July 21, 2026

Matibag testified as NBI Director and described an Administrative Order creating a task force; his account of the earlier investigation was based on NBI records rather than his personal participation.

Matibag said the task force was still active, had persons of interest, and had not publicly identified a specific alleged contact; he explained that disclosure could compromise the inquiry and informants.

Videos and an affidavit of authentication were displayed or identified during direct examination, but their presentation did not itself decide what weight the court would give them.

The Lascañas statement became a central evidentiary dispute: the witness described it as material considered by the NBI, while the court restricted the use of his testimony about its contents.

The court allowed use of Matibag's copy of a document for confirmation while preserving later comparison with a certified true copy and any defense challenge to differences.

After quorum and appearances, the prosecution called NBI Director Melvin Matibag as its last witness for Article IV; he was placed under oath.

The court allowed the prosecution to proceed with task-force testimony while recording the defense's continuing objection and requiring the witness, rather than counsel, to characterize the alleged statements.

Direct examination covered the NBI's ongoing task-force inquiry, videos shown in court, and documents that Matibag said the task force had considered.

After a recess, the defense began cross-examination, including questions about the earlier NBI inquiry, subpoenas, and documents the witness had not personally executed or issued.

The court granted the defense a continuance, heard senator-judge interventions, and adjourned until July 22 for continued cross-examination and any redirect, recross, and further questions.

The court permitted the task-force testimony subject to the defense's continuing objection; it described the alleged threat as a proposition the prosecution would try to prove, not as a court conclusion.

The court denied the defense request to strike Matibag's answer about the task force's observations, leaving its weight for the senator-judges' appreciation.

On the Lascañas statement, the court allowed Matibag to say it had passed through or was used in the NBI inquiry, but not to establish the truth of its allegations through his testimony.

The court allowed the witness to use his own copy of a document without prejudice to later comparison with a certified true copy and to defense cross-examination about differences.

The court sustained an objection to a question calling for a legal conclusion while the NBI inquiry remained ongoing, directing the prosecution to rephrase.

The Chair ruled on task-force testimony, Matibag?s answer, document-copy use, the limited use of Lascanas material, and a legal-conclusion objection.

Sen. Joel Villanueva first sought guidance on how material developments from the NBI's continuing investigation could be brought before the Impeachment Court after the Article 4 evidence closed. The Presiding Officer declined to resolve that hypothetical in advance, while recognizing that reopening could be available under the rules and leaving any move to the parties. Villanueva then asked Director Melvin Matibag how the NBI evaluates an allegation that someone ordered or contracted another person to commit a crime. He stressed that constitutional accountability in impeachment differs from criminal liability, and asked why an individual not yet identified is different from a conclusion that no such individual exists. Matibag distinguished the completed investigations into grave threats and inciting to sedition from the continuing effort to identify the alleged person contacted to kill.

Sen. Raffy T. Tulfo used the warrantless arrest of teacher Ronell Mas as a comparison point after Director Melvin Matibag recounted that Mas had offered a PHP 50 million reward for the killing of former President Rodrigo Duterte. Tulfo challenged the contrast with Vice President Sara Duterte's case as special treatment, then asked whether Mayor Sebastian "Baste" Duterte's statement that President Marcos's head was the one they needed amounted to a bounty or threat, and why it had not led to an arrest. Matibag called the remark a threat to the President and national security, said he could not account for the earlier NBI treatment because he was not then with the bureau, and said Mas's case had been dismissed after the warrantless arrest, an outcome the NBI was guarding against.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros sought the NBI's account of vlogger Princess Maui and of the competing accounts of Oplan Romanov. Director Melvin Matibag said he understood Princess Maui to be a DDS-aligned vlogger; she had been invited to the NBI but did not appear and remained under cybercrime monitoring. Hontiveros contrasted Atty. Lotoc's account of a threat from Mayor Sebastian "Baste" Duterte to the President and his family with Princess Maui's account of a threat to the Vice President and the Duterte family. Matibag said the earlier NBI inquiry had subpoenaed Princess Maui and the Vice President, neither of whom had apparently attended; he linked "Romanov" to Baste Duterte's January 2024 remarks and said a task force was continuing surveillance and investigation. Pressed on actionable intelligence, Matibag said the NBI was monitoring a continuing threat to the President but did not treat the assertion of a threat to the Vice President as actionable intelligence; he said that claim had come only from Princess Maui.

Sen. Paolo Benigno "Bam" Aquino asked NBI Director Melvin Matibag for his professional assessment of whether Vice President Sara Duterte had actually spoken to someone about carrying out the killings she had mentioned, notwithstanding the continuing investigation. Matibag said the Vice President's own statement made him certain that she had; pressed for a probability, he answered 100 percent, saying she had described a plan and said the person contacted had agreed.

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano asked that his written continuing objection to the July 20 subpoena ruling be entered in the journal, rather than only in the record and transcript. He moved reconsideration of the previous day's journal approval so the objection could be included as an amendment.

Questioning NBI Director Melvin Matibag, Cayetano said he accepted the need to investigate threats but challenged the task force's method of reading Vice President Sara Duterte's video. If it credited her statement that someone had agreed to kill three officials, he asked, why did it discount her preceding statement that she herself would be killed and her allegation of massive corruption? Matibag said the task force focused on the threat whose legal elements it found present and treated the other statement as cover for it. Cayetano then questioned Matibag's assertion that the NBI could investigate any crime motu proprio, citing Republic Act No. 10867's enumerated offenses and its provision for a presidential or Justice Department directive; Matibag said the list did not limit the bureau's role as the primary investigating body.

Sen. Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan asked NBI Director Melvin Matibag whether a Vice President's higher trust rating than the President's could negate an allegation of betrayal of public trust. Matibag said no: surveys are a numerical snapshot, whereas betrayal of public trust is a constitutional impeachment ground measured against the evidence, not popularity. Pangilinan followed up to make that distinction clear for the public; Matibag agreed that either a positive or negative trust rating is irrelevant to a conviction or acquittal.

Sen. Pia S. Cayetano challenged how the prosecution was using the Arturo Lascañas material. After lead prosecutor Gerville Luistro said it was offered to show what occurred in the NBI task-force investigation, Cayetano asked whether it could be authenticated: the document was not notarized, the witness had not seen it executed, and the defense said it bore no original signature. Luistro answered that the witness had not seen it executed and did not dispute the defense's point on the signature. Cayetano then turned to the rules on impeaching a witness through contradictory evidence or evidence bearing on truthfulness, but deferred the point when she could not locate her notes; the Chair reserved her first senator-judge intervention for the next sitting.

Sen. Juan Miguel "Migz" F. Zubiri asked whether recalling the subpoenas for Violeta Constantino and Nanita Camposano meant their testimony would not be taken up the following day while NBI Director Melvin Matibag's testimony continued. The Chair confirmed that it would not, based on the parties' earlier discussion. Zubiri then asked when the article would resume and corrected the proposed Monday date to Tuesday because of the State of the Nation Address; the Chair said the trial would not sit on either day and identified July 29 as the next trial date.

The prosecution said the task force and related investigation were relevant to Article IV because they addressed what it called a possible broader threat, and it sought to have Matibag explain the task force's work.

The prosecution presented videos of Sebastian Duterte and the Vice President as material it said the task force compared in its inquiry.

The prosecution argued that the Lascañas document was being used to show what the task force considered, rather than to prove the truth of its contents.

The prosecution opposed the defense request for a continuance, saying it wanted cross-examination completed that day and, if allowed, to proceed to redirect.

The defense made a continuing relevance and due-process objection to the task-force testimony, arguing that the task force and related allegations were outside the impeachment articles.

The defense challenged Matibag's ability to testify to the contents of the Lascañas statement, arguing he had not executed it and lacked personal knowledge; it also raised authentication and document-copy concerns.

On cross, the defense emphasized that Matibag became NBI Director after the earlier inquiry and did not personally participate in its subpoenas, interviews, or execution of related affidavits.

The defense sought a continuance after cross-examination had begun and requested copies of the Lascañas material and AO No. 11 for use in continuing the examination.

The chair said the Lascañas document could be considered only "not as to the truth and the contents of the affidavit itself" through the witness's testimony.

Asked when the task force would identify the alleged contact, Matibag said, "I cannot give the exact time," then offered an expected three-to-six-month timeframe for clearer data.

The NBI inquiry remained ongoing; Matibag did not identify a specific alleged contact or give a firm completion date.

The court did not decide the truth of the allegations in the Lascañas statement through Matibag's testimony, and its authentication and evidentiary treatment remained contested.

Matibag's cross-examination was not completed, and redirect, recross, and additional senator-judge interventions were reserved for the following sitting.

The chair deferred action on requested subpoenas for Marivic Pareja, Roderick Wamil, and Aileen May Del Campo, and temporarily recalled subpoenas for Violeta Constantino and Nanita Camposano.