STATE auditor Roderick Wamil said on Wednesday, August 5, 2026, that his auditing experience for the confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) of Vice President Sara Duterte was one for the books.
During the resumption of Duterte's impeachment trial, former Commission on Audit–Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office (COA-ICFAO) auditor Roderick Wamil, who testified as a witness for the House prosecution panel, said that among the confidential and intelligence fund expenditures of 30 government agencies he audited over a 10-year period, only the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) under Duterte submitted acknowledgment receipts (ARs) as supporting documents instead of official receipts (ORs) and sales invoices.
When asked by Senator-judge Francis Pangilinan if submitting only ARs is a standard practice among agencies as far as their CIF are concerned, Wamil responded in the negative, noting that other agencies submit either ORs or sales invoices as documentary evidence for their spendings.
Wamil said ORs and sales invoices are important to identify whether the funds were religiously used for its intent.
Under the accomplishment report submitted by the OVP to the COA-ICFO covering the utilization of confidential funds from December 21 to 31, 2022, P34.857 million of the P125 million confidential fund was spent on various goods. The report also showed that P24.93 million went to medicines, P11.813 million to supplies, P500,000 to tables and chairs, and P3 million to desktop computers and printers.
The funds include P73 million in confidential funds that were disallowed by the COA due to insufficient supporting documentary evidence.
Wamil said the OVP should return the said amount to the national coffers, although he admitted that it remains appealable before the Supreme Court.
He noted a provision in the Joint Circular 2015-01 of the COA, Department of Budget and Management (DBM), Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), Governance Commission For GOCCs, and Department of National Defense (DND) or the guidelines in the use of CIF, which states that failure to liquidate public funds “shall be prima facie evidence that he has put such missing funds or property to personal use and benefit.”
On the first quarter of 2023, the OVP report on the utilization of the confidential funds indicated that P10 million of the P125 million confidential fund was used for the purchase of information, P15 million for the awarding of rewards, P16 million for the rental of other incidental expenses relative to the maintenance of safe houses, P32 million for the purchase of supplies, P42 million for the purchase of medical and food aid, and P10 million for the payment of incentives or traveling relative to the confidential operations.
From April to July 2023, the OVP spent its confidential funds for the purchase of information and payment for reward (P12 million each), rental of other incidental expenses relative to the maintenance of safe houses (P16 million), purchase of supplies (P35 million), medical and food aid (P40 million) and payment of incentives or traveling relative to the confidential operations (P10 million).
On the third quarter of 2023, the OVP used P20 million of its confidential funds for the purchase of information to uncover safety and security threats in various areas of its engagements, P35 million for the payment of rewards to informants of surveillance and monitoring activities, P5 million for rentals and incidental expenses relative to the maintenance of safe houses, P50 million for the purchase of supplies in the conduct of surveillance and monitoring activities, and P15 million for the rental of transport vehicle related to surveillance operations.
“Kung talagang sinubmit po sa amin ‘yung officials receipts or sales invoice, masasabi po sana namin (for example sa medicines ginamit) pero since AR lang po ang sinubmit sa amin, hindi po naming masasabi,” he said.
(If official receipts or sales invoices had actually been submitted to us, we could have determined, for example, that the funds were used to purchase medicines. But since only acknowledgment receipts were submitted to us, we could not make that determination.)
Wamil also noted that spending confidential funds for medicines was not allowed since it does not fall under the list of purposes specified under Joint Circular 2015-01.
Wamil said the OVP submitted 845 ARs as supporting documents for the said accomplishments reports.
He also noted that the OVP also did not submit a report on the success of the surveillance operations it conducted using its confidential funds.
Wamil said the certification issued by Colonel Raymund Lachica of the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group related to the surveillance operations does not make the OVP compliant with Joint Circular 2015-01.
“Since we based our findings kung ano po 'yung wordings ng Joint Circular, ang tinitignan namin ‘yung causal link between the successful information gathering and surveillance activities vis-a-vis 'yung information given by the informer,” Wamil said.
(Since we based our findings on the wording of the Joint Circular, we looked for a causal link between the successful information-gathering and surveillance activities and the information provided by the informant.)
“Hindi po (sapat iyong certification issued by Lachica) kasi hindi pinakita diyan, Your Honor, na ‘yung naging result (ng confidential fund spending) ay dahil sa information na binigay nong informant. Iyon ang gusto naming makita,” he added.
(No, Your Honor, it is not sufficient because the certification issued by Lachica does not show that the result of the confidential fund spending was due to the information provided by the informant. That is what we wanted to see.)
Among the recipients of the funds based in the ARs submitted by the OVP were Mary Grace Piatos, Renan Piatos, Nova Santos, Mico Harina, Patty Ting, Andy Lim, and Alejandro Pikit, among others.
The House prosecution earlier said these “fictitious” names have no record in the database of the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Whether the signatories of the ARs submitted by the OVP used aliases or not, Wamil said they could not tell since the focus of their audit is on the use of the public funds.
He said the use of aliases in ARs are neither prohibited nor allowed under the Joint Circular.
The impeachment court is tackling Article I of the Articles of Impeachment where Duterte is accused of alleged irregularities in the use of P500 million in confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President, and P112.5 million in confidential funds during her time as the secretary of the DepEd. (TPM/SunStar Philippines)