BIR: VP Sara tax returns, SALN don’t match

MANILA, Philippines — Spouses Vice President Sara Duterte and Manases Carpio earned only a total of P85.3 million as lawyers in a span of 18 years from 2007 to 2025, an official of the Bureau of Internal Revenue disclosed before the Senate impeachment court yesterday.

This was based on their combined net income as testified by lawyer Anne Loraine Garcia-Marquez upon the direct examination of private prosecutor Erwin Matib, reading from a summary that was submitted as “Annex A” to the impeachment court.

“The income net of tax pertains to all kinds of income of an individual, and then we less the deductions or expenses, and we have also deducted here the taxes due of the taxpayer,” Garcia-Marquez explained.

Matib tried to reconcile the P85.3-million earnings of the couple with the P98.6 million total conjugal assets Duterte declared in her 2025 statement of assets, liabilities and net worth, but found no match.

“The figures raised questions about their sources of her wealth. Their declared net worth in respondent’s 2025 SALN is P98.6. So, from here alone, there is already a wide gap, a difference,” he pointed out.

The testimony forms part of the House prosecution’s presentation under Article II of the impeachment complaint, which concerns Duterte’s alleged unexplained wealth and discrepancies in her asset declarations.

It was also pointed out that Duterte, having been elected as vice president in mid-2022, should not have practiced her legal profession as this directly violates the 1987 Constitution. BIR records show Duterte still received lawyer’s fees in 2023, when she was already the vice president.

“Based on records of the BIR, VP Sara practiced her (legal) profession and received professional legal fees and many other emoluments, on top of her monthly salary as the country’s Vice President,” he said.

Professional fees

Matib said the prosecution would seek to establish that Duterte received professional fees and other income apart from her government salary while serving as vice president, in violation of the constitutional restrictions on the practice of a profession during her tenure.

Garcia-Marquez said the summaries were prepared using figures from annual income tax returns filed with the BIR, initially encoded by personnel from revenue district offices and subsequently reviewed by technical assistants at the Office of the Commissioner.

She confirmed that the summaries underwent two levels of review and that she personally finalized them. The BIR official also testified that the couple’s returns contained no reported amounts in the specific summary columns for non-taxable income and income subject to final tax.

She explained that income subject to final tax may include dividends, royalties and winnings, while non-taxable income refers to earnings exempt from taxation. The absence of entries in those columns does not necessarily establish that the couple had no income from other sources.

Before Garcia-Marquez underwent direct examination, defense counsel Kristine Ferrer asked the impeachment court “to direct the prosecution not to flash on screen copies of the tax returns and their relevant summaries.”

She explained that under the Data Privacy Act, tax returns are considered as sensitive and personal information, and are considered as privileged and that their publication shall be prohibited.

‘Concealed deliberately’

At a briefing, prosecution spokesman Robert Ace Barbers said there’s no denying that Duterte “deliberately concealed” the real extent of her wealth when she did not declare her numerous bank accounts, insurance policies and investments in her annual statement of assets, liabilities and net worth.

“The non-declaration of cash from 2022 to 2025 is a clear, willful and deliberate attempt to conceal material information, not just an error or an omission, thus amounting to the culpable violation of the Constitution and/or betrayal of public trust,” Barbers said.

The former Surigao del Norte congressman cited year-end balances of approximately P59 million in 2022, P71 million in 2023, P22 million in 2024 and P39 million in 2025. The figures represent separate year-end balances, not a single amount held simultaneously.

“In all of these SALNs of the VP, she didn’t declare any cash on hand or cash in bank. But she had millions in her bank accounts. Bank records and the testimonies showed that the SALN declarations were all false,” Barbers pointed out. “Why false? Because these have not been fully and truthfully declared in her SALN.”

Duterte and her husband also had investments in seven insurance companies, which exceeded the amounts they reported as “other personal properties” in their SALNs from 2022 to 2025, said Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong, also an impeachment trial spokesman. He was referring to FWD Life Insurance, Manulife, Pru Life UK, BPI AIA, Allianz PNB Life, BDO Life and BDO Securities.

Adiong said the records show Duterte’s insurance and investments amounting to ?35.2 million in 2022, ?35.9 million in 2023, ?59.6 million in 2024 and ?54.4 million in 2025.

“First of all, let us always remember that all of these have not been declared in her SALN. Remember, these investment plans are (also) considered to be an asset,” he said.

“Even assuming that these investments have been categorized in personal properties, the figures still don’t match. There is still that big difference of P21 million,” Adiong said. - Evelyn Macairan