July 22, 2026

Matibag testified that, to his recollection, the NBI had not created a special task force specifically for reported threats against the Vice President and that subpoenas to her in the earlier investigation were issued under former NBI director Jaime Santiago.

Matibag characterized the Vice President's public statement as an admission and opined that betrayal of public trust had already been consummated. That was sworn witness testimony and legal characterization, not a finding by the impeachment court.

Matibag said the NBI applied a five-factor threat-assessment method and did not classify every protest or act opposing the government as kinetic action. He nevertheless linked selected later events to a continuing threat assessment; those links were NBI interpretations presented through the witness.

Matibag said the NBI obtained the purported Lascañas affidavit from a source, did not subpoena Lascañas because he could not be found, and eventually used the material only as a reference for its claimed pattern of violence after an internal verification process.

A defense video excerpt showed the Vice President recounting that she imagined cutting the President's head after describing a child's humiliation. Matibag confirmed the NBI used that video in its pattern analysis, acknowledged he had not watched the entire recording, and denied treating the excerpt alone as a grave threat.

Matibag said intelligence work had narrowed the inquiry to fewer than 20 individuals and that some families or acquaintances had been contacted. He also referred generally to active-service personnel and at least one person connected with the Vice President's security group, but did not identify the actual contracted person.

Matibag said the NBI coordinated through the Executive Secretary, Presidential Security Command, military units, and the security cluster. He confirmed there was no separately named interagency task force and that confidential reports had gone to the Executive Secretary but not to the impeachment court.

With 17 senators present, Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian opened the sitting and turned the proceedings over to Presiding Officer Francis “Chiz” Escudero. The chair recalled NBI Director Melvin Matibag to continue defense cross-examination under the same oath.

The defense cross-examined Matibag about the NBI task force's creation and scope, its response to threats against different officials, the criminal and impeachment implications he drew from the Vice President's statements, and the confidentiality and duration of the continuing investigation.

Cross-examination then focused on the NBI's kinetic-action theory, a purported Lascañas affidavit used in its open-source work, the historical sheriff incident, and an October 2024 video excerpt that was played in court at the defense's request.

After cross-examination, the chair opened senator-judge interventions while the prosecution considered redirect. The prosecution later declined redirect, and senator-judge questioning continued on investigative consistency, persons of interest, active-service personnel, the reliability of changed testimony, interagency coordination, and whether supporting NBI reports had been submitted to the court.

After questioning concluded, the chair excused Matibag and identified him as the prosecution's last Article IV witness. The court set a July 23 conference for marking and comparing video exhibits, directed conditional subpoenas for two former Land Bank managers, and adjourned trial to July 29 at 10 a.m.

The chair noted the prosecution's continuing objection to the defense's description of the House proceeding as a “mini-trial,” but did not decide that broader characterization and allowed cross-examination to continue.

The chair denied the defense motion to strike Matibag's betrayal-of-public-trust answer. He left it in the record as the witness's answer for the senator-judges' consideration rather than adopting it as the court's conclusion.

The chair repeatedly stopped argumentative or answered questions, prevented counsel from debating each other, and directed that Matibag's answers be left for the senator-judges to assess.

The chair ruled that the purported Lascañas affidavit was not offered as an authentic document executed by Lascañas or as proof of the truth of its contents. Its stated use was limited to the NBI open-source investigation described by Matibag.

When the prosecution attempted to say it had established a national-security proposition, the chair barred counsel from stating conclusions of fact or law and accepted that no redirect would be conducted.

In response to a request for NBI coordination reports, the chair said the court should remain passive and receive evidence through the parties rather than independently obtain it.

The Chair controlled argumentative questioning, ruled on the scope and use of the purported Lascanas material, barred counsel conclusions, maintained the court passive as to NBI reports, and issued the closing procedural directions.

Sen. Panfilo "Ping" M. Lacson contrasted the NBI's handling of similar alleged threats by Mayor Sebastian Duterte and Vice President Sara Duterte. He asked whether Mayor Duterte was under active investigation, whether the Special Task Force began with his case or the Vice President's, and why the NBI used Mayor Duterte's statements as open-source material while pursuing a DOJ complaint against the Vice President; Lacson said the disparity could suggest a double standard. NBI Director Melvin Matibag said the Mayor Duterte incident had triggered the task force within a broader threat assessment and that the NBI was still building a possible conspiracy case. Lacson also tested the use of Arturo Lascañas's ICC affidavit, asking whether it had evidentiary value and why the NBI's open-source review had not accounted for Lascañas's Senate reversals and multiple affidavits. Matibag said the affidavit was a reference for a pattern-of-violence analysis, not direct criminal proof; the bureau knew of the reversals, compared the document with Lascañas's public account of it, and noted that the ICC was considering it.

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano asked whether the NBI had ultimately accepted Arturo Lascañas's affidavit after Director Melvin Matibag said it was not believed immediately. Matibag said the agency later relied on the affidavit in its pattern-of-violence analysis after its investigative process, clarifying the document's place in the NBI theory.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros asked whether Vice President Sara Duterte had answered, in any way, allegations in Arturo Lascañas's affidavit, which NBI Director Melvin Matibag said had been reviewed as part of the wider inquiry into her capacity to carry out the alleged threat. Matibag said the bureau considered open-source reports as well as the affidavit, and recalled reports that Duterte had said she did not need the DDS to do what it could do. Asked to specify that reported statement, he supplied the latter phrase but said he could not recall the exact wording.

Sen. Erwin Tulfo asked NBI Director Melvin Matibag how investigators identified the persons of interest whom Vice President Sara Duterte had allegedly asked to kill the President, First Lady, and former House Speaker, when her press conference did not name them. Matibag said the NBI combined open-source and human intelligence with monitoring tools, then narrowed a larger pool. Asked what could be said about the individuals without identifying them, Matibag described examining Duterte's networks, including people in uniform, the Vice Presidential Security Group, and the Davao Death Squad, and said the pool had been reduced to a few personalities. Tulfo then asked whether the threat remained capable of execution and whether the President and PSG had been notified. Matibag called it an active, continuing threat because the people approached had not been identified, and said the NBI maintained ongoing coordination and threat assessments with the Palace.

Sen. Raffy T. Tulfo compared the earlier arrests of Ronel Mas, Ronald Quiboyen, Maria Catherine Seron, and Joe Mark Ebkay with the NBI's handling of alleged threats by Vice President Sara Duterte and Mayor Sebastian Duterte. After Director Melvin Matibag described the earlier cases as PNP-CIDG arrests involving alleged offers of rewards to kill former President Rodrigo Duterte, Tulfo noted that the accused were ordinary citizens and asked why law enforcement had used what he called a heavy hand against them while treating powerful figures differently. Matibag said he could not speak for the earlier officers, acknowledged that the warrantless arrests had led to the cases' dismissal, and said the present investigation was following case build-up and court process. Asked who had ordered the earlier arrests, Matibag did not identify an order and instead said that evidence, law, and process should govern. Tulfo then used a hypothetical involving Leni Robredo and President Duterte to ask whether authorities would have acted just as quickly; Matibag said that outcome was possible.

Sen. Joel Villanueva asked NBI Director Melvin Matibag whether the investigation's projected three-to-six-month development meant it was now verifying the identity of the person whom Vice President Sara Duterte said she had approached, rather than determining whether such a person existed. Matibag called Duterte's video statement an extrajudicial admission that someone had been approached; he said the inquiry was directed at identifying that person and assessing the threat to national security, not treating an unexecuted discussion alone as a crime. Villanueva also asked whether current information about the Davao Death Squad, rather than historical background alone, informed that assessment. Matibag said the NBI had narrowed a broader pool to fewer than 20 people and was speaking with relatives and associates; he said the inquiry was not confined to the group and included active personnel in uniform and the Vice Presidential Security Group.

Sen. Paolo Benigno "Bam" Aquino asked why AO 11's task force included the Transnational Crime Division and whether the alleged plot had an international dimension or non-Filipino participants. NBI Director Melvin Matibag said the division was included to examine the people involved, their capacity, funding, and network, as well as threats to the President during foreign travel. Aquino pressed whether its inclusion instead reflected possible foreign intervention in the plot; Matibag said that remained an angle under consideration, but not the division's main purpose.

Sen. Robinhood "Robin" Padilla challenged the prosecution over contradictions he said appeared in Arturo Lascañas's earlier statements and affidavit. Lead prosecutor Gerville Luistro resisted giving the requested label and agreed, in the Chair's formulation, that a witness whose accounts change may be unreliable. Padilla then asked the prosecution to avoid presenting witnesses with pending perjury cases, naming Jeremy Lotoc and NBI Agent Calilung. Luistro said its verification found no pending cases against the prosecution witnesses and added that a conviction disqualifies a witness only if final, punishable by more than a year, and involving moral turpitude. Padilla also asked why the ICC had been raised; Luistro said it appeared in the Lascañas affidavit that the prosecution offered as part of the testimony and NBI special-task-force investigation. Turning to Director Melvin Matibag, Padilla probed his political work and past relationship with Padilla; Matibag acknowledged helping candidates and parties but said he was Mar Roxas's Region IV-A campaign manager in 2016, not an architect of Rodrigo Duterte's victory.

Sen. Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan asked NBI Director Melvin Matibag whether the agency had coordinated with other government bodies after treating the alleged threat as a national-security concern, and which agencies were involved. Matibag described continuing coordination through the security cluster, the Office of the Executive Secretary, and military units, while declining to name the specific unit. Pangilinan then tested the opposite hypothetical: Matibag said the NBI had monitored no retaliatory threat by the President and that retaliation would not justify a threat; self-defense, he added, depends on its legal elements and an actual danger. The exchange separated interagency response from whether a perceived threat could excuse a counter-threat.

Sen. Christopher Bong Go addressed the 2011 confrontation between then-Mayor Sara Duterte and a sheriff, which had been raised during the defense cross-examination. He asked NBI Director Melvin Matibag whether a fair investigation must consider the context of a person's actions; Matibag said historical behavior could be used to establish a pattern of violence. Go then asked about the demolition affecting 217 families and the city's flood aftermath. Matibag said the sheriff was carrying a legal demolition order and that he had only been informed that day of the asserted surrounding circumstances. Go gave his personal recollection that Duterte had asked for a short delay so residents without relocation could remain, arguing that this episode differed from the acts under investigation and should be assessed in context.

Sen. Pia S. Cayetano confronted NBI Director Melvin Matibag with his May 13 statements that he had been at Sequoia Hotel with deputy directors and that they were on stand down rather than at the Senate; he confirmed both. She then contrasted his account that only four to six agents had circulated the GSIS premises, not entered the Senate, with the Senate's listed GSIS Building address and what she said video showed behind Sen. Loren Legarda's office. Invoking the rules on weighing evidence and impeaching credibility, Cayetano said other video contradicted Matibag's reported assertion that no one had been hurt or beaten, and left it to the body and Chair whether to show it.

Sen. Imee Marcos asked NBI Director Melvin Matibag to reconcile the bureau's earlier statements that it had leads and findings when it filed grave-threat and inciting-to-sedition complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte with its continuing inability, 14 months later, to identify the alleged assassin. Matibag said an identified assassin was not an element of those complaints: the NBI considered their elements complete, while separately investigating what it called an active national-security threat. Marcos challenged whether that distinction squared with the House testimony; Matibag maintained that the earlier reference was to leads and persons of interest, not an identified assassin. She then asked why Administrative Order No. 11 and a special task force were needed, including whether the Rage Coalition event supported an alleged conspiracy between Duterte and Mayor Baste. Matibag said Duterte neither attended nor spoke at that event, but the NBI was examining a possible conspiracy and still needed to build a case. Marcos questioned what the task force could add while impeachment was under way and asked whether Matibag could return after the stated three-to-six-month investigation. Matibag did not address that request; instead, he said impeachment did not require a criminal conviction, while the NBI still had to identify the people involved and determine the threat's full scope for the criminal inquiry.

Sen. Loren Legarda asked NBI Director Melvin Matibag whether the NBI had coordinated with other agencies over the alleged threats and whether that coordination was documented. Matibag said the NBI had coordinated with the Presidential Security Command, the military, and the security cluster through the Executive Secretary, to whom he submitted reports. Legarda then pressed the description of an interagency task force, asking when it was formed, whether it had a name and terminal report, and whether its work had been submitted as evidence. Matibag said there was no specific task force, only coordination, and said confidential reports could not be shared with the Impeachment Court; he confirmed that the Court had no copy. Legarda ended her questions there.

The prosecution maintained that the House Committee on Justice had conducted a clarificatory hearing under House impeachment rules, not a mini-trial, and preserved a continuing objection to the defense's terminology.

The prosecution defended Matibag's betrayal-of-public-trust answer as responsive to the defense's question.

The prosecution argued that the defense was misleading Matibag about whether the NBI immediately believed the Lascañas material, characterizing his testimony as describing investigative steps before the material was used.

The prosecution declined redirect and said the Lascañas material had been presented as part of Matibag's testimony and the NBI task-force investigation, not as a notarized affidavit.

The defense contrasted the NBI's response to threats against the President with its response to reported threats against the Vice President, emphasizing Matibag's recollection that no special task force had been created for the latter and that the earlier subpoenas predated his tenure.

The defense questioned whether the current investigation had a criminal basis or instead sought to substantiate the impeachment case, and it challenged Matibag's betrayal-of-public-trust answer as a conclusion of fact and law.

The defense challenged the NBI's kinetic-action theory as overbroad, asking whether distant political events or opposition to government were being attributed to the Vice President despite her absence from the April 2026 RAGE event. It also emphasized constitutional protection for political speech.

The defense attacked the Lascañas material as unreliable and insufficiently verified, emphasizing the purported affidavit's unsigned and unnotarized status, questioning Lascañas's prior Senate testimony, noting the absence of a subpoena to him, and saying the Vice President had not formally been allowed to answer the material.

The defense played an excerpt of the Vice President's October 2024 remarks and argued that the statement about imagining cutting the President's head was said in jest and taken out of context. It also supplied flood-relief and eviction context for the 2011 sheriff incident.

Matibag described the narrowing inquiry this way: “We are narrowing it down already to less than 20 individuals, at may mga pangalan na po kami nito.”

Asked to estimate the chance of a positive investigative result, Matibag answered: “From the scale of 1 to 10, nandoon po tayo ngayon sa 6 to 7 po.”

Escudero stated the limit on the Lascañas material: “not as proof of its authenticity and the truth of the contents contained in the affidavit or document purporting to be executed by Lascañas.”

The NBI had not confirmed the identity of the person allegedly contracted to harm the President. Matibag described a narrowed pool and a probability estimate, but the inquiry remained unfinished.

A possible conspiracy involving the Vice President and Mayor Sebastian Duterte remained only an investigative angle. Matibag said no case had been filed because the evidence had not yet met the threshold he described.

The confidential reports underlying NBI coordination had not been submitted to the impeachment court. Matibag said they had been provided through the Executive Secretary, while the chair said the court would await evidence presented through the parties.

Although subpoenas were directed for Constantino and Camposano, the chair left open a possible change in presentation order and said the subpoenas could be recalled if circumstances changed before July 29.