For Batangas 2nd district Rep. Gerville "Jinky Bitrics" Luistro, Vice President Sara Duterte’s defense team has practically conceded the imminent impeachment of its client by the House of Representatives.

That's why the Vice President’s lawyers were already looking forward to the Senate impeachment trial, noted Luistro, chairperson of the House Committee on Justice that had been carrying out hearings on the determination of probable cause in the impeachment case.

By announcing they will only respond to the allegations during the Senate trial, the defense team is all but acknowledging that the justice committee will vote for the existence of probable cause—a sentiment that has been shared by several committee members even before the final panel hearing on April 29.

“It appears to me, doon sa kanilang press con (in their press con), they are acknowledging already that this will be reaching a trial. Kasi (Because) they’re claiming an opportunity to scrutinize, they’re claiming an opportunity to cross examine dahil kulang at malabo pa daw (because they're claiming it's lacking and vague),” Luistro said in an online interview.

“Well, it seems to me that they are joining the position of the justice committee that trial is really necessary. But that will happen, of course, after the determination of probable cause,” Luistro added.

Luistro has reiterated that the threshold for establishing probable cause is low, since it only requires sufficient justification to proceed to trial, not a finding of guilt.

On the allegation of confidential fund misuse alone, the Batangas solon reckoned that the Commission on Audit's (COA) notices of disallowance—including the commission proper's final ruling on the P73 million in disallowed OVP funds in 2022—were more than enough to meet that threshold.

COA confirmed to the justice panel that it had affirmed the notice of disallowance on the P73 million because the commission proper found that the OVP failed to justify the supposed confidential and intelligence activities it conducted or provide adequate supporting documentation.

It also disclosed that it has issued notices of disallowance on an additional P375 million spent in the first three quarters of 2023. Should those notices become final and executory, the Vice President and three other officers responsible for the confidential funds would be required to return a total of P448 million.

Luistro explained that the process of restitution was a different matter altogether from the impeachment but parallel as they hold different consequences.

On the charge of unexplained wealth, Luistro cited the justice committee's observation that the Anti-Money Laundering Council's (AMLC) report on the nearly P6.8 billion in flagged transactions from the accounts of the Vice President and her husband from 2006 to 2025 reveals a stark discrepancy: none of those transactions were reflected on the impeachment respondent's statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs).

“What is significant here, itong P6.7[7] billion na ito which is contained in the report of the Anti-Money Laundering Council, hindi mo siya makita doon sa SALN. Of course, most of this are cash transaction or deposit or withdrawal or credit memo or investment that somehow should have been reflected in the SALN.

"So ang maliwanag agad dito (So what's immediately clear here is the), non-disclosure in the [SALN],” Luistro said.

If the P6.8 billion in transactions cannot be traced to legitimate sources, she said, the committee has sufficient basis to find a possibility of unexplained wealth.

“It is hard to reconcile, actually, kasi (because) most of the transactions reported by AMLC are cash transactions, so if we focus on the cash declaration and the money in bank from 2019 to 2025, zero declaration na (there are zero declarations),” she added.

Duterte's lawyers argued that the did declare her cash on hand and bank deposits in her last six SALNs, but lumped them under the vague line item "others".

For Luistro, this only reinforces her assessment that the Duterte defense team has effectively conceded that the case will need to undergo a Senate trial.

“So presenting these items, the cash and the deposit in bank in other items such as 'others' will be probing already, will require cross-examination already. So it is as if they're saying, ‘Let's go to trial so that we can explain why naka-zero declaration ang cash, naka-zero declaration bank deposit (cash declarations were zero, bank deposit declarations were zero) because the thing is they were incorporated in the item ‘others’," Luistro said.

“You will be going beyond what appears, the face value of the documents. So let's go to trial. That’s the message that I got from the press con of the defense team,” she added.

The Vice President was impeached by the House in 2025, but a Senate impeachment trial never took place.