A barangay listed for a Samal property declared in Vice-President (VP) Sara Duterte-Carpio's wealth statement does not exist, a defense witness told the Senate impeachment court on Tuesday.

Ms. Duterte was impeached by the House of Representatives in February 2025, and the Senate is hearing the case as an impeachment court under the Constitution, which permits conviction only with the concurrence of two-thirds of the senators — a judgment that carries removal from office and disqualification from holding public office.

John Kenneth Enumerables, assessor of the Island Garden City of Samal, testified that a property covered by Transfer Certificate of Title 3134 in Ms. Duterte's 2025 statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) carries the same assessed and market values as local tax records. The SALN is the annual declaration that public officials must file under Republic Act 6713, the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials, covering real properties and other assets.

However, Mr. Enumerables said his documents place the property in Barangay San Isidro, Kaputian District, while the SALN indicated Barangay Matanos. Speaking during an intervention by presiding officer and Senator-Judge Francis G. Escudero, the assessor stated that no barangay in Samal is known as Matanos.

Mr. Enumerables' subsequent testimony on the property's location, which alternated between Matanos and San Isidro, drew visible confusion from several senator-judges.

"[Y]our records are messy. There's a barangay Matanos, there's no barangay Matanos," Senator Panfilo M. Lacson Sr. said in Filipino. "Then there's San Isidro, which turns out to be located in Matanos. So kindly fix your records because they're quite messy."

Mr. Lacson also interjected that Matanos is not a separate barangay but an area within Barangay Pangubatan — a location the assessor confirmed is real. How the tribunal weighs the conflicting designations, and whether Samal's records are corrected as Mr. Lacson urged, are among the open items as the trial continues.

In separate testimony, Davao City accountant Vingelin A. Bajan addressed the P64,194.72 in payments Ms. Duterte received from the Davao City local government in 2023. Ms. Bajan said the amount was a differential, not a double payment. It was issued as differentials under the 2019 government pay increase, mandated by the fourth and final tranche of the Salary Standardization Law IV, for the years 2020 and 2021.

She made the disclosure while being questioned by Senator-Judge Erwin T. Tulfo, who had previously warned the accountant that senator-judges were "losing their patience" and that she could be cited in contempt for dodging questions during cross-examination.

— Francessca S. Abalos, BusinessWorld