Ridon: Sara Duterte, Mans Carpio's firearms not listed in SALN

Vice President Sara Duterte and her husband, Manases Carpio, owned at least 50 firearms based on government records, House prosecutor and Bicol Saro party-list Representative Terry Ridon said Tuesday.

Ridon said the information, as stated in the prosecution’s pre-trial brief, is based on the records of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Firearms Division, adding that the firearms were not listed under the Vice President’s Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth from 2007 to 2025.

“We wanted to do a clean sweep of each and every agency with a list of properties owned by individuals, and we have identified the Firearms Division of the Philippine National Police (PNP). [Turns out] they have a lot of firearms under their names that were not in their SALN. It is very important to note that even the former president had boasted of having numerous guns and firearms,” he told reporters.

Ridon also initially said that the couple owned at least 30 firearms, but revised the minimum to 50.

"I previously mentioned 30, but now, I can say with confidence that at least 50 po ang pag-aari ng mag-asawang Duterte na mga baril at armas [the Duterte-Carpio couple owns at least 50 firearms]," he said in a separate interview.

The lawmaker said the firearms should have been listed under personal properties of the Vice President.

“These include high-powered and small firearms that were not disclosed, and this could be valued at millions. But again, the point needs to be made: it is not just the value of the firearms, it is also the non-disclosure of the firearms ownership in the SALN of the Vice President,” Ridon added.

He then cited that back in 2012, then-Chief Justice Renato Corona was convicted of betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution over non-declaration of certain properties in his wealth statement.

“SALN requires public officials to disclose all the things they own. So this means that on top of not declaring cash in bank and cash on hand in her SALN from 2019 to 2025, the Vice President also failed to declare these firearms under her name,” Ridon said.

“This only strengthens our assertion that she has unexplained wealth and SALN violations,” he added.

GMA News Online reached out to the camp of Duterte for comment and will publish it once available.

In defending the non-declaration of cash on hand and cash in bank for six years, the camp of the Vice President said the supposed cash was declared under the “Others” category of the SALN.

“Upon consultation with our client, the Vice President, ang nangyari kasi doon is…it was lumped doon sa ‘others.’ ‘Yung sa SALN kasi meron ‘yan—real properties, personal properties. Pagdating sa personal properties, naka-lump na lang ‘yung amount under the heading ‘others.’ ‘Yun ‘yung line item,” the Vice President's spokesperson and lawyer Michael Poa said in an interview on Unang Hirit’s On Record segment.

(But upon consultation with our client, the Vice President.... what happened there was, it was lumped there under ‘others.’ In the SALN, there are real properties and personal properties. Under the personal properties, the amount was just lumped under the heading ‘others.’ That’s the line item.)

The Articles of Impeachment approved by the House for Senate action accuse the Vice President of culpable violation of the Constitution, graft and corruption, betrayal of public trust, bribery and other high crimes, based on the following acts:

a) systematic misuse, misappropriation, and irregular liquidation of confidential funds amounting to P500 million released to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and P112.5 million released to the Department of Education (DepEd) during her tenure as Education chief

b) amassing unexplained wealth manifestly disproportionate to her lawful income and earnings during her incumbency as a public official

c) failure to fully and truthfully disclose all her and her spouse's assets, liabilities, and net worth in her statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth (SALN) including in her SALN for the years 2022, 2023, and 2024;

d) failure to divest, and instead, willfully continued, all her business interests during her tenure as vice president for the years 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025

e) giving monetary gifts or payments to DepEd officials to induce the violation and circumvention of procurement and other related laws.

f) contracting for the assassination of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., First Lady Liza Marcos, and former Speaker of the House and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez, by making grave threats, and by actively inciting sedition against the republic.

Items a, e and f constitute Article 1, 3 and 4, while items b, c and d are all subsections of Article 2 of the Articles of Impeachment. —AOL, GMA News