THE PRESIDENT'S SIGNATURE AND THE GREEN BOX NOBODY WANTS TO OPEN

[An MCT Commentary]

There's a box. Green, sealed, and sitting in the middle of one of the messiest political trials this country has seen in years.

And somehow, the only person who can legally open it is the very president who has the most to gain from keeping it shut.

I've been curious about this one for a few days now.

THE BOX

The BIR sent a sealed green box to the Senate impeachment court.

Inside, supposedly, are the tax records of Vice President Sara Duterte. The House prosecution panel, the side pushing for her conviction, wants those records opened.

They believe it'll help prove the unexplained wealth charges against her.

Open the box, check the records, case proceeds.

Except it's not that simple. And Ping Lacson was the one who explained why.

WHAT LACSON SAID

Sen. Panfilo "Ping" Lacson came out on July 4 and told the Senate impeachment court, clearly: you have no business keeping that box. Send it back.

His point wasn't really about VP Sara. He was making a legal argument. Under Sections 71 and 270 of the NIRC (National Internal Revenue Code, the main law governing how taxes work in the Philippines), tax records are confidential. The BIR cannot share anyone's tax information with anyone else, and that includes courts, unless two things happen: either the taxpayer gives written consent, or the President of the Philippines signs a written authorization.

That's the law. It applies to everyone, including a sitting vice president on trial.

So when the prosecution handed that sealed box to the Senate without getting that presidential authorization first, Lacson basically said: wait, you handed over something you don't even have permission to use yet.

The Senate agreed. The box got returned to the BIR on July 7.

WHY THE PRESIDENT SPECIFICALLY

The law requires the president's signature because tax records sit under executive authority.

The president, as head of the executive branch, oversees both the BIR and the Department of Finance (DOF). Under the NIRC, presidential authorization is the legal mechanism for releasing confidential tax data outside of the normal collection process.

It's not some weird rule someone invented to protect politicians.

If you're in a civil case and the other side wants your tax records, they can't just subpoena the BIR and get them.

There's a process. There's a chain of authority.

Lacson said clearly he wasn't taking sides. "I am not favoring the defense. I am invoking the law," he told reporters.

I'll take that at face value.

He's been consistent. But invoking the law and being blind to how the law gets used politically are two different conversations.

BUT WAIT, WHAT ABOUT THE IMPEACHMENT ITSELF?

And this is where the legal fight stops being just about procedure.

The prosecution isn't asking for VP Sara's tax records out of curiosity. They need them to prove Article II of the impeachment charges: unexplained wealth and failure to truthfully disclose assets in her SALNs (Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth) from 2022 to 2024.

If her declared income doesn't match what she spent or owned, that's a constitutional violation.

But the law, as written, didn't build a clear lane for impeachment proceedings to access tax records.

Under Section 270 of the NIRC, disclosing a taxpayer's records without legal authority is a criminal offense.

A BIR official who opens that box without the right clearance can be fined up to P100,000 and jailed for up to five years.

The people who physically hold the evidence are personally at risk if they hand it over the wrong way.

The NIRC does have an exception.

Under Section 20 of the same code, the BIR commissioner can share tax records with Congress, but only if the inquiry is in aid of legislation (meaning Congress is using the information to write or review a law), and only if it's done in executive session (a closed-door, private hearing).

An impeachment trial is not an inquiry in aid of legislation. It's a separate, constitutionally mandated accountability process.

The NIRC does not list it as an exception.

The BIR commissioner himself said this in a House hearing back in April: there is no legal basis for disclosure in an impeachment proceeding under current law.

THE ARGUMENT ON THE OTHER SIDE

Rep. Leila de Lima argued that during impeachment, Congress is fulfilling a constitutional duty that sits above an ordinary statute like the NIRC.

The Constitution is the highest law. A tax code provision cannot block a constitutionally mandated process.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros made a similar point, saying constitutional accountability proceedings should override NIRC confidentiality.

The NIRC is specific. It criminalizes disclosure.

Impeachment isn't listed as an exception, so by the letter of the law, the confidentiality holds.

But the counterargument isn't weak either.

The Constitution built impeachment as the highest accountability tool available.

If a tax code provision can neutralize it, then the accountability process has a ceiling, and powerful people already know where that ceiling is.

No Philippine court has definitively resolved this tension. And that's exactly why it's still being argued.

SO WHAT HAPPENS IF MARCOS ACTUALLY SIGNS IT?

Signing that paper is a political act. Marcos knows it. His allies know it. Sara’s camp knows it.

Marcos and Sara Duterte were once the UniTeam.

They ran together in 2022, swept the elections, and presented themselves as the great Filipino unity tandem.

That alliance is now completely gone.

The relationship broke beyond repair by end of 2025, and today Marcos's own House allies are the ones prosecuting his former running mate.

Something people keep getting tangled on: Marcos cannot run for president in 2028. The Constitution prohibits a sitting president from seeking reelection. So this isn't about protecting his own 2028 prospects.

What it is about is his political legacy, his coalition, and deciding who gets to compete in 2028 and who doesn't.

A convicted Sara Duterte, barred from running, removes someone whose presence alone destabilizes whatever room she's in. And the Marcos political family has always played a longer game than just the next election cycle.

If Marcos signs, the prosecution gets the tax records, the unexplained wealth charges get a direct evidentiary foundation, and the trial moves toward a possible conviction.

Marcos has no seat at the 2028 table. But he can still decide who sits there, and a convicted Sara Duterte is one less problem for that plan.

Signing that authorization isn't a neutral legal act. And everyone in Malacañang knows it.

ON SARA DUTERTE, PERSONALLY

I don't view VP Sara Duterte primarily as a political threat. A governance threat is a different problem altogether.

Her conduct throughout this entire saga, the press conferences, the public statements, the theatrics, the rhetoric about killing public officials, the November 2024 Zoom presser that the prosecution literally played as evidence in court, none of it reflects the temperament, judgment, or character of someone who should be anywhere near the highest offices of this country.

Not because of politics. Because of basic fitness for leadership.

The unexplained wealth charges, the SALN (Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth) questions, the secrecy around her financial records, these aren't just legal issues. They reflect a pattern of someone who doesn't believe the rules apply to her and doesn't feel the need to explain herself to the public she's supposed to serve.

Good governance requires more than political survival skills. You have to believe in the thing you're governing. From everything I've watched and read, I'm not convinced she does.

THE DDS SOCIAL MEDIA MACHINE

Sara's political camp has inherited the DDS (Diehard Duterte Supporters) online machinery, and it's one of the most organized social media operations in Philippine political history.

The playbook was written under Rodrigo Duterte: drown the conversation in noise, reframe every attack as persecution, and keep enough noise going that finding the truth requires more energy than most people have.

The machine is already running.

The framing they're pushing is consistent: this is political persecution, a coordinated takedown designed to silence the Dutertes.

In Mindanao, that framing doesn’t need much selling. The Duterte name still means something there. And the millions who voted for Sara in 2022, many of them still feel the Marcos-Duterte split was a deal they didn’t agree to break.

If Marcos signs that authorization, expect the volume to go up several levels.

The line they'll push: the president is now literally signing documents to destroy the woman his own voters chose as VP.

Pages will flood with selective clips. Senators who vote to convict will get tagged as puppets.

The trial will be reframed, not as accountability, but as dynastic war.

The frustrating part is that the framing works because it's not completely false.

This is a trial where the prosecutor's side also has deeply political motivations.

Accountability and political interest aren't mutually exclusive, but they're not the same thing either.

The DDS will exploit that gap, and they'll have enough material to keep millions of Filipinos confused about where the law ends and the politics begin.

WHERE IT STANDS NOW

After the box was returned to the BIR, the prosecution filed a formal subpoena request with the Senate impeachment court, asking the court to compel the BIR to produce the records.

Presiding officer Sen. Francis "Chiz" Escudero ordered both panels to submit written legal arguments, and oral arguments on the subpoena are scheduled for July 15.

By this week, the Senate impeachment court will have to take a position.

Either it has the constitutional authority to override the NIRC's confidentiality rules through a subpoena, or it doesn't.

The prosecution has 92 trial days approved for the proceedings.

Today is already Day 4, and the most important piece of evidence is still sealed in a box that almost nobody has the legal authority, or the political will, to open.

THE QUESTION I CAN'T SHAKE

If Marcos is genuinely serious about accountability, the path is straightforward.

Sign the authorization. Release the tax records. Let the evidence speak for itself.

The law gives him that power precisely for situations like this.

The question is whether he actually has the stomach for it.

The easier move is to let the subpoena question drag through oral arguments, let the court carry the weight of the constitutional call, and keep his own hands clean on paper.

Waiting for the court to carry the weight isn't accountability. It's just better-dressed avoidance.

If he signs, the prosecution gets its ammunition and Marcos owns whatever follows. If he doesn't, his own allies start asking why he's protecting someone they've been prosecuting for months. Neither option is clean.

A president who has the legal authority to act and chooses not to has already made a decision. He just hasn't signed anything yet.