October 7, 2026

Introduction

This is Working Draft's audio overview of the Impeachment Trial of Vice President Sara Duterte for October 7, 2026. This is a working reference, not an official Senate record.

The central dispute

Marwin L. Galvez, Division Head for Central Metro Manila Branches of the Bank of the Philippine Islands, gave the day's principal sustained testimony. He explained subpoenaed records, rather than accounts he had personally handled. The long financial-evidence day moved from bank balances and manager's checks to insurance policies and securities. The prosecution sought to trace money and support alleged under-declaration. The defense tested whether those records established Vice President Sara Duterte's participation or knowledge.

Balances and money moving through accounts

Morning witnesses from AUB and PSBank identified accounts and annual balances. Metrobank described customer checks and reporting procedures. Security Bank distinguished company accounts from personal ones and said Sara Duterte had no account there. Senator Raffy Tulfo questioned why a relatively small ending balance differed from roughly forty million pesos in a forensic report. Security Bank's Leslie Y. Cham separated the year-end snapshot from money moving through the account: about forty point one four million pesos flowed in during 2024, and about forty million flowed out. Those transaction amounts were not the ending balance. The court allowed totals within one year but prohibited adding ending balances across different years.

How the BPI checks worked

Galvez explained that time deposits count toward total balances, and matured proceeds go into a settlement account. Buying a funded manager's check debits the purchaser's account and moves the backing money to the bank's settlement account. The amount therefore leaves the customer's visible deposit balance before the check is encashed. Expiration alone does not return it. The original unused check must be returned; reissuing a check debits the funds again. Senator Chiz Escudero explored those mechanics. Senator Panfilo Lacson asked whether the prosecution was arguing concealment through circulating checks, and counsel James Bryan Ibrahim A. Alih agreed. But Galvez could not confirm deliberate year-end concealment or explain the clients' purposes. Senator Bam Aquino's questions about deliberate six-month cycling produced no definitive answer about legality.

Tracing funds and testing signatures

Alih described approximately forty-one million and fifty-five million pesos moving through transactions and later combining for insurance purchases. His presentation included four twenty-million-peso transfers for peso plans and a separate payment of approximately sixteen million pesos. Defense counsel Michael Wesley Poa asked for the Vice President's signatures on actual transaction instructions. The chair reported none in the premarked transaction-document inventory, while distinguishing account-opening and know-your-customer forms bearing her signature. For the account discussed, Galvez said Rodrigo Duterte's signature was required; Sara Duterte's signature alone could not operate it. Both had signed customer-identification documents. Galvez could not determine her knowledge of the transactions.

Questions the bank witness could not settle

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian explored the paired deposits and checks and their absence from earlier asset declarations. Poa stressed that awareness remained the issue and said Rodrigo Duterte signed the transactions. Senator Risa Hontiveros questioned control of the forty-one-million-peso check; Poa said the Vice President recalled no account or transaction and denied participation, while reserving her father's defenses. Senators Vicente Sotto and Joel Villanueva also pursued BPI's corrected reporting error. Galvez lacked the relevant responsibility or information to explain it. The court required a proper witness to authenticate BPI legal correspondence after Galvez could not identify it, and removed its display. Poa undertook to present that witness during the defense's turn.

Other banks and limits on disclosure

PNB's Julius Palma Parian said the accounts discussed belonged individually to Manases Reyes Carpio, and Sara Duterte had no PNB account. He identified four withdrawals on August 6, 2024, totaling eighteen million pesos. BDO presented separate and joint records, but its witness could not confirm the prosecution's displayed combined figures as a bank total. The chair prohibited disclosure of covered and suspicious transaction report submissions. Foreign-account questions outside the subpoena were also stopped. Senator Robin Padilla asked about manager's-check authorization; Galvez explained that proper instructions and adequate funds were required. Galvez said the submitted documents showed no wrongdoing by Rodrigo Duterte.

Insurance: three different values

Insurance testimony required separating the premium paid, the death benefit, and the amount available on withdrawal. FWD's Juan Sotero Roman authenticated Carpio's policy with a premium of ten million six hundred thousand pesos and a sum assured of thirteen million two hundred fifty thousand pesos. The withdrawal value depended on investments and surrender charges; full surrender ended coverage. Escudero, Gatchalian and Sotto tested those distinctions. The death benefit was not an immediately withdrawable amount. Roman also distinguished suspicion from court-established money laundering. The prosecution offered policy records for its under-declaration theory, but the court limited questions to company records and personal knowledge, stopped speculative hypotheticals, and later removed specified asset-declaration material from offers.

Policy ownership and knowledge

Manulife presented premiums, top-ups and regular payments, correcting one total to five hundred twenty-eight thousand pesos. Pru Life initially described ten policies, but the court confined presentation to the five owned by the respondent and spouse. Its witness distinguished premiums from sums assured and could not establish the Vice President's knowledge of Carpio's policies. AIA identified a single premium of thirty thousand US dollars. Allianz PNB Life identified premiums of eleven thousand seven hundred and one hundred thousand US dollars. Their witnesses explained that spousal signatures or notifications were not required in the circumstances discussed. Allianz did not know how surrendered proceeds were subsequently used. BDO Life identified two Sara Duterte policies and one Carpio policy, and said no fixed industry norm governed policy count.

Securities purchases and remaining holdings

The final witness, Janet D. Amora of BDO Securities, separated purchases from redemptions and acquisition cost from market valuation. For 2020 through 2025, she reported about twelve million nine hundred forty-five thousand pesos in equity purchases and twenty-two million five hundred thousand pesos in bond subscriptions. After redemptions, outstanding bonds were twelve million pesos. She described the equity position as about thirteen million and the combined year-end 2025 position as twenty-five million. The account was solely Carpio's; notices went to him, and records lacked the Vice President's signature. Amora could not say whether she knew of the investments.

Where the hearing stopped

Amora completed cross-examination with no redirect and was excused. Her totals document remained for marking at the proper time outside open court. The prosecution requested deferral of the BIR witness; she was not presented and was excused for the day. The clerk was to summarize requested bank material for the senator-judges and both parties. A requested BDO manager's-check explanation would be supplied if included in subpoenaed submissions, and the China and Hong Kong company-information request remained in process. The chair suspended trial until the following day at ten in the morning.

Closing

Each substantive point in this overview links to the reviewed transcript and the official Senate video. This has been the October 7, 2026 audio overview.