Prenup won't dispute VP Sara and husband's undeclared assets, says Ridon

A pre-nuptial agreement between Vice President Sara Duterte and her husband Manases Carpio won’t change the fact that the couple had over P800 million worth of undeclared assets, House prosecutor Terry Ridon of Bicol party-list said Monday.

Ridon made the response when asked of the take put forward by private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan in a separate television interview that the defense might bring up a prenup between Duterte and Carpio to disassociate the Vice President from her husband's assets.

Ridon said that the spouses filed a joint Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth and jointly filed income taxes.

“It is an observation of one of our private prosecutors and that fact should still be put in place during the defense’s presentation of evidence. But irrespective of whether it is absolute community property, conjugal property or separation of property, the SALN law does not make distinctions. Kailangan pa rin po ilagay iyong pag-aari ng mag asawa,” Ridon said in a press conference.

(The SALN law requires spouses to declare all their assets.)

“And in fact, in each and every document… the tax document or the SALN document, joint ho iyong filing nila. So, antayin natin kung papaano nila ilalapag ito pong defense na ito,” he added.

(They have joint filing of SALN and tax records, so we'll see how they defend this.)

Ridon said that in 2023 alone, the Duterte couple had P100 million in their bank deposits, compared to their declared joint net worth of P80 million.

“More than P100 million in bank deposits, investments and insurance had not been stated in the SALN of the Vice President. Just for that matter, they would have to explain why is such discrepancy,” he said.

Ridon speculated that Duterte will declare her ignorance when the defense starts its presentation of evidence on November 9.

“I think ‘yung magiging defense po doon ay hindi niya po alam ‘yun pong lahat po ng mga financial transactions, una ng kanyang ama at ng kanya pong asawa. But again, I don’t think that is a defense,” Ridon said.

(I would think her defense is that she would not know the financial transactions of her husband and father.)

The House prosecution panel dropped three of the four impeachment charges against Duterte—Article 1, alleging misuse of confidential funds; Article 3, bribery; and Article 4, grave threats against President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr.—after lawyer and certified public accountant Alex Cabrera testified on Duterte's alleged unexplained wealth.

Cabrera concluded that Duterte and Carpio had unexplained wealth amounting to P817 million to P1.5 billion, after reviewing the couple's financial records including SALNs, bank transaction and bank deposit records, insurance payment records, income tax returns and corporate records of their business interests.

As a result, the impeachment case against the Vice President rests only on Article 2, which alleges unexplained wealth due to non-declaration of assets in the SALN and non-divestment of businesses despite a Constitutional prohibition.

Lawyer Ronel Buenaventura of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) also identified P4.4 billion in aggregate covered and suspicious transactions involving Duterte and Carpio from 2007 to 2025. — BM, GMA News

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