Susan’s Notes
By Susan Palmes-Dennis
ROCKINGHAM, North Carolina—The recent appearance of Davao City Mayor Sebastian ‘Baste’ Duterte in the ongoing impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio dovetailed somewhat with former senator Sonny Trillanes’s press briefing.
And until the officials of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) are allowed to fully disclose VP Sara’s bank accounts—which supposedly received ‘inward remittances’ from China and other countries as alleged by Trillanes—Mayor Baste’s appearance scored some brownie points for the embattled vice-president as the younger Duterte sibling held his own against the probing questions of the prosecution team.
While Mayor Baste’s appearance was hailed by Duterte supporters and allies alike, even the staunchest Duterte critics acknowledged that inviting the mayor may have been a ‘tactical mistake’ as he managed to deflect questions relating to Davao City Hall’s dealings with Gen Corp., a company that VP Sara listed as her being a stockholder of in her statement of assets and liabilities and net worth (SALN), despite her name not being listed in the company records.
Despite this, I read some posts in my social feed that floated the possibility of Baste replacing VP Sara as a presidential candidate in case she gets convicted in her impeachment trial. While Baste did acquit himself in the trial, I have my doubts as to how he would register with the rest of the mostly conservative and highly critical Filipino population who aren’t fond of another Duterte being elected president.
I saw a photo of Duterte flashing the dirty ‘middle finger’ during the trial—I don’t know if it was intentional on his part—and admittedly some senators allied with Duterte gave him preferential kid gloves treatment during their questioning and it didn’t help the prosecution team that they were unprepared in their cross examination of Mayor Baste. But it is VP Sara, not Mayor Baste, that is on trial here.
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Speaking of Trillanes, his claim during his Friday press conference (Oct. 2) that VP Sara through her husband Atty. Manases Carpio received P319 million from China and other unspecified amounts from other countries may have partly explained his reason to withdraw as witness during the impeachment trial of the vice-president may have been beneficial for the prosecution team.
For one thing, how Trillanes managed to source his information would be questioned to no end by senators allied with Duterte and her defense team, thus unnecassarily prolonging the trial. The prosecution would rather focus on the officially sourced records from the AMLC which the defense is trying to block on their insistence that such records are confidential. Thus, Trillanes’s press conference allowed him to bring his case to the Filipino people.
It’s no small coincidence that the Baste-Trillanes appearances may have some impact on public sentiment in relation to the VP Sara impeachment trial. As to who scored well in the court of public opinion, only time will tell. But then one cannot discount the gravity of the accusations leveled by Trillanes on VP Sara and the Duterte family since it is backed up by documentation. And the China connection comes as no surprise given her father’s strong ties to Beijing.
As of this writing, the prosecution managed to get confirmation from AMLC executive director Ronel Buenaventura that VP Sara had 34 ‘suspicious transactions’ (STRs) from 2007-2025 while her husband Atty. Manases Carpio had 30 STRs for the same period. And these transactions amounted to over P6 billion which is all the more disturbing considering that VP Sara reported over P30 million in her latest SALN.
Overall, it would take more than good optics for VP Sara to defuse the mounting evidence being presented by the prosecution team against her. The question remains as to whether the public would be able to appreciate said evidence in forming their own opinion on the embattled vice president since public opinion would heavily influence the judgement of the senator-judges, even those who are allied with the vice president.
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Speaking of which, the prosecution’s decision to drop the bribery charge against VP Sara is one less thorn on her side but the more compelling reason is to expedite the trial which the Senate leadership estimated would end on Dec, 16. Interestingly, had Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano remained as Senate president, analysts pointed out that the impeachment trial would end on February next year.
In contrast, the impeachment trial on the late chief justice Renato Corona took four months with the majority of senators voting to unseat Corona. But then again, public sentiment against anyone associated with former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was unanimously negative. Unlike now when VP Sara still holds influence and control over the followers of her father even with him being imprisoned
