MANILA Rep. Joel Chua said Wednesday night that Vice President Sara Z. Duterte’s salary would not come close to accounting for the billions of pesos flowing through her accounts over the years, raising even bigger questions about the source of those funds.
“May mga nakausap ako na nagsasabing paano ‘yun? Parang ang hirap ipaliwanag. Maski sila, mathematically hindi mo talaga ma papaliwanag ‘yun,” Chua said in an Insiders interview over Bilyonaryo News Channel.
“At kahit na anong sweldo mo, magkano ba ang sweldo ng pangalawang pangulo? P300,000 na. Mga ganun. Sa isang taon that is P3.6M,” he added.
The vice president is entitled to Salary Grade 32, which amounts to more than P300,000 a month.
Her previous positions as Davao City mayor and vice mayor carried significantly lower salaries, yet it was also during this period the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) saw a steady rise in covered and suspicious transactions in her and her husband’s bank accounts. It reached a total of P6.7 billion by 2025, with a net inflow of P2.88 billion.
“Kasi kung titignan mo yung SALN, nung naging vice president siya, maliliit na ‘yung pinapasok niya. Pero nung vice mayor siya, anlaki. May P600M na pumasok?” Chua stressed.
“Hindi naman isa ‘yun. Siguro maraming transaction. May mga pumapasok P20M, P30M, P50M. But at that time kasi, siguro hindi nila na-anticipate na magiging national figures sila,” he added.
Chua also said that Duterte’s Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs) alone already demonstrate multiple red flags. Even if the vice president had declared her cash on hand and bank deposits under “others,” he pointed out that the figure only accounts for a few millions.
“Assuming for the sake of argument, sasakyan natin yung sinasabi. Eh P5.8 million lang yun. Million ha? Not billion, P5.8 million,” he said.
Chua, a lawyer and member of the House Committee on Justice, also noted that the SALN Law requires cash to be declared as a separate line item.
“And kung titignan mo ‘yung law behind the SALN, meron dun talagang specific provision for cash: cash on hand at cash on bank. So may specific talaga dun na naka-separate,” he said.
The Manila House leader also dismissed arguments from Duterte’s supporters that the committee should limit its review to the SALNs filed during her years as an impeachable officer.
Without examining the historical trend of her declarations since she first entered public office in 2007, Chua said, there would be no baseline against which to measure any discrepancy.
“Kasi sinasabi nila, you’re not supposed to look at the SALN before the vice president. But ano yung point of comparison mo except to look back kung ano yung kanyang dine-declare from the first time that she was elected as a public official. That was in 2007,” he said.
Duterte’s net worth jumped elevenfold from P7 million in 2007 to P88.5 million in 2024. Yet for the last six years she served as a public official, her SALNs made no explicit disclosure of cash as liquid assets, despite having done so in earlier filings.
These findings were among the reasons why the Committee on Justice, in a unanimous vote, found probable cause to recommend the vice president’s impeachment on the allegation of unexplained wealth.
