MANILA — The P205,007 Tokyo restaurant bill charged to the credit card of Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio’s husband was a shared expense among 11 travelers, not a personal expenditure shouldered entirely by lawyer Manases Carpio, a defense witness told the Senate impeachment court Thursday.
Lawyer Anel Martin Antero testified that Carpio merely advanced payment for the group’s dinner at Ginza Inakaya during a leisure trip to Japan in 2023, with the other diners subsequently reimbursing him for their shares.
Antero said Carpio used his credit card because some members of the group had run out of cash.
“Natatandaan ko quite vividly ‘yong bill namin kasi sa totoo lang, nagulat ako, kami in general, dahil hindi namin akalain ganoon kamahal yung babayaran namin,” Antero said.
“Nag-ambag-ambag po kami; it just so happened yung credit card ni Atty. Mans ‘yong nagamit sa pagbayad,” he added.
The P205,007 transaction was among the credit card expenditures earlier questioned by forensic financial analyst Alexander Cabrera during the impeachment proceedings.
Carpio previously maintained that the questioned transactions involved personal expenses paid using his own funds and had no connection to his wife’s government position.
Duterte-Carpio faces impeachment complaints involving allegations of unexplained wealth, incomplete asset declarations and failure to divest from business interests while serving as vice president./PN
