July 20, 2026

The sitting opened with collateral senator manifestations unrelated to the articles of impeachment. After debate over the proper forum, the chair left Robin Padilla's statement in the record but referred collateral disputes involving senators to the Senate acting as a legislative body.

The court resumed consideration of the prosecution's two subpoena requests: one for banking and AMLC records and another for BIR records. Joel Villanueva questioned the parties about the distinction between production and admission, relevance and definiteness, proportionality, and AMLC confidentiality.

Pia Cayetano then asked both sides about Stonehill v. Diokno, due process, privacy, the exclusionary rule, the sufficiency of ultimate facts, and the defense's fishing-expedition objection. Alan Peter Cayetano later examined the parties' opposing readings of Duterte v. House, current-term limits, judicial review, unexplained wealth, corporate separateness, and whether the House could have opened the sealed BIR box.

Presiding Officer Francis Escudero announced the first order on the bank and AMLC request and then the second order on the BIR request. The orders granted substantial portions of the requested compulsory process while imposing limits on the covered entities, currencies, historical use, confidentiality, privilege, and later receipt or admission.

After the orders, the chair clarified at Alan Peter Cayetano's request that catch-all phrases did not enlarge the listed documents. The court invited written senator-judge explanations, set a July 21 conference for video-exhibit markings, revised the next witness schedule, and adjourned to July 21 at 2 p.m.

The chair ruled that Padilla's opening manifestation would remain in the record, but directed that collateral matters involving senators be raised in the Senate legislative session rather than prolong the impeachment proceeding. This was a forum and record-management ruling, not a decision on the outside allegations.

The chair said the prosecution had filed two motions and the court would act on each as a whole. Under the impeachment precedent he cited, an appeal would address a motion en toto rather than divide it into separately appealed sub-issues.

For the bank and AMLC request, the court found the specified documents reasonably described and prima facie relevant to Article 2. It authorized 2007-2021 records only as a comparative financial baseline connected to the respondent's present term, not as proof of another independent impeachable offense, and reserved their admissibility and evidentiary use.

The court granted specified peso-account requests involving the respondent, her spouse, Carpio Lawyers, and nineteen linked entities. It denied the requests involving JTC Group of Companies and the second corporation rendered in the reviewed transcript as Pikimong-Pikimong Philippines Corporation because the prosecution had not shown a prima facie nexus at that stage.

Foreign-currency deposits were excluded unless the respective depositors gave written consent. The court also rejected a blanket attorney-client privilege claim for Carpio Lawyers while preserving the ability of the partnership or a client to assert privilege over a particular document at the proper time.

The court rejected AMLC's confidentiality provisions as a blanket bar to lawful impeachment-court compulsory process. It nevertheless required AMLC material to be submitted strictly in camera to protect sensitive methods and information, with later inspection, comparison, photocopying, or marking handled with counsel present.

The BIR subpoena was authorized only as a preliminary procedural step. The court directed the Commissioner to make a lawful return on July 30 and said it would not receive tax records without a satisfactory showing that a statutory exception permitted their disclosure; the defense retained later relevance, authenticity, admissibility, and other objections.

The chair made clear that only specifically enumerated documents were covered by the orders; phrases such as 'including but not limited to' and 'all other relevant documents' did not expand their scope.

The court set a July 21 conference for transfer of markings and comparison of video exhibits and granted the defense equal latitude to mark or change markings. Both steps remained without prejudice to later relevance and admissibility objections.

The chair referred a letter concerning a proposed mechanism for Senator Rodante Marcoleta's vote to the Senate acting as a legislative body. The impeachment court did not authorize his participation or voting during this sitting.

Joel Villanueva asked whether subpoena issuance merely compelled production and remained separate from opening, presenting, admitting, and weighing records. He also asked the parties to address relevance, definiteness, necessity, proportionality, fishing expedition, and whether confidentiality could be protected through court safeguards.

Pia Cayetano asked both sides whether Stonehill v. Diokno's particularity and exclusionary-rule principles applied to financial-record subpoenas. She also pressed them on privacy, the alleged absence of ultimate facts, the defense's fishing-expedition theory, and the legal basis of the earlier AMLC disclosure.

Alan Peter Cayetano questioned the parties at length about whether Duterte v. House's current-term language was controlling, the availability of judicial review for grave abuse, the distinction between ultimate and evidentiary facts, unexplained versus ill-gotten wealth, transaction flows versus balances, corporate separateness, and the sealed BIR box.

After the orders, Alan Peter Cayetano sought permission to file a written explanation of the provisions he agreed and disagreed with. He also asked the chair to eliminate catch-all document language, prompting the court's narrowing clarification.

Pia Cayetano said she understood the court's baseline rationale but would have preferred beginning with records from the respondent's 2022-2026 vice-presidential term and going farther back only if needed.

Robin Padilla invoked equal protection and transparency, contrasted the treatment of the Vice President with the House's handling of another impeachment complaint, and proposed that all officials open their bank records if that became the standard. The court did not adopt that proposal.

Erwin Tulfo objected to using impeachment-court time for senators' outside disputes and urged that the proceeding remain focused on the Vice President's case. His intervention preceded the chair's referral of collateral matters to the Senate proper.

Vicente Sotto moved to refer the opening collateral manifestations to the Senate proper. Kiko Pangilinan argued that the impeachment rules' suppletory reference did not turn personal-privilege matters into impeachment business; the chair later adopted referral while leaving Padilla's statement in the record.

The prosecution argued that subpoena issuance would compel production without deciding admissibility. It said particular records could later be offered and opposed at the admissibility stage.

The prosecution described SALNs and tax returns as partial snapshots and argued that bank flows, BIR records, and AMLC material were necessary to reconstruct the respondent's lawful income and financial position over time for the Article 2 inquiry.

Diokno distinguished a subpoena from a search warrant because it did not authorize entry into a home or office. He accepted the requirements of relevance and definiteness and asserted that the requests identified the BIR, bank, and AMLC documents and explained their connection to Article 2.

The prosecution said Article 2 alleged the ultimate facts of wealth manifestly disproportionate to lawful income, incomplete asset and business-interest disclosures, and continued business interests. It characterized the requested documents as evidentiary facts needed to test those allegations, not as proof that the allegations were already true.

To answer the fishing-expedition objection, the prosecution relied on its account of AMLC material earlier presented to the House concerning billions of pesos in covered and suspicious transactions. It nevertheless acknowledged that underlying bank records were needed to determine exact balances.

The prosecution argued that AMLC confidentiality protected against unauthorized leaks rather than lawful court subpoenas. It also maintained that earlier financial records could provide a baseline tied to the current Article 2 charge and that the impeachment court alone would ultimately decide whether the alleged conduct was impeachable.

The defense agreed that issuance and admission were separate stages but opposed issuance itself. Poa argued that the subpoenas failed the threshold tests of definiteness and relevance.

The defense likened subpoenas to search warrants because both use compulsory process and argued that opening nearly twenty years of financial transactions was intrusive. It said that enumerating KYC files, ledgers, journals, and transaction records still amounted to requesting almost every bank record without identifying a relevant transaction.

Poa argued that AMLA Section 8-A created an absolute confidentiality rule with no impeachment or court-process exception. He said compelling AMLC production would require agency officials to violate the law and that court-imposed safeguards could not suspend the statute.

The defense alleged that AMLC account information had been disclosed unlawfully during the House proceedings and argued that the resulting requests were tainted. It also stressed that transaction reports were not equivalent to wealth or a SALN's point-in-time net worth.

The defense said Article 2 did not identify the act, date, property, or transaction that constituted unexplained wealth and that the respondent had answered before the AMLC material and sealed BIR box appeared. It characterized the broad document requests as an effort to search for support after the pleading stage.

The defense read Duterte v. House's current-term language as binding across all impeachment modes and argued that alleged grave abuse in the trial could be reviewed by the Supreme Court. It also said the long financial period failed to account adequately for time outside public office and possible lawful income from the respondent's spouse.

The defense invoked the separate legal personality of the named companies and argued that, if the only issue was continued business participation, General Information Sheets could show ownership interests without opening corporate bank, tax, or AMLC records. It also maintained that the bank-secrecy impeachment exception did not apply at the House committee stage.

No witness was sworn or examined during the July 20 sitting. Counsel answered senator-judge questions about the subpoena motions, and the court scheduled NBI Director Melvin Matibag and two LandBank managers for later appearances.

Counsel gave conflicting accounts of AMLC material earlier presented to the House. The prosecution cited it as a concrete basis for seeking underlying records, while the defense challenged its legality and probative value; those accounts were argument in this sitting, not new sworn testimony or a finding that the reported transactions were unexplained wealth.

The prosecution acknowledged that covered and suspicious transaction reports did not supply exact account balances and said the underlying bank records were needed for that purpose. Aggregate transaction flow therefore remained distinct from balance, net worth, and a merits finding of unexplained wealth.

The sealed BIR box had not supplied admitted tax evidence. The defense said its contents were unknown, the prosecution said the House had refrained from opening it out of prudence, and the court required a lawful BIR return before it would receive any tax records.

The court said pre-marked General Information Sheets, articles of partnership, and the respondent's admitted SALNs supplied a prima facie connection to nineteen entities and one partnership. That threshold supported specified production but did not establish authenticity, corporate misuse, liability, or the truth of Article 2.

The orders contemplated future production, lawful returns, in-camera handling, inspection, comparison, photocopying, or marking. Admissibility and evidentiary use remained for later determination and objections.

The July 21 video-exhibit conference concerned transfer and comparison of markings. The court gave both sides latitude to mark evidence, but the defense expressly preserved later objections to relevance and admissibility.

In distinguishing the procedural stages, Diokno said: "The issue of admissibility will come later and the defense will have sufficient opportunity to object and to oppose."

The BIR order described its immediate effect narrowly: "The issuance of subpoena is merely a preliminary procedural step and does not by itself authorize the disclosure, inspection, or admission of the requested tax records into evidence."

The court narrowed the document requests by stating that "only the documents specifically mentioned" were covered.

No subpoenaed bank, AMLC, or BIR record had been admitted by adjournment. Production, lawful returns, inspection, marking, formal offer, authenticity, admissibility, and evidentiary weight remained future questions.

The BIR Commissioner still had to make a lawful return on July 30. The court said it would decide what further action was warranted only after determining whether a statutory basis permitted disclosure.

Document-specific privilege claims concerning Carpio Lawyers and later objections to the subpoenaed material remained available. The court's production order did not resolve privilege or admissibility for every future record.

Alan Peter Cayetano was permitted to file a fuller written explanation. The chair also recorded that Imee Marcos, Loren Legarda, and Camille Villar intended to submit manifestations, but their substantive positions were not stated in this sitting.

The court adjourned to July 21 at 2 p.m. with NBI Director Melvin Matibag and the subpoenaed LandBank managers expected under the revised schedule; the presentation date for Legislative Archive officer Marivic Pareja remained to be determined.