Alleged Sara Duterte GenCorp Payments totaling P2.14 million came under scrutiny during Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial after a defense witness disclosed that the amount was released by GenCorp Industries Inc. between 2022 and 2025 as a purported return of capital from an investment linked to a Jollibee branch in Davao City.
During Wednesday’s hearing, defense witness Atty. Suzette Balucanag-Punay, in-house counsel for GenCorp Industries Inc. and Metro City Chow Foods Corporation, testified that company records showed Duterte received a total of P2,142,369.14 over the four-year period.
Balucanag-Punay said the payments stemmed from what she described as Duterte’s “loose investment” in the Jollibee Times Square branch in Davao City, an interest she said originated from an earlier investment in Davao Bounty Times Food Corporation before the branch’s operations were transferred to successor entities that eventually became GenCorp.
She maintained that Duterte was not a stockholder of GenCorp, held no corporate position, and did not receive dividends from the company, emphasizing that the payments were recorded as returns of capital rather than profit distributions.
However, Senate impeachment court presiding officer Francis “Chiz” Escudero questioned how the vice president could have received more than P2.1 million in returns if records previously presented indicated an initial capital contribution of only about P46,000 to P46,875 in Davao Bounty Times Food Corporation.
Balucanag-Punay acknowledged that she had not seen any written document establishing the exact amount or terms of Duterte’s original investment and could not provide records explaining how the return-of-capital figures were computed.
Senator-judge Sherwin Gatchalian also questioned why GenCorp was making payments related to Duterte’s alleged investment instead of the companies originally involved in the Jollibee Times Square venture.
Gatchalian further raised a possible conflict-of-interest issue, noting that GenCorp allegedly received about P33 million worth of contracts from the Davao City government while also disbursing funds tied to Duterte’s investment interests.
The issue forms part of the broader impeachment proceedings, where prosecutors have alleged unexplained wealth, failure to disclose assets, and failure to divest from business interests while holding public office.
Defense witnesses, meanwhile, have insisted that Duterte neither owned shares in GenCorp nor participated in its management from 2022 to 2025, arguing that the payments were connected solely to a long-standing investment interest in a single Jollibee branch operation.
The testimony has added to ongoing questions before the impeachment court regarding the nature of the vice president’s financial interests, the basis of the payments released by GenCorp, and whether any conflict of interest existed in relation to government contracts awarded to the company.