Vice President Sara Duterte’s defense counsel and former Department of Education (DepEd) chief of staff Michael Poa is scheduled to testify on Wednesday, Sept. 2.
He will be called on by the prosecution panel to take the witness stand.
The counsel cannot yet be called a hostile witness at this time, since this description comes after he has been formally presented by the prosecution to the impeachment court.
Poa is expected to testify about the DepEd’s use of confidential funds (CFs) when Duterte was its secretary from 2022 to 2024.During that period, while Poa was the secretary’s chief of staff, the department disbursed P112.5 million in CFs.
Among these disbursements are P15 million supposedly used to help fund the Armed Forces of the Philippines Youth Leadership Summits.
Poa had supposedly requested military certification after the Commission on Audit required supporting documents to explain how DepEd used its CFs.
Over the weekend, House Deputy Speaker Paolo Ortega V called Poa a ‘central figure’ in Duterte’s impeachment, especially as he served as both Duterte’s chief of staff and spokesperson at DepEd.
The lawmaker noted that Poa likely knew how the confidential funds were processed within the agency at the time, as part of his job.
After his role at DepEd, Poa continued to represent Duterte as counsel as early as the first impeachment complaints were filed against the vice president in 2025.
Poa’s testimony will then be followed by Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) Assistant National Statistician Marizza Grande.
Grande is set to testify on PSA’s findings on the identities of the curious names that appear in the acknowledgment receipts filed by the Office of the Vice President and DepEd as proof of payment for confidential activities.