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MANILA, Philippines — The House justice committee expects to vote on whether to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte by the end of its hearing on Wednesday, April 29, panel chairperson Rep. Jinky Luistro (Batangas, 2nd District) said on Monday, April 27.
The possible this week will come after the committee wraps up discussions on two remaining agenda items: a deferred decision on whether to unseal a box of tax records submitted by the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI)'s testimony on Duterte's remarks in 2024 of having contracted a hitman to kill the president, the first lady and the House speaker should she herself die.
Duterte's alleged threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his family make up the last of the charges the panel needs to examine in its ongoing impeachment proceedings. If the committee finds probable cause, the case moves to the House plenary for a vote before any potential transmission to the Senate for trial.
The proceedings are the second attempt to impeach Duterte in two years and have triggered a legal battle between the Duterte camp and the House over what evidence lawmakers can compel and disclose in an impeachment process that has no modern precedent at this stage.
Duterte's camp has challenged this second impeachment attempt before the Supreme Court. She filed a petition for certiorari and prohibition before the High Court in March seeking to halt the renewed impeachment proceedings at the House.
Luistro shrugs off Carpio criminal complaint
The vice president's husband, lawyer Manases Carpio, is set to file today a criminal complaint before the Quezon City Prosecutor's Office accusing the justice committee of violating the Bank Secrecy Law, the Anti-Money Laundering Act, and the Data Privacy Act.
Carpio will name six respondents: Luistro, Reps. Leila de Lima, Chel Diokno, and Percival Cendaña from the justice committee, along with BSP Governor Eli Remolona Jr. and Anti-Money Laundering Council Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura. His lawyer, Peter Paul Danao, said the respondents "criminally and feloniously" disclosed confidential transaction records without consent.
But the chairperson of the committee said she had already foreseen the filing of this particular complaint.
"We acknowledge that this is one of the options of the defense," she told DZBB in an interview Monday, April 27. "These are all attempts to suppress the disclosure of this information."
She maintained that her committee broke no law when it had subpoenaed the AMLC's reports on Duterte and her husband's covered and suspicious transactions.
These, she said, are not actual bank accounts or bank records, which are what the country's bank secrecy law specifically protects.
"We opted not to subpoena the bank, including the bank records," she said. "Instead, we opted to subpoena the AMLC with its report of covered and suspicious transactions."
She went further and argued the Bank Secrecy Law itself lists impeachment as an exception to its confidentiality provisions, and that this exception should apply equally to the AMLC's own secrecy rules. Without that interpretation, she said, there would be no way to build a case for unexplained wealth.
"Baka walang matuloy na impeachment on the ground of unexplained wealth," she said.
Carpio has rejected this reasoning. In a statement over the weekend, he said the AMLA's prohibition on disclosure has "no exception" and accused the committee of weaponizing the law "for pure black propaganda with a view to the 2028 national election."
Duterte declared her presidential candidacy in February.
How the record of P6.7 billion transactions was shared
Carpio's planned legal action follows the committee's third hearing on April 22, when the proceedings zeroed in on the unexplained wealth allegation against Duterte.
AMLC Executive Director Buenaventura, appearing under subpoena, told the panel that bank accounts linked to Duterte and Carpio had been flagged for P6.77 billion in covered and suspicious transactions from 2006 to 2025. This includes amounts going into and out of their bank accounts.
Of the total, P3.7 billion was attributed to accounts in Duterte's name and P2.998 billion to Carpio's.
Total inflows reached P4.43 billion; outflows were P1.58 billion.
Luistro, in summarizing the committee's line of discussion last week, said what raised their suspicions were not the large transactions themselves, but that it did not "tally" when compared to her SALN.
For example, during the hearings, lawmakers noted that in 2009, the AMLC reported P704.93 million in flagged transactions while Duterte's SALN declared a net worth of only P18.28 million. Her filings from 2019 to 2024 declared zero cash on hand and zero bank deposits even as her net worth rose to P88.5 million.
The Duterte camp has called the P6.77 billion figure misleading, saying it is an aggregate of both inflows and outflows over nearly 20 years. Luistro acknowledged this on DZBB but said the AMLC report itself provided that breakdown transparently, specifically inflows and outflows listed separately for Duterte and her husband. "How will they say that this is bloated?" she said. "Very transparent yung naging report."
The committee had approached the hearing with deliberate caution, Luistro noted. Members debated at length whether to disclose the AMLC report at all, and the panel also chose not to subpoena the banks directly — a step Luistro said it had the authority to take and partly to avoid provoking a legal challenge.
That caution was visible in how the committee handled a second piece of evidence that day: a sealed BIR box containing the tax returns of Duterte, Carpio, and their firms from 2007 to 2025.
BIR Commissioner Charlito Mendoza argued the tax code only allows disclosure of returns during legislative inquiries conducted in executive session and that impeachment hearings do not qualify.
The panel voted 21-4 to defer opening the box, though it kept the box in its custody and had Mendoza sign the sealed tape to preserve its integrity.
Luistro said Wednesday's hearing must resolve whether to open or transmit the box. If the committee votes to keep it sealed, she said she would recommend sending it as-is to the Senate, leaving it to the upper chamber to decide as an impeachment court.
A legal battle on multiple fronts
Carpio's criminal complaint is the latest in a sustained effort by the Duterte camp to challenge the proceedings through the courts.
Duterte filed a petition before the Supreme Court on March 30 seeking to halt the hearings entirely. Her camp argued the committee was overstepping its constitutional role by issuing subpoenas and compelling testimony, powers they said belong only to a trial court.
The Supreme Court consolidated the cases and ordered the committee to respond but has not issued a temporary restraining order, which allowed the three hearings so far to proceed.
The House first impeached Duterte in February 2025 with the backing of 215 members. The Senate convened as an impeachment court in June 2025 but voted to remand the complaint back to the House. The Supreme Court then struck down the impeachment entirely in July 2025, ruling it violated the constitutional one-year bar on successive complaints.
New complaints were filed in February, shortly after the one-year bar lapsed and days before Duterte announced her 2028 presidential bid.
