MANILA— Senate impeachment court presiding officer Francis “Chiz” Escudero said Tuesday that adding Vice President Sara Duterte’s declared net worth in her Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs) from 2022 to 2025 still produced an amount lower than P424 million.

Escudero said he deliberately combined the figures to test a hypothesis, although he acknowledged that the SALNs should not ordinarily be added together because they cover different years and later declarations already account for assets carried over from previous years.

“I tried to bring things into absurd possibility to find out and test a hypothesis. In-add ko po ‘yung SALN ng ikalawang pangulo mula 2022, 2023, 2024 at 2025. Hindi naman dapat ina-add ‘yun kasi iba-ibang taon naman ‘yun eh at kasama na ‘yung deklarasyong nahuli sa unang deklarasyon,” he said on Tuesday.

According to Escudero, the combined amount reached more than P336 million but remained below P424 million.

“It totaled P336 million and change, hindi pa rin umabot ng P424. Meaning to say on the assumption na walang ginastos mula sa lahat ng assets nila at lahat na dineposito sa bangko, hindi pa rin aabot sa ganito kalaking halaga,” he added.