Can you believe that among our best, fightingest, most experienced, most-be-medalled, most battle-tested and most intelligent officers of the land did not have enough intelligence and common sense to determine that they were being used to launder or steal millions of taxpayers’ money disguised as confidential and intelligence funds?
That, in effect, is what one concludes listening to the testimony of senior Army officers before the Senate impeachment court (IC) the other day, Sept. 1, 2026.
The Department of Education did not provide confidential or surveillance information to the Army’s Youth Leadership Summits, said a military officer whose certification was later used to support DepEd’s questioned confidential fund expenses.
Col. Manaros Boransing II testified he did not know his certification would be used as an excuse for the claimed P15.54 million in intelligence and confidential fund expenses of the DepEd, headed then by Vice President Sara Z. Duterte. She had claimed that her P15.54 million funded the Army’s seminars, which involved high school students, teachers and some schools as venues.
As it turned out, not a single centavo of Sara’s P15.54 million was spent on the Army seminars. And Sara herself did not show up in any of the seminars that she claimed to have sponsored.
DepEd’s involvement was limited to sharing basic, non-classified details, such as identifying potential student leaders who could participate in the summits and determining which school facilities were available and safe to host the events, Boransing said.
A cynical Commission on Audit had questioned the alleged use of the P15.54-million DepEd money for Army brainwashing seminars, which were funded by the Army’s own regular budget, and not by the DepEd.
So where did the P15.54 million actually go? That is the big mystery which the Senate IC wants to unravel. If it could.
Interpelated by Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian, Boransing said DepEd provided only open-source information about students who could participate in the summits. “For the First Infantry Tabak Division? No, sir, they did not provide any confidential or surveillance information,” Boransing was quoted by PhilSTAR, partly in Filipino. “What they gave is open-source information about their students.”
Boransing asserted he did not know his certification would be used as an excuse for the DepEd expenses.
Before Sara headed it, the DepEd had never provided nor claimed to have provided confidential or surveillance information for these activities in the past. Only in 2022 and 2023 after Sara became DepEd secretary.
At the Sept. 1 hearing, Boransing insisted the Armed Forces of the Philippines relies on its own intelligence units to identify security threats and crucial locations, rather than receive confidential information from civilian agencies such as DepEd.
“The AFP intelligence units are in charge of gathering information or receiving information... It is not the civil-military operations personnel,” Boransing pointed out.
The highly decorated Boransing served as assistant chief of staff for civil-military operations, G7, of the 1st Infantry “Tabak” Division from 2021 to 2026, during which he helped oversee the YLS.
The first vice president to be impeached by Congress not only once but twice now, Sara Duterte faces four charges before the impeachment court. Conviction for each charge means removal from office as VP and disqualification for holding any public office ever again. Conviction means she cannot run for president in May 2028.
The four charges: 1) misuse or misappropriation of P612.5 million of confidential and intelligence funds – P500 million under the Office of the Vice President and P112.5 million under DepEd; she produced 5,000 fictitious receipts (including two named after a vagina) to account for the missing monies; 2) unexplained wealth – P6.77 billion were transacted in her bank accounts despite having cumulative salary of only P24 million while in public office; her net worth increased from P7.25 million in 2007 to P88.5 million in 2024; 3) bribery – Sara regularly handed out cash envelops to subalterns so they would follow her orders and 4) grave threats – she threatened in various instances to kill the President, the First Lady and the former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
PhilSTAR reported Sept. 2 COA had previously flagged P75 million of DepEd’s confidential fund expenses under Vice President Duterte due to a lack of supporting documents.
DepEd later presented military certification letters to support P15.54 million in confidential fund expenses that state auditors had questioned.
Boransing was among the military officials who issued the certifications. However, he said he was unaware that his certification would be used to justify DepEd’s confidential fund expenses before the COA.
Tuesday marked the 20th day of Duterte’s impeachment trial. The Senate impeachment court is currently hearing Article I of the Articles of Impeachment, which concerns allegations over the use of confidential funds by DepEd and the OVP.
After 20 days of hearings, the impeachment court has found out some silly things: one, holding a Christmas party is a confidential activity; two, tree planting is a confidential activity; three, holding seminars for up to 100 students is a confidential activity and four, Sara has no plans to show up before the court.
One thing disallowed by the Senate impeachment court: to feed daily Sara’s battery of private lawyers with merienda. And from now on, sub judice comments by arm chair analysts (like me?) on the merits of the case.
Our beloved and most respected senator-judges forget one thing – an impeachment trial is a political process. Being political, it requires participation by the people – either as concerned taxpayers, plain hecklers or innocent bystanders. The people want to know whether public officials they elected to office are not lazy, liars, thieves, corrupt to the core or big-time thieves. Just like some of the senators themselves.
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