A bank letter says Sara Duterte held dollar accounts, and her defense dropped the bank witness who could have been asked about it

How the confirmation came out matters as much as what it says. It did not come from a prosecution subpoena. It was among documents tied to the defense's own planned witness, BPI's legal head Paul Ysmael. It came to light at the moment the defense decided not to put him on the stand.⁠1⁠14

Here is what the session did not show. No report says how many dollar accounts there are, what they hold, when they were opened, or whether they appear in her Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN), the yearly asset declaration officials file. The court has made no finding about them. Holding a dollar account is not wrongdoing in itself. Whether these accounts matter to the case depends on figures nobody has yet put before the senators.

Defense counsel Michael Poa told the court that, to save time, the defense was dispensing with Ysmael's testimony. Reports give his middle name as both Rodriguez and Roderick. The defense had planned to present him to authenticate a letter Poa wrote to the bank, dated February 24, asking about the accounts the Vice President held there. Poa argued that he had already been questioned about his own letter at an earlier hearing, so the bank officer did not need to testify about it. Several national outlets independently reported that the witness was dropped.⁠1⁠12⁠13⁠17⁠18

House private prosecutor James Bryan Ibrahim Alih then asked to be recognized by Escudero. He said prosecutors had wanted to cross-examine Ysmael on the documents he had submitted to the court. Among the "highlights" they would have raised, he said, was "one letter coming from the BPI where it confirmed that the Vice President had dollar accounts."⁠1⁠14

Escudero said the court had to respect the defense's decision to drop the witness, but he named several ways the prosecution could still use the letter. "At the proper time, you can make a tender, if at all, of excluded or not included evidence and this may be a proper subject matter too of any memoranda you may submit or closing remarks of the counsel," he said. He added that it could also be "the proper subject matter of any rebuttal evidence you may wish to present after the respondent will have rested (her case), should you decide to do so. So, you will have the opportunity, Atty. Alih."⁠1

In practice, no witness has put the dollar accounts into evidence, and nobody has been cross-examined about them. They are still part of the case, though. Prosecutors can raise them through a tender of excluded evidence, in written memoranda, in closing arguments, or as rebuttal once the Vice President rests. Note who is making the claim. The confirmation comes from the prosecutor's description of a bank letter that has not been formally offered as evidence. The state news agency's caption says the document "supposedly" shows the accounts, while its report says BPI "has informed" the court that she held them.⁠1

The surviving charge already runs through BPI. Duterte was the first Philippine official ever impeached twice. When prosecutors dropped three of their four articles on October 13, lead prosecutor Rep. Gerville Luistro said the unexplained-wealth evidence alone was enough to justify removing her. Conviction requires two-thirds of the whole Senate, or 16 votes.⁠2⁠7⁠6

The prosecution has already shown senators joint peso accounts that the Vice President held with her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, at BPI's Julia Vargas branch in Pasig City. Those accounts held about P96 million in two time deposits. Cabrera, a lawyer and certified public accountant, testified that the money moved through manager's checks of P41 million and P55 million, which he called a variation of "check kiting." According to the state news agency's summary of the prosecution's case, the purpose was to hide the funds at year-end so they would not show up in her SALN.⁠1⁠3

Cabrera also estimated about P817.87 million in allegedly undeclared assets and income over her first four years in office. That figure includes P11.35 million in checks allegedly paid to her dentist. These are the prosecution's allegations and one expert's analysis. The court has not ruled on them, and the defense is still presenting its case.⁠8⁠9

The prosecution argues there is a gap between what she declared and what she held, and it has built that argument largely on records from one bank. Now it learns that the same bank holds accounts in another currency, and it learns this from paperwork the defense put forward. The order of events suggests, though no one has said so on the record, that the bank's confirmation was part of BPI's answer to Poa's own February inquiry. If that is right, the defense asked the bank, received an answer naming dollar accounts, and then kept the one person who could explain that answer off the stand.