WORLD · VERIFIED DEVELOPMENT
Prosecution Drops Former Senator Trillanes as Witness in Sara Duterte Impeachment Trial
WHY IT MATTERS
The withdrawal removes a key source of evidence that could expose financial misconduct, affecting the impeachment’s outcome and public confidence in the administration.
What happened
The prosecution announced on Thursday that it will no longer call former senator Antonio Trillanes IV to testify in Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment case. Trillanes himself had asked to be removed, saying it would ease the prosecution’s burden.
He plans to hold a press conference on Friday to reveal the content of his testimony. The prosecution had intended to use Trillanes’ 2016 leak of Duterte family bank records to show large, suspicious transactions.
Those records matched the Anti‑Money Laundering Council’s data, which identified P6. 7 billion in questionable transfers through Duterte and her husband’s accounts from 2006 to 2025—vastly exceeding the VP’s reported net worth of about P90 million in 2025.
PRIMARY SOURCES
Prosecution drops Trillanes as witness in Sara Duterte impeachment trial
Rappler · Dwight de Leon · Discovery only; publisher copyright terms apply
CORRECTIONS & UPDATES
- Revision 1 · Initial ingestion · Oct 1, 2026, 7:45 AM
- Revision 2 · Source update detected · Oct 1, 2026, 7:45 AM