Sara Duterte bank records submitted to impeachment court enjoy presumption of regularity

The Senate impeachment court on Tuesday ruled that the bank records of Vice President Sara Duterte and her husband, Manases Carpio, as submitted by the banks to the court, enjoy a presumption of regularity.

Presiding officer Senator-Judge Escudero made the ruling after the defense team of the Vice President refused to stipulate, or agree, that the bank records submitted by the banks to the impeachment court are authentic.

This prompted the prosecution to present the bank officials to confirm the authenticity as well as the balance of the accounts under the names of the Vice President and her husband.

“To the extent that any record independently qualifies as an official record and is entitled to a presumption of regularity, that presumption is rebuttable and does not establish the truth or accuracy of every entry,” Escudero said during Day 34 of the impeachment trial of the Vice President.

Escudero said that this is in accordance with Rule 4, Section 1 of the Rules on Evidence which regards an electronic document as equivalent of an original under the original document rule when it is a printout of other or other output readable by site or other means and shown to reflect the data accurately.

“Upon a specific substantial showing of fraud, falsification, material alteration, irregularity, incompleteness, palpable mistake, unreliable method of preparation, a break in a chain of custody or lack of personal knowledge or material inconsistency with other evidence, the respondent or any other party may challenge the records admission, seek the exclusion or limitation of the disputed entries and request the appearance of appropriate custodian or other qualified witness as the case may be during cross examination or during the formal offer of evidence,” Escudero pointed out.

Escudero said this room for challenge is provided under Supreme Court decision on the Republic v. Marcos case under GR 171701 wherein the High Court ruled that the Presidential Commission on Good Government’s collection and custody of private documents did not convert them into public records or without more authenticate them particularly were only unauthenticated copies were presented.

“The court relies not on custody alone but the records, direct production by the institutional custodians pursuant to the subpoenas, their documented receipt and safe keeping by the clerk of court, their availability for inspection and their court's supervised reproduction,” Escudero said.

“We are not depriving the respondent of any of its available rights to question, the authenticity of the documents, but are simply trying to abbreviate the proceedings if there are no allegations nor claims of fraud, palpable mistake in the preparation of the documents in order to abbreviate the proceedings on these witnesses which are similarly situated,” Escudero added.

During the offer of evidence, private prosecutor James Alih told the Senate impeachment court said that the prosecution witness from the banks seeks to prove, among others, that the Vice President and her husband maintained 30 active bank accounts within 2022 to 2025 with a total ending balance of P190 million as of end of 2025.

This P190 million, Alih said, is not reflected in the Vice President’s SALN that she jointly filed with her husband since she did not declare any cash on hand or cash in bank from 2019 to 2025.

The absence of the Vice President’s declaration of cash in bank or cash on hand in her joint SALN with her husband were earlier testified to before the Senate impeachment court by Atty. Karen Batu of the Office of the Ombudsman.

On Tuesday, the prosecution was able to present two bank officials as witness namely:

• Eunice Sumatra - Branch Head, LandBank San Pedro, Davao Branch
• Raquel dela Cerna - Branch Manager, LandBank Davao Magsaysay Branch

Sumatra testified that the payroll account of the Vice President is an active account in their branch, while dela Cerna told the Senate impeachment court that Carpio had an ending balance of worth at least P1.3 million in his bank account in LandBank Davao Magsaysay Branch as of end of 2025. —NB, GMA News