By now, you’re likely well-informed of the contents of the supplemental affidavit of Ramil Madriaga. A last-minute attempt to prevent the House proceedings from taking place failed when the Supreme Court declined to act on Vice President Sara Duterte’s petition to stop the hearing, while the VP’s husband has also failed, so far, to get the courts to block a subpoena from the House for his and his wife’s tax returns. Previously, seasoned lawyers had observed that the Vice President’s answer to the articles of impeachment being considered was more ad hominem attacks on her accusers than actual legal defenses or rebuttals of the allegations.

It remains for the House to see whether the claims of Madriaga hold water, but this early, the Vice President’s claim that she doesn’t know him seems thoroughly debunked. What Madriaga’s supplemental affidavit does is fill in the blanks, so to speak. First, through his version of the Duterte family’s dynamics (his preference, politically, for his daughter, his lack of confidence in two of his sons, and his use of intelligence assets to keep an eye on, and out for, his daughter). Second, through his claims of the dynamics in the formerly ruling coalition: that there was a term-sharing agreement between the Marcoses and the Dutertes, and how former President Rodrigo Duterte wasn’t about to leave the fulfillment of this promise to chance. Third, an insight into the sources of large amounts for the former president’s use, which were used for the vice presidential campaign, as well as how and to whom funds from official sources were used by the VP.

Former National Security Adviser Roilo Golez, who supposedly sent Madriaga to Duterte to serve him for intelligence-gathering and other purposes, is dead, but his brother, Ferdinand, can still be asked about his bona fides. The former president himself is in detention for crimes far greater than the ones suggested by Madriaga, so chances are slim that he can be asked about the allegations. What Madriaga has supplied are dates, sometimes times, amounts, and recipients, and a list of institutions that were used for the transactions he described in his affidavit: this necessarily means that what the Vice President’s husband wanted to deny the House—their conjugal tax returns—are relevant, combined with other records (such as bank records) the House might subpoena in turn.

No wonder the Vice President preferred the more direct action of asking the Supreme Court to help them one more time and torpedo the proceedings—just going ahead with the hearings threatens to create more problems of perception, not to mention inconvenient facts that can be brushed aside by saying that it’s all a dirty political plot.

The defenders of the Vice President could, of course, try to embarrass the Palace into ceasing and desisting by demanding that President Marcos be made to testify before the House: was there, or wasn’t there, a term-sharing agreement? Let’s set aside the possibility that the President, with a merry twinkle in his eye, could nip the whole thing in the bud as well by replying, “There was, but I lied!” He more likely could say, “There was an agreement, but like any agreement based on a wrong appreciation of the law, any agreement is meaningless.”

Then again, he could simply say, no such deal, and the former president, if he said there was, was lying to Madriaga. That’s politics for you.

Or to be precise, that’s a picture of national politics being run by a local baron, which is the unavoidable impression the Madriaga testimony makes. Flush with cash (and more and more of it, literally on call), and unwilling to take no for an answer, the Dutertes portrayed in the affidavit display cunning and street-smarts in creating a parallel organization to engage in shadowy dealings under cover of conducting official business. Much is already being made of allegations of payolas (sourced in some instances, from Filipino-Chinese or Chinese chums) to officials like a former Ombudsman.

What made this man turn on his former patrons? According to the affidavit, it was former presidential spokesperson Harry Roque whom Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla seems poised to apprehend in Austria. If the affidavit does turn out to be substantiated by other evidence, then the Veep will have Roque to thank for proving that, at the end of the day, it isn’t the enemies of higher-ups that bring them down, but rather, their former friends and helpmeets.