August 4, 2026

With 19 senator-judges present, the Senate President declared a quorum, the August 3 journal was approved without objection, and the court recalled COA auditor Roderick Wamil to continue direct examination under the same oath.

Continued direct examination covered acknowledgment-receipt samples and OVP records for the first three quarters of 2023, including vouchers, liquidation reports, accomplishment reports, certifications, and audit observations. Wamil described signatures, amounts, listed purposes, supporting-document issues, and the sequence from an Audit Observation Memorandum to later audit action.

The prosecution then presented DepEd plans, vouchers, liquidation reports, accomplishment reports, and an AOM for the first three quarters of 2023. Wamil described the Vice President's approvals and certifications and explained the compliance observations he drew from the documents.

After striking a prosecution characterization and declaring direct examination complete, the court recessed for lunch. It resumed with Wamil under the same oath and recognized defense counsel Michael Poa for cross-examination.

Cross-examination tested the funds' authorization and timing, the document-only audit scope, a disputed 1992 COA circular, the significance of the MOOE label, later supporting submissions, prescribed forms, and the difference between preliminary audit observations and final Commission action. Redirect and a short recross followed.

Because the Senate was due to convene, the chair postponed all queued senator-judge questions to August 5 and directed Wamil to return. The court then addressed subpoena scheduling for the next COA witness, an exhibit-marking conference, and a reserved objection concerning portions of a purported Lascañas affidavit before adjourning to August 5 at 10 a.m.

The chair directed the defense to present oral argument or a written response to the prosecution's judicial-notice motion on August 5. The court did not grant or deny judicial notice during the August 4 sitting.

When the prosecution sought to compare the balance of 845 acknowledgment receipts, the defense declined to stipulate. The chair allowed sample presentation from Wamil's summary without treating the full receipt set as stipulated or resolving its authenticity, accuracy, admissibility, or weight.

The chair sustained the defense motion to strike Wamil's answer about reward payments because the prosecution was then examining an accomplishment report rather than the relevant AOM, and directed counsel to reform the question. The ruling controlled the sequence of examination rather than deciding whether any reward payment complied with the circular.

After the defense established that Wamil had left ICFAO before a third-quarter AOM was issued, the chair barred him from referring to that later AOM. Examination could continue only without the asserted draft or notes because neither was produced.

Near the end of direct examination, the chair sustained objections to a misleading question and a question calling for a legal conclusion. The chair then struck prosecution counsel's 'scam' characterization and declared direct examination complete; the stricken word was not testimony or a court finding.

The court allowed the defense to use a disputed 1992 COA circular during cross-examination without prejudice to later production of the original and a competent authenticating witness. It separately deferred admissibility of the defense's GAA excerpt until formal offer after the defense case.

On redirect, the chair permitted Wamil to answer whether presidential authorization exempted an agency from accounting requirements, allowed some examination beyond cross in the court's discretion, and later sustained an objection preventing Wamil from opining whether confidential funds fell within the institutional mandates of the OVP or DepEd.

The chair deferred all announced senator-judge interjections until August 5 and excused Wamil only for the day. Wamil was directed to return without another subpoena for continuation and anticipated completion of his testimony.

The chair ordered a subpoena for COA-ICFAO witness Cylene May Del Campo covering August 5 through August 11. Any further subpoena for Marevic Pareja remained dependent on the unresolved judicial-notice motion.

The chair granted a 4 p.m. August 5 conference to transfer exhibit markings and directed both sides to assign counsel. Marking did not determine admissibility.

The defense objected to marking identified portions of the purported Arturo Lascañas affidavit. The chair allowed marking and premarking to proceed without prejudice, reserved a final open-court ruling on the objection, and said admissibility would be determined upon formal offer.

Presiding Officer Francis Escudero clarified that the prosecution's requested receipt procedure concerned the December 21-31, 2022 receipt set and asked whether counsel sought additional samples from Wamil's tabulation. The questions defined scope; they did not establish authenticity or accuracy.

Escudero clarified that counsel was asking which quarter each of three checks covered. Wamil then assigned the checks to the first, second, and third quarters of 2023.

Escudero asked who certified the displayed DepEd liquidation reports and whether the certification covered all three quarters. Wamil answered that the Vice President and Education Secretary certified the relevant box for all three quarters.

During counsel's attempt to translate 'irregular,' Escudero offered the Filipino phrase 'hindi pangkaraniwan' and asked whether Wamil agreed. The exchange clarified terminology and was not a legal ruling that an expenditure was irregular.

Escudero asked whether item 4.8.5 of the Joint Circular prescribed a particular form for liquidation support. Wamil answered that it did not and said he knew of no other provision prescribing one.

Escudero asked Wamil to distinguish an AOM from a Notice of Suspension for purposes of failure to liquidate upon due demand. Wamil said an AOM was not yet failure upon due demand, while a Notice of Suspension followed a demand, and he said the Commission proper decided disallowance matters.

During recross, Escudero separated the fact of an OVP response from Wamil's assessment of its completeness. Wamil confirmed that the OVP had submitted a response to the AOM.

The prosecution emphasized the Vice President's signatures on OVP and DepEd vouchers, liquidation reports, accomplishment reports, and certifications. Its theory was that the signatures reflected approval, attestation, certification, and agency-head responsibility rather than leaving the transactions solely to subordinate disbursing officers.

For the OVP, the prosecution sought to show that accomplishment reports listed medical or food aid and travel or incentive expenses outside what Wamil called item 4.8's exclusive list, while reward payments lacked documents showing successful information gathering or surveillance attributable to an informer.

The prosecution elicited an audit sequence in which an AOM gives an agency time to explain or supplement records, a Notice of Suspension follows if the response remains insufficient, and a Notice of Disallowance may follow continued noncompliance. It used that sequence to frame the audit observations as deficiencies the agencies had opportunities to address.

The prosecution advanced a parallel DepEd theory: the plans lacked specific confidential activities, some listed expenses were outside item 4.8, reward payments lacked success documentation, and Undersecretary Annalyn Sevilla rather than the agency head approved the cash-advance vouchers.

The prosecution challenged the defense's 1992 COA circular as superseded and unauthenticated and objected to the defense's GAA excerpt on original-document, provenance, and completeness grounds. Both matters remained subject to later evidentiary steps.

On redirect, the prosecution emphasized Wamil's position that presidential authorization did not exempt confidential funds from accounting requirements, strict compliance applied, and the agency head retained oversight responsibility for documents signed, approved, or certified in both OVP and DepEd.

The defense continued to decline a stipulation covering the 845 acknowledgment receipts. It also argued that payment of a reward could be an allowable confidential expense and objected when the prosecution treated a reward entry as a violation before introducing the relevant AOM and support question.

The defense established that Wamil had left ICFAO before the third-quarter OVP AOM was issued and challenged his reliance on that later document. It argued that any draft or notes he claimed to have prepared should be produced before being used to support his testimony.

On cross, the defense emphasized that the Office of the President approved the OVP's 2022 grant, that the 2023 OVP and DepEd funds appeared in the GAA, and that Wamil's compliance audit relied on submitted documents rather than field observation of confidential operations.

The defense used a 1992 COA circular to argue that receipts and invoices may be impractical or dangerous in intelligence operations and that operational flexibility was required. It argued that the 2015 repealing clause displaced only inconsistent earlier issuances, not necessarily the entire 1992 circular.

The defense elicited that the special disbursing officer was the check payee and encasher, that Wamil made no adverse finding from the 11-day 2022 disbursement period alone, and that liquidation was timely. It also established that later reports supplied additional detail and that item 4.8.5 prescribed no particular support-document form.

The defense used a GAA excerpt to argue that confidential and intelligence expenses appeared under MOOE and therefore that an MOOE label on DepEd vouchers did not by itself establish regular rather than confidential spending. It represented the excerpt as a COA-certified true copy, while admissibility remained deferred.

The defense emphasized that AOMs were preliminary, that Wamil did not decide disallowance and lacked knowledge of later status, and that its questions sought to distinguish those preliminary observations from a conclusive misappropriation finding. On recross it elicited Wamil's confirmation that the OVP had submitted a response to the AOM.

Wamil was the sole sworn witness. He described a compliance audit based on documents submitted to COA's Intelligence and Confidential Fund Audit Office and Joint Circular 2015-01, rather than firsthand observation of confidential operations or recipient transactions.

Wamil identified COA staff member Davin Bacay's signature on certified-true-copy notations attached to acknowledgment-receipt copies. That testimony addressed copy certification but did not establish the truth of every receipt's contents, and the defense did not stipulate to the full set.

For the first three OVP quarters of 2023, Wamil identified the Vice President's signatures on vouchers, liquidation reports, accomplishment reports, and certifications. He said the documents reflected P125 million per quarter withdrawn in full and described listed expenses and reward-documentation issues as his audit observations.

Wamil testified that the first two OVP quarters included P42 million and P40 million for medical and food aid, while the first-quarter report listed P10 million for incentives or travel; he described supporting-payment deficiencies for those entries. For the third quarter, he identified a P35 million reward entry without the success document he said item 4.8.5 required.

Wamil distinguished preliminary and later audit stages: an AOM seeks an explanation or documents, a Notice of Suspension follows an insufficient response and temporarily suspends the disbursement, and a Notice of Disallowance may follow continued noncompliance and may be settled or appealed to the Commission proper.

For DepEd's first three quarters of 2023, Wamil described P37.5 million per quarter, plans he regarded as nonspecific, vouchers approved by Undersecretary Annalyn Sevilla, the Vice President's certifications, and accomplishment-report entries and reward support he viewed as deficient under the circular.

On cross, Wamil agreed that the Office of the President approved the OVP's 2022 grant, the 2023 funds appeared in the GAA, the special disbursing officer was the payee and encasher, the 11-day 2022 period alone produced no adverse finding, and liquidation was timely. Those qualifications did not resolve the separate support issues he described.

Wamil acknowledged that later reports supplied additional detail and that item 4.8.5 prescribed no particular form, while maintaining that reward payments still required evidence of successful information gathering or surveillance. He also said satisfaction with a revised report's specificity was not a conclusion of overall compliance.

Wamil said he lacked personal knowledge of the AOMs' later status after transferring from ICFAO, that his audit role was recommendatory, and that the Commission proper handled disallowance decisions. He also acknowledged that the OVP submitted an AOM response and that one item remained prima facie rather than conclusive.

On redirect, Wamil testified that presidential authorization did not exempt an agency from accounting for confidential funds, which remained public funds, and that the circular required strict compliance and agency-head responsibility. The chair separately barred him from opining on whether the funds fell within the institutional mandates of OVP or DepEd.

Describing the audit's evidentiary base, Wamil said: "Since what we do po is compliance audit, we base our audit on the documents being submitted to the ICFAO."

On the standard he applied, Wamil stated: "Kasi ang requirement mo ng Joint Circular ay strict compliance."

On recross, Wamil confirmed the agency had participated in the audit process: "Yes, they submitted a response po dun sa AOM."

Wamil was not finally discharged. The chair deferred ten queued senator-judge interjections until August 5 and directed him to return for continuation and anticipated completion of his testimony.

The prosecution's judicial-notice motion remained pending. The defense was due to respond on August 5, and any further subpoena for Marevic Pareja depended on the court's later ruling.

The defense objection to marking portions of the purported Arturo Lascañas affidavit remained preserved. Marking could proceed without prejudice, but the chair reserved a final open-court ruling and later admissibility determination upon formal offer.

The authenticity and continued legal effect of the defense's 1992 COA circular remained open, and the GAA excerpt had not been admitted. Their use during cross-examination did not resolve those evidentiary questions.

Wamil's audit views remained testimony rather than final COA or impeachment-court findings. He lacked personal knowledge of later audit status, his role was recommendatory, and the OVP had submitted a response whose later treatment remained outside his knowledge.