats recommended for filing. He asked whether, with all these infirmities, the errors amounted to a violation of due process. Lotoc called the mistakes clerical, saying the typos do not alter the fact that the video exists, that the vice president uttered the statements, or that the NBI reached its findings. That line spread quickly online.
Presiding officer Francis Escudero stepped in to cool the room. He told both sides to avoid side remarks and ordered some of Vinluan's stricken from the record, warning that attempts at showmanship usually seen on TV would not be tolerated by the impeachment court.
The defense also pushed its own theory, Oplan Romanov, which it casts as a plot against Duterte. Lotoc said he understood Operation Romanov to mean a plot against President Marcos and the First Family instead, answering Senator-judge Panfilo Lacson, who asked whether the witness thought the threat was aimed at the vice president. The term traces to Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte, who first used it publicly at a rally. NBI Director Melvin Matibag defended moving his own testimony to a later date, saying he had to attend an FBI hosted regional summit on transnational crime in Bangkok.
Day 6: No Witnesses, a Battle Over Bank Records
Wednesday, July 15 opened at 2 p.m. with no witness on the stand, the first such session of the trial. Private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan told the court the panel would drop the testimonies of Duterte's chief of staff Zuleika Lopez and House security official Capt. Belinda Bello, closing the Article IV phase without them.
The day turned into a legal argument over Article II, which alleges unexplained wealth. The prosecution asked the court to subpoena the bank records, tax returns, and Anti-Money Laundering Council documents of Duterte, her husband Manases Carpio, and businesses linked to them. Prosecutor Chel Diokno argued the subpoena falls squarely within the Senate's constitutional power to try an impeachment. Defense lawyer Michael Poa called it a fishing expedition.
Tempers flared again over a side issue. Senator-judges Robin Padilla and Alan Peter and Pia Cayetano took offense at NBI Director Melvin Matibag's remark that he would look into alleged anomalies in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games hosting, a subject well outside the charges.
The senator-judges caucused for more than an hour, then deferred the bank records question to July 20. They did approve subpoenas for four people set to testify on July 21 and 22 about the alleged misuse of 612.5 million pesos in confidential funds under Article I. Matibag is to appear as the final Article IV witness.
What Went Viral, and the Arguments Splitting Your Feed
The clip that traveled fastest this week was not a legal point. It was the row of empty seats. Photos and video of minority bloc senators leaving while a witness testified spread quickly online, with many users asking why senators aligned with Cayetano were away during a historic trial, some framing it around their government pay while the country watched. The impeachment court defended the exits as routine.
The courtroom exchanges gave both camps material. Anti Duterte pages amplified Lotoc's testimony and clipped Senator-judge Bam Aquino asking the defense that if no hitman was hired, then were her November 2024 statements untrue. Pro Duterte pages ran with the paperwork, sharing the defense's list of typos, wrong docket numbers, and an apparently altered date stamp as proof of a sloppy case, along with her line that the complaint is not supported by evidence. The other side reposted Lotoc's retort that a typo does not erase the video or the words she said, and Escudero's warning against showmanship became its own clip.
The sharpest political spat played out off the Senate floor. Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte called the case a three year plan to block his sister from the 2028 race. Malacanang press officer Claire Castro fired back that if such a plan were known in advance, the vice president should have been more careful with her confidential funds. The line was screenshotted and traded on both sides within hours. For readers, the useful test is simple. Separate what a witness proved from what a caption claims, because the two rarely matched this week.
What the Second Week Settled and What It Did Not
With the threats case closed, the senator-judges must still decide whether recorded words, without a proven plot, meet the constitutional bar to convict on that article.
The bigger unresolved question is evidence access. If the court grants the subpoena, the trial opens Duterte's financial records to scrutiny under Article II, a far harder front for the defense than a disputed video clip. If it refuses, the unexplained wealth charge narrows to what the prosecution can prove without those documents. Conviction on any single article still needs at least 16 of the 24 senator-judges.
Why Mindanao Is Watching Week Two
The second week sharpened the regional read on the case. Davao remains Duterte country, and the loudest defense of the vice president this week came from her brother, the sitting Davao City mayor, not from her lawyers. That keeps the trial tied to a family whose base is Mindanao, even as the legal fight moves to bank records and Senate procedure in Manila.
How the court handles the subpoena will shape that judgment. A ruling seen as evenhanded, whichever way it lands, will read as due process in Davao and across Mindanao. One seen as rushed or selective will feed the argument, already loud in the region, that the trial is a political operation dressed as a legal one. This article covers only the second week, Days 4 to 6, from July 13 to 15.