The Pulangi has watched over Mindanao for centuries. It carries our red silt toward the open sea. Money, much like water, leaves a trace somewhere.
In Manila this month, auditors followed one such flow. A former state auditor named Roderick Wamil testified. He had served the Commission on Audit for years. His office reviewed confidential and intelligence fund spending. He appeared at Vice President Sara Duterte’s trial.
Wamil described the missing papers behind large disbursements. Roughly P129 million of OVP funds lacked support. That figure covered part of a 2023 allocation. Another P112.5 million traced to her DepEd term.
Article I alleges P612.5 million in questioned funds. That money spanned the years 2022 and 2023. It was public money, all withdrawn in cash.
One disallowance struck a December 2022 fund release. The COA questioned roughly P73 million spent there. The office used it within just a few days. Its documents could not prove the actual purpose. So the auditors ordered much of it returned.
A joint circular from 2015 governs these funds. It limits how such public money may be spent. It also spells out the proper liquidation steps. National security needs do not erase that paperwork.
The whole audit process moves slowly and formally. First the office receives an audit observation memorandum. The agency then answers and supplies its documents.
When those answers fall short, a disallowance follows. Wamil had drafted or issued many such memos. He spoke with the caution of long practice. Public funds demand strict rules, he told the court. Strictness, he explained, guards the money from misuse.
Then came Lorna Kapunan, the veteran private prosecutor. At seventy-four, she hauled fifteen boxes of documents. She questioned Wamil across nearly two full days. Her sharp energy filled the entire Senate chamber.
Those boxes held thousands of acknowledgment receipts inside. Some receipts bore odd, almost cartoonish recipient names. The COA had flagged them for clear noncompliance.
Kapunan bluntly called the whole arrangement a “scam.” The court struck that word from the record. She showed reporters no regret about it afterward. Her humor only sharpened the serious allegations further. She spoke to the judges and the watching public.
“Ang iniiscam, taong-bayan,” she plainly told reporters outside. The public, she meant, ultimately carries the loss. The alleged scam reached about P612.5 million pesos. That number lands hard across our poor provinces.
She then pressed Wamil on the accountable officer. An agency head must oversee the confidential fund. Duterte led both offices now under sharp review.
Between hard questions, Kapunan kept injecting quick levity. She punned on strange names in the receipts. The gallery laughed along at her dry timing. Even the presiding officer smiled at certain moments. Yet the heavy stakes never left the room.
By the third day, everyone’s patience wore thin. The documents towered around the tired, aging witness. Kapunan then offered the defense a practical compromise. “Let’s use the defense’s documents,” she finally proposed.
A Notice of Disallowance is only an audit action. It flags spending that records simply cannot justify.
It does not, by itself, prove any crime. The COA merely measures compliance with financial rules. Its findings always remain administrative in their nature. They safeguard public money from careless or hidden release. Guilt itself stays a question for the senator-judges.
This crucial distinction really deserves patience from readers. An audit gap can mean plain administrative sloppiness. It can also conceal something far, far darker. Only real evidence can tell the two apart.
The defense reads all these findings very differently. Counsel Michael Poa raised one very pointed question. Did a single centavo reach the Vice President’s pocket?
The audit itself named no such direct proof. Wamil called personal benefit a mere legal presumption. Her camp insists the spending stayed fully lawful. They frame the entire case as a compliance dispute. They also allege pressure to soften the findings.
These public funds belong to the tao. Our farmers and fisherfolk fund every single peso. Their quiet trust deserves a truly honest accounting.
Mindanao knows the deep ache of thin budgets. We have watched promised roads dissolve into silt. We have waited long years for basic clinics. So confidential funds carry very real weight here. Each missing receipt feels like a stolen bridge.
The ledger therefore matters well beyond party lines. Loyalty and scrutiny can share a single heart. We may love a leader and still ask questions. Mindanao has surely earned the right to both.
Wamil also raised a quiet fact worth holding. Past vice presidents held no confidential funds whatsoever. Both Binay and Robredo received none at all.
These OVP audits began only under Duterte herself. So what does all this testimony finally establish? It lays a technical base for the charges. It shows the funds had escaped full verification. By itself, it still cannot prove impeachment.
The Senate must weigh far more than audits. It must judge intent, duty, and public trust. The trial will surely run its long course. Both camps will fight over every single document.
The river, meanwhile, keeps its own patient count. It carries whatever we spend toward the sea. It hides nothing the slow current will reveal.
Mindanao now watches with loyalty and open eyes. We hold our leaders and our standards close. We ask where every peso has truly gone. That question honors both the poor and the truth.
Let the auditors finish their careful arithmetic first. Let the senators then judge with clear conscience. Let Mindanao carry both love and rigor together. The Pulangi will always remember how we chose.
Originally published on August 10, 2026, on MindaNews.
