September 29, 2026

Davao City Mayor Sebastian Zimmerman Duterte testified about GenCorp Industries Inc. procurement records brought under a court subpoena. He corrected an initial count of 15 awards to 19 city records. After the recess, counsel compared the records with earlier PhilGEPS testimony and identified four purchase orders outside the earlier presentation.

The mayor said he did not personally know whether GenCorp met a five-year line-of-business requirement and would check city records. He attributed bid evaluation to the Bids and Awards Committee and said procurement signing authority had been delegated to an assistant city administrator.

The prosecution showed the mayor a BAC resolution describing GenCorp as the single calculated responsive bidder for a food and catering framework agreement. Near the close, prosecution counsel requested marking of the documents the mayor had supplied as prosecution exhibits.

The court called the case, recorded the parties’ appearances, swore in Mayor Duterte, and heard the prosecution offer his testimony and the defense object to its relevance.

After initial examination, the court paused to let both sides inspect the subpoenaed city documents, read its request-for-admission ruling, and recessed for lunch. Examination resumed after the parties reviewed the records.

The defense cross-examined the mayor, the prosecution redirected, and ten senator-judges made substantive interventions. The chair later excused the mayor and adjourned the trial until September 30 at 10 a.m.

Prosecutor Atty. Theodore Te offered the mayor to address GenCorp awards, his public statement, his role as head of the procuring entity, and an asserted connection between GenCorp and Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte. The initial offer put 15 contracts at ₱34,216,900.

Te sought to examine the mayor with leading questions as a hostile witness. He later pressed the mayor on procurement eligibility, BAC and award papers, and the Vice President’s reported SALN interest and corporate records.

After the mayor produced 19 city records, Te said 15 matched records presented in earlier PhilGEPS testimony and described four additional purchase orders. At the close, Te sought exhibit markings for the mayor-supplied documents. Rep. Terry L. Ridon proposed former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV as an additional witness.

Defense counsel Atty. Justin Nicol B. Gular objected that the Davao City procurements identified in the offer occurred after Sara Duterte’s term as mayor, while reserving cross-examination on the other stated purposes. The defense opposed treating the mayor as hostile.

On cross-examination, the mayor agreed that the city contracts began after his sister’s mayoral term and denied that she intervened in procurement, sought a GenCorp favor, or received special treatment. He agreed with counsel’s proposition that the transactions were legal and said there had been no COA flag.

Gular accepted 19 city records but distinguished the four additional purchase orders from what had been covered in earlier PhilGEPS testimony. Near the close, the defense objected to changing the next witness order on short notice, then withdrew its objection to a voluntary Trillanes appearance.

The presiding officer declared Mayor Duterte a hostile witness, allowed the prosecution to use leading questions, and directed counsel not to mislead him.

On the prosecution’s 104-item request for admission, the court sustained the respondent’s objection to applying Rule 26. The respondent need not answer; silence would not count as admission. The court denied expungement, left the papers in the record without evidentiary, factual or prejudicial effect against her, and did not decide the marital or filial privilege objection.

The court declined to issue a subpoena to former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV at that time because the request tied his testimony to bank records not yet presented. It allowed the prosecution to call him voluntarily and advised presenting the bank records or an AMLC officer first.

Sen. Raffy T. Tulfo said he would set aside his earlier conflict-of-interest question after the presiding officer discussed Sara Duterte’s reported GenCorp interest in her SALN and the absence of her name from an earlier SEC shareholder record, and Mayor Sebastian Duterte said he would not permit an award to GenCorp if he knew of that interest. Tulfo instead questioned GenCorp's contract eligibility. He read a 2024 procurement requirement that a supplier operate in the same business line for at least five years, contrasted it with GenCorp's 2020 registration and awards through 2025, and repeatedly asked when the BAC might have changed that rule. The mayor said the BAC may have modified the requirement but did not know when, would check with it, and had not discussed those specific procurement details with BAC officials.

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano asked Mayor Sebastian Duterte about the volume of mayoral signatures, Davao City's budget, delegated procurement signing authority, and whether a mayor could inspect every attachment before signing. Duterte estimated a ₱14 billion city budget, said he had delegated signing authority to Atty. Tristan Domingo, called personal inspection of every attachment virtually impossible, and said documents reaching him enjoyed a presumption of regularity. Cayetano stressed that this workload did not excuse an anomaly but argued that an accuser must prove one; the mayor agreed.

Sen. Sherwin T. Gatchalian asked Mayor Sebastian Zimmerman Duterte why GenCorp repeatedly won Davao City catering contracts after the count was corrected from 15 to 19, and whether he had asked delegated signatory Atty. Tristan Dwight P. Domingo for bid comparisons or the reasons GenCorp sometimes had no competitor. The mayor said Domingo told him GenCorp was the most qualified and met the requirements; he estimated it was a lone bidder perhaps four times, but said he had not examined the abstracts of quotations himself and had asked Domingo only whether the process was lawful. Gatchalian also asked whether the mayor had spoken to GenCorp's officers or to shareholder Jaime T. Cruz about GenCorp. The mayor said no, while confirming a business relationship with Cruz as an individual in another company.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros questioned Mayor Sebastian Zimmerman Duterte about his authorization, through a representative, of Davao City's GenCorp contracts worth more than ₱30 million. She pressed the split between public bidding and small-value procurement and asked whether GenCorp faced competitors; the mayor gave inconsistent counts, accepted the four-public-bid formulation conditionally, and asked to check the records before confirming any lack of competition. Hontiveros then asked about Jaime T. Cruz and the Vice President's reported GenCorp interest. The mayor said he did not know about the claimed shared business interest, described Cruz as his father's friend and a known Davao businessman, and agreed with Hontiveros's characterization of a close family relationship.

Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson asked Mayor Sebastian Duterte whether a lawyer had briefed him on the Arias v. Sandiganbayan doctrine before his testimony. The mayor said no. Lacson then observed that the mayor had not denied questions about contracts and his dealings with the BAC, and described the doctrine as allowing office heads to rely in good faith on subordinates' processing and recommendations. The mayor affirmed Lacson's characterization of his earlier answers.

Sen. Erwin Tulfo asked Mayor Sebastian Zimmerman Duterte what kinds of documents he signs and whether he relies on prior review and countersignatures. The mayor listed payroll, contracts and ordinances, and said he signs after the city administrator has checked and countersigned documents. Tulfo explicitly offered a suggestion and manifestation that the mayor question his staff on the GenCorp matter when he returned to Davao, warning that inadequate checking could expose him to trouble. Asked whether he saw a legal breach or would examine the matter himself, the mayor said he did not know, referred the decision to the court, and said he saw nothing if his sister's name was absent from the contract. Later, during Sen. Joel Villanueva's questions, Tulfo clarified the mayor's estimate of 50 to 300 documents: the mayor confirmed that the figure was per day, depending on bulk arrivals.

Sen. Christopher Bong Go followed up on the mayoral paperwork discussed by Senators Erwin Tulfo and Alan Peter Cayetano. He observed that a mayor faces many documents, described delegation by executive order to a city administrator or assistant administrator and BAC review before papers reach the local chief executive, and recalled the former Davao mayor's instruction to city employees to act legally and properly. Go said he had not overlapped with Mayor Sebastian Duterte at City Hall. He asked no question in this manifestation, and the mayor gave no direct answer.

Sen. Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan observed that Mayor Sebastian Duterte had yet to verify whether the five-year operating requirement for GenCorp's procurement had been modified, so the hearing testimony had not settled compliance with that rule. Pangilinan then asked whether GenCorp met a separate requirement for five store outlets in Davao City and what those outlets and its food-catering supplies were. The mayor said he did not know whether GenCorp had five outlets. Pangilinan proposed checking city records to identify the outlets and supplies, and the mayor indicated that the records could be checked.

Sen. Joseph Victor "JV" G. Ejercito asked Mayor Sebastian Zimmerman Duterte whether he had entrusted delegated procurement authority to Assistant City Administrator Atty. Tristan Dwight P. Domingo in the expectation that Domingo would act in good faith; the mayor agreed. Ejercito then asked whether any City Hall employee had warned the mayor of a GenCorp link to his sister, Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte, or whether anyone, even anonymously, had reported a possible irregularity in GenCorp's city transactions. The mayor answered no to both. Ejercito noted that the reliance-on-subordinates doctrine discussed earlier could have an exception, but did not claim that an irregularity or legal exception had been established here.

Sen. Joel Villanueva invoked the workload of a mayor and asked Mayor Sebastian Duterte how many documents he signed in a day or week. Duterte estimated 50 to 300 in a day, depending on whether contracts and job orders arrived in bulk. Villanueva himself extrapolated a weekly figure and proposed that the mayor be dispensed with after that day. The presiding officer later thanked and excused the witness.

Asked about the five-year requirement, Mayor Duterte said, “I do not know that as of now. We can check our records in the city.”

Correcting the procurement count, Mayor Duterte said, “No, this is 19.”

On evaluation by city officials, Mayor Duterte said, “When it was submitted, the BAC did its job.”

The mayor said city records could be checked on GenCorp’s five-year line-of-business qualification and five-outlet condition. Senator-judges also sought bid abstracts and competitor information for the 19 city contracts.

The prosecution was to tell the court how it would proceed with former Sen. Trillanes. The chair said the subpoenaed registers of deeds for Davao City and Samal were expected at the next hearing.