Monday’s biggest vote in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte turned out to be the one the public never saw.
Political analysts had circled the prosecution’s motion to subpoena Duterte’s bank records, tax returns, corporate documents, and a report from the Anti-Money Laundering Council as the first genuine stress test of the impeachment court. A recorded vote would not have decided the case, but it could have revealed which way the political winds were beginning to blow.
Instead, the Senate dealt from the bottom of the deck.
Rather than ask senator-judges to vote in public, presiding officer Senator Francis Escudero issued a chair ruling approving the subpoenas, apparently after an earlier caucus. Whether the senator-judges actually voted behind closed doors remains unknown. If they did, the numbers stayed locked in the vault.
The ruling was sweeping.
House prosecutors won access to the peso bank records of Duterte and her husband, Manases Reyes Carpio, from 2007 to 2021, along with their income tax returns, AMLC documents, and the financial records of 19 corporations and one partnership linked to the couple.
Legally, the prosecution scored.
Politically, the scoreboard remained blank.
That ambiguity may have been deliberate. A public vote this early would have invited instant labels—pro-Duterte, anti-Duterte, swing vote—before the trial had fully unfolded. By speaking through the chair instead of the roll call, the impeachment court insulated its members from immediate political crossfire while preserving the appearance of judicial neutrality.
But there is a trade-off.
Impeachment is not an ordinary court trial. It is a constitutional exercise conducted in full view of the public. Transparency is not a sideshow; it is part of the process.
Monday’s proceedings produced subpoenas, but not clarity.
The evidence may soon be headed to the Senate.
The senators’ thinking, however, remains under seal.
