MANILA, Philippines — A claim by lawyer Yvette Contacto, an officer of PDP Laban, that the government spends P70 million for every day of Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment trial is false.

No official record supports this figure. Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian has also said the chamber is not incurring additional expenses in holding the trial.

Contacto made the claim in a clip posted on July 9 by Facebook page "Nob Yem Bre," where she appears to be speaking at a media forum at the PDP Laban headquarters. The trial was on its third day when the clip circulated and has since been reposted by other Facebook pages.

"Sabi nila every day na nagkakaroon ng impeachment, magkano ang binabayad at ginagasta sa gobyerno? P70M. Magkano ang china-charge kay VP Inday? P125M? Ito two hearings na P140M na, sobra na doon," she said.

(They say for every day of the impeachment, how much does the government pay and spend? P70 million. How much was charged to VP Inday? P125 million? These two hearings alone are P140 million, which already exceeds that.)

Screengrab on July 23, 2026; 2:43 p.m.

Contacto is the "national legal affairs chairperson" of PDP Laban. Her party profile states she is a certified public accountant who was among the lawyers of former president Rodrigo Duterte in a disqualification case when he was still Davao City mayor. She served as commissioner of the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission from 2020 to 2022.

Rating: This is FALSE.

Facts

No Senate official, budget document, or impeachment court statement has cited P70 million — or anything close to it — as the cost of a trial day.

Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian said on July 16 that the Senate is not incurring additional expenses in its conduct of the trial because it treats the proceedings as an activity similar to a plenary session.

Gatchalian said the prosecution and defense are shouldering their own expenses, including food, internet and printing of materials.

Estimated daily operating cost. The closest genuine figure on record is the Senate's regular daily operating cost — expenses the chamber would spend whether or not any trial is underway.

During the Senate leadership standoff in June, Gatchalian, then former finance committee chairman, said the Senate spends about P25 million per day on utilities and staff salaries as part of its daily expenses.

He said this in the context of his criticism of the Cayetano-led bloc's refusal to attend Senate sessions at the time.

Sen. Ping Lacson used the same estimate by Gatchalian, computed from the salaries, allowances and operating expenses under the 2026 General Appropriations Act, to peg the cost of 28 days of the standoff under then-Senate president Alan Peter Cayetano at P700 million.

Cayetano himself, disputing Lacson's framing, said Senate operations cost P25 million per day regardless of who is Senate president.

Even if that entire fixed cost were wrongly billed to the impeachment, it is barely a third of Contacto's figure. By the Senate president's account, the trial's true incremental cost is zero.

Contacto's claim on the P125 million "charged" to Duterte is also misleading.

The P125 million was a red flag raised by state auditors — the Commission on Audit finding in 2023 that the OVP's confidential funds were spent in only 11 days — that helped trigger scrutiny of the vice president.

But the amount of confidential funds at issue in Duterte's trial is nearly five times larger. Article I covers P612.5 million, or P500 million from the Office of the Vice President and P112.5 million from the Department of Education, and just one of four articles she must answer for.

The three other articles accuse Duterte of unexplained wealth and untruthful asset declarations from 2022 to 2024, bribery and procurement irregularities involving DepEd officials, and assassination threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and former House speaker Martin Romualdez.

Why we fact-checked this

The claim was made by an official of PDP Laban, the party led by the vice president's brother, Davao City Mayor Sebastian "Baste" Duterte, who is its president.

The party has declared its opposition to what it calls the "politically driven impeachment."

The video clip by Facebook page "Nob Yem Bre" has since garnered over 1,900 likes and 800 shares. Others that reposted spliced or cropped versions of the same clip with Contacto's claim have reached over 300 to 500 shares.