VP Sara, husband mortgaged P6M Matina property for P8M weeks after purchase

VICE President Sara Z. Duterte and her husband, lawyer Manases Carpio, mortgaged a Davao City property for P8 million less than two months after it was purchased for P6 million in 2024, land registration records presented in her impeachment trial showed Thursday.

Atty. Kathy Florence Baldonado, Register of Deeds of Davao City, testified that the 379-square-meter property in Matina was purchased for P6 million on July 2, 2024.

“Base po sa aming record, sir, ang consideration po dito ay 6 million pesos po,” Baldonado told the Senate impeachment court.

The title identifies the registered owner as “Atty. Manases R. Carpio, married to Sara Z. Duterte Carpio,” according to Baldonado.

But an annotation on the same title showed both Carpio and Duterte subsequently executed a real estate mortgage over the property.

Baldonado read the annotation into the record, saying it was “executed by Manases Reyes Carpio and Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio in favor of Philippine Savings Bank for the sum of 8 million pesos.”

The mortgage was dated Aug. 27, 2024, or less than two months after the July 2 purchase.

House prosecutor Bukidnon 2nd District Rep. Jonathan Keith Flores highlighted the sequence of transactions.

“So binili siya ng July for 6 million at minortgage on August 2024, the same year, for 8 million. Tama po ba?” Flores asked.

“Base po dito sa dokumentong pinapakita ko, yes po, sir,” Baldonado replied.

The prosecution presented the records as part of Article II of the impeachment case against Duterte involving alleged unexplained wealth and omissions or inaccuracies in her Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs).

When the land records were compared with Duterte’s 2025 SALN, Baldonado said she could not find an entry matching the property based on the P6-million price and other details contained in the documents before her.

Presiding Officer Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero likewise said the specific property did not appear in the SALN “as such,” although he stressed that the descriptions in SALNs were not detailed enough to establish a direct one-to-one correspondence with individual titles.

Defense counsel Atty. Lindon Miguel Bacquel maintained that the property could correspond to a property already listed in Duterte’s SALN, pointing out that Matina Crossing is also known as Barangay 74A.

Escudero allowed the defense to pursue that contention during cross-examination.