Sen. Raffy Tulfo Calls Witness "Irrelevant" at VP Duterte Impeachment Trial
Senator-Judge Raffy Tulfo questioned why a witness was still being presented during the Senate impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte on September 28, 2026. He said he considers the witness irrelevant and that the matter was a waste of time.
Tulfo said he was on a break earlier because he had a visitor, so he missed the start of the hearing. He said he was puzzled why the witness still had to be presented, then asked the witness for his name. The witness identified himself as Police Major Joericson Sangalang.
From what he knows, Tulfo said, firearms can be declared as personal properties. He said he supposes all the senator-judges own guns one way or another, and that it is up to each owner how to declare them. He added that he made a computation of the firearms of the Vice President and of her husband, Atty. Manases "Mans" Carpio. If each firearm were valued at ₱60,000, he said, the total would only be ₱3 million. He then said ₱31 million had been declared, without specifying in the excerpt by whom, and that this was more than enough to cover that amount.
"So for me, sorry ha, this is a waste of time," Tulfo said, speaking in a mix of English and Filipino. He added that there are more things the senators could be doing and suggested that the trial go into plenary instead. He said it was nothing personal against the witness, but that for him, the witness is irrelevant here.
The excerpt ends with a request to deliver a short manifestation. It does not show who made the request or what was said.
The excerpt reflects only Tulfo's own views as a senator-judge, not the position of the Senate as a whole. It does not show what the witness testified about, and it does not show whether the presiding officer ruled on his suggestion to move to plenary.
Source: Senate of the Philippines, live stream of the "Impeachment Trial of Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte (September 28, 2026)," via YouTube.