'Missed opportunity': Law prof faults prosecution's Sara property presentation

MANILA, Philippines — Prosecutors missed a chance to clearly establish whether properties registered to Vice President Sara Duterte and her husband were omitted from her Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth, a law professor said.

Adonis Gabriel, a professor at the San Beda University College of Law, said prosecutors should have presented the couple's relevant property titles together and compared them with Duterte's declared assets.

"With all due respect to the prosecution, nagkulang ang prosecution sa paglalahad nila ng testimonya ng mga tao natin sa [Land Registration Authority]," Gabriel said in Filipino in an interview with dzBB on October 2.

(With all due respect to the prosecution, it fell short in presenting the testimony of the Land Registration Authority personnel.)

In particular, Gabriel referred to the October 1 testimony of the registers of deeds of Davao City and Samal under Article II of Duterte's impeachment case, which mainly accuses her of unexplained wealth and failure to divest from business interests.

The witnesses identified land titles, deeds of sale and tax declarations for properties registered to Duterte's husband, lawyer Manases Carpio. Both repeatedly said they could not determine whether the properties matched entries in Duterte's SALNs.

Gabriel said prosecutors should have presented all relevant titles and compared them with the properties declared in Duterte's SALNs. Any registered property left unmatched, he said, could then have been clearly identified as potentially undeclared.

"Ang ginawa ng prosecution, inilahad lamang nila ang isang titulo ng isang property," Gabriel said. (What they just did was to state the title of one property.)

He noted that SALNs do not require property title numbers, making a direct comparison based on the title number alone impossible. The form instead requires identifying details such as the property's location and type, assessed and fair market values, acquisition year and mode, and acquisition cost.

"Sa paglalahad ng mga testigo sa korte, para ka ring naglalahad ng kuwento sa ating mga hukom. Sa paglalahad ng kuwento, dapat maipakita mo nang malinaw iyong gusto mong impormasyon na lumabas," Gabriel said. (Presenting witnesses in court is like telling a story to the judges. You must clearly show the information you want to establish.)

Gabriel said the prosecution fell short because it did not make that comparison sufficiently clear.

"So that's a missed opportunity for the prosecution dahil hindi nila nailahad nang malinaw na may mga properties doon sa SALN ng ating bise presidente na hindi naisama," he said.

(So that's a missed opportunity for the prosecution because they were not able to clearly establish that there were properties not included in the vice president's SALN.)

Gabriel said Duterte's camp also needed to substantiate its explanation for a questioned property in Samal.

The defense said during cross-examination that a property appeared in Duterte's 2013 SALN, while the property questioned by prosecutors was transferred to her in 2018. The defense's theory, Gabriel said, was that the property had been acquired through a contract to sell beginning in 2013, with ownership formally transferred in 2018.

Gabriel said the defense should produce the contract to sell, payment records, tax documents and records of improvements to establish that the earlier SALN entry referred to the same property.

"Kaya ang inaasahan ko sa ating bise presidente bilang public officer, kailangan niya ring patunayan na iyong property na hinahanap ninyo ay ito iyong nakarehistro noong 2013," Gabriel said.

(What I expect of the vice president as a public officer is that she also substantiate that the property being questioned is the one recorded in 2013.)

Gabriel said a general denial would not be enough and stressed the transparency expected of public officials.

"Bilang public officer, kailangan maging transparent tayo. Iyan ang purpose ng statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth," he said.

(As public officers, we need to be transparent. That is the purpose of the Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth.)

After presenting records on real properties and firearms last week, prosecutors are moving into Duterte and Carpio's financial records on Monday, October 5. Anti-Money Laundering Council Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura has been called to testify as the prosecution seeks to compare financial transactions with the couple's declared assets and net worth.

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