Cale88’s workforce, financial records draw scrutiny in impeachment trial

VEEP. Vice President Sara Duterte is shown in this file photo.

Inday Sara Duterte's Facebook page

Manases Carpio-owned Cale88 listed only two employees in its general info sheet despite reporting P150 million in sales in 2024

AT A GLANCE

• Senator-judges scrutinized Cale88 Foods Corporation's financial records during Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment trial, noting discrepancies between reported sales and employee count.
• Senator Risa Hontiveros also raised issues regarding foreign remittances to Cale88 from Ukrainian company Arkmen LLC, which is under investigation for alleged fraud and money laundering.

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MANILA, Philippines – Senator-judges on Friday, October 9, scrutinized the financial records and workforce of Cale88 Foods Corporation, a company linked to Vice President Sara Duterte‘s husband, Manases Carpio. 

On Day 37 of Duterte’s impeachment trial, Senator-judge Joel Villanueva raised concerns over Cale88’s 2024 general information sheet, which listed only two employees despite the company reporting P150.6 million in sales and P6.13 million in losses.

“This is alarming, Your Honor. You’re looking at a company with P150 million sales and P6.13 million in losses but only [has] two employees,” Villanueva said.

Citing the company’s financial records, Bureau of Internal Revenue chief of staff Anne Loraine Garcia-Marquez said Cale88 reported P150,595,605 in sales classified as exempt from income tax and P169,564 in sales subject to regular income tax in 2024.

The company also reported a loss of around P6.13 million in the same year, Garcia-Marquez said.

Villanueva questioned how the company managed its operations with very few employees and who funded its continued operations.

Marquez said she had no personal knowledge of Cale88’s operations, adding that it would seem “impossible” for a banana chip manufacturer to operate with only two employees unless machinery handled much of the work.

Hontiveros flags Ukrainian remitter

Meanwhile, Senator-judge Risa Hontiveros flagged Ukrainian company Arkmen LLC, one of the foreign-based entities that sent inward remittances to Cale88, citing alleged involvement in a fraud and money laundering investigation in Ukraine.

Hontiveros said her office checked the background of the foreign-based companies that remitted to Cale88 and found that Kyiv authorities investigated Arkmen LLC over alleged fraud and money laundering involving 1.225 million euros in May 2025. 

Authorities reportedly ordered a search of its premises in March, while its assets were frozen in April.

“The last remittance of Arkmen LLC to Cale88 was in May 2025 after the start of the criminal proceedings,” Hontiveros said.

Hontiveros asked Marquez whether legitimate transactions involving international remittances from Arkmen LLC to Cale88 should have been reported as sales and subjected to tax.

“If these were sales, they should have been reported in the annual income tax return,” Marquez said.

Hontiveros had previously claimed that some Chinese companies that sent funds to Cale88 were Chinese state-owned enterprises that could be “advancing the interests of the Chinese Communist Party.” – Rappler.com