Sara Duterte’s lawyers want to explain ‘Mary Grace Piattos’

Lawyers for Vice President Sara Duterte say they still want to answer allegations about confidential funds before the Senate impeachment court, even though prosecutors have dropped the charge.

At the center is “Mary Grace Piattos”, a name that pairs a pastry café chain with a potato chip brand and became shorthand for doubts over how Duterte’s office accounted for the money. Also at issue are the acknowledgment receipts and signatures that surround it.

Three of four articles withdrawn

On Tuesday, the court allowed House prosecutors to withdraw three of the four articles against her: Article I, on alleged misuse of confidential funds; Article III, on bribery; and Article IV, on grave threats. Article II, on alleged unexplained wealth, remains. Prosecutors had signaled the move on 9 October, when they said they would drop the bribery charge.

Senate Presiding Officer Francis “Chiz” Escudero ruled that the defense need not to present evidence on the withdrawn articles because senators will not vote on them. He also barred the articles from being revived in this trial and ordered that testimony and exhibits on all three stay in the court record.

Prosecutors had called witnesses on confidential funds and grave threats before withdrawing those articles, the defense spokesperson, Michael Wesley Poa, said. The defense has yet to present any witnesses of its own.

How the name became a byword

“Mary Grace Piattos” first drew attention in November 2024, when a House committee examined how the Office of the Vice President spent 125m pesos in confidential funds in 11 days in December 2022. At a hearing on 5 November, Congressman Romeo Acop pointed to the name on one of the office’s acknowledgment receipts. The Commission on Audit then told the panel that hundreds of other receipts carried signatures without names or names that could not be read.

Lawmakers pooled 1 million pesos as a reward for anyone who could produce her. In December 2024, the Philippine Statistics Authority told the committee it held no birth, marriage, or death record for “Mary Grace Piattos.” Duterte said she had not seen the receipts.

The House impeached Duterte in February 2025, but the Supreme Court halted the case, and the Senate archived it. After the one-year bar lapsed, the House impeached her again on 11 May 2026, and the Senate began her trial on 6 July.

The defense and the name

Poa said in a radio interview in February 3 that the team was ready to address the “Mary Grace Piattos” question if the impeachment was the right venue. Two days later, he denied saying the defense would present her. Before the trial opened, prosecutors listed her among 57 witnesses, and a prosecution spokesman said her failure to appear would support their view that she was invented. They later dropped the plan after the same agency told the court it had no record of her.

In August, Poa told reporters it was premature to discuss the matter while prosecutors were still presenting evidence.

What the defense wants to say

“Gusto lang namin paintindi sa taong bayan, sa mga kababayan natin, kung ano ba talaga yung confidential funds, kung paano ba ito ginagamit, at kung bakit may ganitong mga acknowledgement receipts,” Poa told reporters at the Senate on Tuesday. (We just want to explain to the public, to our fellow citizens, what confidential funds really are, how they are used, and why there are acknowledgment receipts like these.)

He addressed the names directly.

“Bakit may ganitong mga pirma? Bakit may Mary Grace Piattos? Yung mga ganong pangalan. Gusto natin ipaliwanag yan eh,” he said. (Why are there signatures like these? Why is there Mary Grace Piattos? Those kinds of names. We want to explain them.)

Senators and the public could then decide for themselves, he added.

“And then hayaan na natin ang senator judges at ang ating mga kababayan na humusga kung sa tingin nila meron pang katiwalian na nangyari doon,” he said. (And then let the senator-judges and our fellow citizens judge whether they believe any corruption took place there.)

Courtroom, not press conference

The court lifted the sub judice rule on the three withdrawn articles, which frees the defense to discuss them in public. Poa said he would rather wait.

“Sa akin, kasi nga, ayokong ma-preempt dahil baka pagbigyan naman kami na magpresenta pa rin,” he said. (For me, I don’t want to preempt our presentation because we might still be allowed to present evidence.)

Testimony and evidence, where prosecutors can object and senators can weigh each point, are the defense’s preferred route. It has not said who its witnesses would be or which documents it plans to use.

Lead counsel Sheila Sison made the same argument in court. She said the prosecution “cannot unilaterally determine how the defense will proceed or which accusations the judges may hear.”

READ: Bakit In-Impeach si VP Sara?

Ruling still pending

The court has yet to decide whether to grant the request. Escudero said it should allow alternating presentations of evidence so the defense is not left unable to rebut allegations whose evidence was presented and then withdrawn. Poa said the team expects objections from prosecutors, and the defense must still set out Duterte’s position to the court.

None of the allegations has been proven. The defense opens its case on 9 November. Whether “Mary Grace Piattos” is heard in the impeachment court now rests with the senators sitting as judges.