October 8, 2026

Garcia-Marquez testified under oath about tax records submitted for Vice President Sara Duterte, her husband Atty. Manases R. Carpio, and identified business entities. A certified public accountant and lawyer, she said her office reviews documents for the BIR commissioner and submitted the records required by the court’s subpoena.

Garcia-Marquez said the October 6 summaries answered the prosecution panel’s request for information in filed annual income tax returns. Revenue district staff encoded figures; technical assistants in the commissioner’s office, including her, reviewed them through two levels of review, and she finalized the summaries.

Reading Annex A, Garcia-Marquez put the spouses’ combined income net of expenses and tax for 2007–2025 at ₱85,343,803.23. She said the non-taxable-income and income-subject-to-final-tax lines contained no reported amounts in the filed returns.

From the spouses’ joint audited financial statements, Garcia-Marquez read cash on hand and in banks of ₱21,234,980 at December 31, 2022; ₱28,971,725 at December 31, 2023; ₱15,525,209 at December 31, 2024; and ₱13,804,540 at December 31, 2025. She explained that cash has its own line item in financial statements.

During Atty. Erwin G. Matib’s questions about Duterte’s other income, Garcia-Marquez read ₱1,082,800 for 2025 and ₱1,058,021 for 2024 from the joint financial statements, apart from compensation income. She said the statements did not identify that income’s source; she associated it with legal practice because Duterte’s BIR registration listed her as a professional engaged in legal activities. Atty. Kristine R. Ferrer challenged that inference, and the chair noted that Garcia-Marquez had not been qualified as an expert.

Garcia-Marquez identified a signed BIR Form 2316 attached to Duterte’s 2023 return naming the City Government of Davao as employer. She identified City Accountant Vingeline A. Bahan and Duterte as signatories and said the form recorded Duterte’s receipt of compensation income from the city government in taxable year 2023.

Garcia-Marquez said both lawful and unlawful income are taxable. Answering the chair, she confirmed that a letter of authority had been issued in relation to Duterte or her spouse, but said its details were confidential and outside the subpoenaed documents.

For 2021, Garcia-Marquez read gross compensation income of ₱2,361,252 and sales, revenues, receipts or fees of ₱4,650,000. She also read ₱3,188,776 in net sales, revenues, receipts or fees for 2017, ₱1,876,417 for 2018, and ₱4,051,000 for 2019, in addition to compensation income. She confirmed that the returns used those revenue labels and that her association with legal practice came from the registration documents. The court limited pre-vice-presidency records to baseline or pattern evidence.

Garcia-Marquez read a BIR certification reporting no database record of a transfer, sale or disposition of Manases Carpio’s Cale88 Foods Corporation shares, or related tax payments, assessments or settlements. She said the BIR had issued no eCAR and had no pending application. She explained that BIR rules require the tax-payment record before registering a share transfer in the corporation’s books. Asked about validity, she said a transfer may be valid between the parties and referred the contractual question to the law on contracts.

Garcia-Marquez said the 2025 statements of management responsibility were signed by Duterte and Carpio as proprietors and acknowledged their responsibility for information in their returns and attachments. She confirmed that the statements were signed but were not under oath.

On Atty. Kristine R. Ferrer’s cross-examination, Garcia-Marquez said she instructed regional offices to retrieve documents with the commissioner’s permission, but did not personally perform the retrieval. She confirmed that RDO 113A staff encoded the spouses’ original figures, while the commissioner’s office reviewed and finalized the tables.

Atty. Kristine R. Ferrer questioned differences between the July 30 compliance tables and the October 6 summaries. Garcia-Marquez said some information in the later summaries came from the earlier tables and that the later submission answered the prosecution’s specific request. She identified added columns for non-taxable income and income subject to final tax; her office also encoded those columns and income net of tax from copies of the annual returns.

Atty. Erwin G. Matib completed direct examination, and Atty. Kristine R. Ferrer’s cross-examination remained unfinished. Garcia-Marquez committed to return for the October 9 hearing at 10 a.m., with a new subpoena to be issued.