September 15, 2026

Atty. Karen S. Batu testified as the Officer-in-Charge of the Office of the Ombudsman's Central Records Division. She identified the SALN records her office had prepared and supplied to the House after its request; the copies discussed in court were redacted.

Batu read a declared 2007 net worth of Php7,250,497 and later identified the figures she had read as amounts declared in SALNs submitted to the Ombudsman.

Batu described the Ombudsman as a repository and repeatedly limited her answers to the submitted SALNs. During cross-examination, she agreed with counsel that she was not competent to say whether the Vice President's SALNs were irregular, unusual, wrong, or defective.

The SALN forms and rules discussed during the hearing included business-interest and personal-property portions, prior SALN templates, correction provisions, and rules on foreign-currency personal property. They were presented and discussed in the proceeding; no ruling in this session applied them to a particular declaration.

The prosecution called Atty. Karen S. Batu, Officer-in-Charge of the Office of the Ombudsman's Central Records Division, and the clerk administered her oath.

Batu's direct examination covered the SALN records and the amounts declared in them; the chair then allowed the defense to cross-examine after lunch and opened time for Senator-Judge interventions.

After cross-examination, redirect, re-cross, and Senator-Judge interventions, the court excused Batu, scheduled Attorney Gerardo Del Rosario's SEC testimony for September 21 and 22, and adjourned until September 16.

The Chair issued the evidentiary ruling recorded in this hearing segment.

Sen. Erwin Tulfo asked whether a declarant may have another person prepare a SALN, whether increased net worth, sales, donations, and zero cash on hand could be reflected in a declaration, and how cash on hand differs from cash in bank. Batu answered from personal experience rather than legal expertise: property sales and donations should be reflected, cash on hand meant cash at one's disposal, cash in bank was separately deposited money, and a zero year-end cash declaration was possible. Tulfo later asked whether the Ombudsman repository detects errors or triggers investigations; Batu said it checks form compliance rather than contents, did not review the supplied SALNs' contents, and said fact-finding ordinarily proceeds on requests or complaints.

Sen. Francis Pangilinan asked whether the SALNs produced under subpoena were corrected copies; Batu said the pre-vice-presidential records came from the Mindanao Ombudsman office, and the Chair clarified that the later corrections had been conveyed by letter rather than reflected in the supplied forms. Pangilinan later distinguished the business-interest portion from the personal-property portion of the form and confirmed with Batu that acquisition cost is required in the latter.

Sen. Joel Villanueva asked when a filed SALN could be corrected, whether the Ombudsman verifies discrepancies or completeness, and whether cash on hand and cash in bank could previously be lumped with other assets. Batu said the repository does not itself assess substantive correctness and checks submitted forms against agency compliance lists; she declined a conclusion on lumping but said that, in her own experience, cash on hand and cash in bank had been declared separately even before the 2025 guidance.

Sen. Vicente C. Sotto III noted a Civil Service Commission correction period and asked whether foreign-currency deposits are assets that belong in a SALN and whether the repository observes such disclosures. Batu said the office does not examine each declared item. After the parties responded, the Chair read the applicable rule requiring foreign-currency cash, bank deposits, stocks, and similar personal property to be declared in their peso equivalent.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros asked whether shares are personal property whose acquisition cost must be declared, and later read the Omnibus Rules provisions including investments, cash, negotiable instruments, securities, stocks, and bonds. Batu declined to give a legal conclusion; the prosecution cited Republic Act No. 6713 and maintained that stocks belong in personal property, while the defense deferred legal construction to the senator-judges. Hontiveros later asked whether unlike categories of personal property may be collectively declared; Batu again declined to decide, and the prosecution said the statute's enumeration required individual declaration.

Senate President Sherwin T. Gatchalian asked whether unvalued corporate interests could leave declared net worth understated, when omitted values or missing SALNs could be corrected, where foreign-currency deposits belong, and whether the Ombudsman checks SALN contents against outside records such as SEC data. Batu declined to infer undervaluation, said late filings may still be accepted as late, identified an exit SALN for the end of public service, and said the repository checks forms rather than substantive contents or external records.

Sen. Manuel "Lito" M. Lapid asked whether dollar accounts belong in a SALN and sought a plain-language account of the form's practical demands and consequences. Batu said foreign-currency accounts must be declared in pesos and that non-filing violates Republic Act No. 6713; when Lapid asked whether SALNs are truthfully filed, Batu said that she personally files a truthful SALN.

The prosecution offered Batu to establish her records role, the Ombudsman's SALN holdings, and the declarant-submitted SALN entries for 2007 through 2025, including net worth, cash, business interests, stocks, and acquisition cost.

In response to Senator-Judge questions, Alih stated the prosecution's position that shares of stock should be entered and itemized in the personal-property portion of the SALN with acquisition cost.

During cross-examination, Alih objected that the defense had not established the displayed 1994 SALN template as authentic through a CSC or other government witness.

The defense objected that portions of the prosecution's offer concerned years when the respondent was not an impeachable officer and argued irrelevance and inadmissibility, subject to cross-examination.

The defense objected to treating puhunan as acquisition cost and described puhunan as capital rather than acquisition cost.

On cross-examination, Gular argued that a document need not first be authenticated to confront a witness and said the displayed 1994 CSC memorandum had been downloaded from the CSC website; he also asked Batu about separate disclosure lines and correction provisions in SALN forms and rules.

On the use of earlier records, Presiding Officer Escudero said they were "only for purposes of establishing a baseline and not adding to the charges already made in the articles of impeachment that are outside her term."

When asked whether a missing acquisition cost could show that declared net worth was undervalued, Batu answered, "I cannot make that inference, Your Honor."

Objecting to the prosecution's terminology, Gular said, "puhunan is capital, Your Honor, and not capital investment and not acquisition cost, Your Honor."

Whether any SALN declaration was accurate, incomplete, unlawful, or an actual measure of net worth remained unresolved. The chair limited Batu to the contents of submitted records, and Batu declined to infer that missing acquisition cost meant net worth was undervalued.

The hearing recorded competing views on where stocks, acquisition cost, cash, and collective personal-property declarations belong on a SALN. Hontiveros sought the parties' views after Batu declined a conclusion, and the legal question remained unresolved in this session.

The records custodian said the materials supplied showed no 2013 or 2014 SALN and identified the 2013 absence as an exit SALN. The testimony did not resolve whether a required filing was made or what legal consequence follows.