July 22, 2026

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.

Panfilo Lacson corrected the record: he said Arturo Lascañas had changed his testimony, but his former committee had recommended increasing the statutory penalty for perjury rather than filing a perjury case against Lascañas.

Erwin Tulfo asked how the NBI developed its persons of interest, whether the alleged threat remained active, and whether the President's security detail had been informed. Matibag cited intelligence methods, described the threat as continuing, and said the NBI coordinated with the Palace.

Lacson asked why the NBI had referred a case involving the Vice President but had not taken comparable action against Mayor Sebastian Duterte, raising a possible double standard. He also challenged the completeness of the NBI's open-source review of Lascañas's inconsistent accounts.

Raffy Tulfo contrasted warrantless arrests of ordinary citizens over threats with the process used for powerful figures and asked whether law enforcement applied a double standard. Matibag agreed the earlier arrests were improper and said the current NBI used case build-up before seeking a warrant.

Sherwin Gatchalian asked whether the persons of interest included the actual contracted killer. Matibag said the NBI had not confirmed that, that some persons of interest might only point to that person, and that he rated the chance of a positive result at six or seven out of ten.

Risa Hontiveros asked whether every changed account becomes wholly untruthful and whether the Vice President's security complement affected the NBI's capacity analysis. Matibag said courts assess the circumstances and compare changed testimony with other documentary or testimonial evidence, and he confirmed that the security complement was considered under the capacity factor.

Pia Cayetano confronted Matibag with prior statements about whether NBI personnel were at the Sequoia Hotel or the GSIS/Senate premises and invoked witness-credibility rules. Her intervention challenged credibility but did not itself establish a false statement.

Imee Marcos pressed Matibag on why no alleged assassin had been identified despite the earlier grave-threats and inciting-to-sedition complaints. Matibag said no assassin had been identified in February and maintained that identification was not an element of those complaints.

Marcos suggested that Matibag could return in three to six months after the NBI identified the alleged assassin. The record does not show the chair adopting or ruling on that proposal.

Loren Legarda asked for official documentation of interagency coordination and whether any report had been submitted to the court. Matibag said there was no separately named interagency task force and that confidential reports had gone to the Executive Secretary, not the impeachment court.

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 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.

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.