Duterte camp blames Palace for hidden wealth allegations

THE CAMP of presidential race front-runner Rodrigo Duterte yesterday said Malacañang was behind Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV’s allegations that the Davao City mayor has undeclared wealth.

“Trillanes is [only] a pawn. The [brains] behind [his accusations] is Malacañang,” Leoncio Evasco Jr., Duterte’s campaign manager, said in a statement.

Evasco said the Palace was “bent on thwarting a victory by Duterte.”

Desperation

“It is desperately trying to save the candidacy of Mar Roxas and is poised to employ all means, including massive cheating, to maintain the status quo,” he said.

Duterte has emerged as the clear favorite in voter preference polls for next month’s presidential election.

With only a week to go before the vote, Roxas, President Aquino’s candidate, is trailing Sen. Grace Poe and Duterte.

“They made the election a very dirty political exercise. They want it confined [to] the elite. They cannot stomach an outsider, one who has captivated the imagination of the people but does not come from their ranks,” Evasco said.

He said both President Aquino and Roxas “belong to the landed elite who only have contempt [for] the majority of Filipinos clamoring for genuine and real change.”

Face the charges

But Malacañang said Duterte should face allegations about his hidden bank accounts that, according to Trillanes, had seen transactions of up to P2.4 billion in a nine-year period.

“This is one issue that the courageous Mayor Duterte should face, but as what has been reported in the news, he would not be at the bank but would be going home to Davao,” Communications Undersecretary Manuel Quezon III said on state-run radio, referring to Duterte’s statement on Friday that his lawyer Salvador Panelo would represent him in a meeting with Trillanes at the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) branch on Julia Vargas Avenue, Pasig City, tomorrow for the disclosure of his bank accounts.

Quezon said “any allegations involving money should be taken seriously,” especially when they involved public officials.

“Public office is a public trust,” Quezon said, explaining why public officials, unlike private citizens, have to be transparent about their wealth.

Quezon said the people were confused by the flip-flopping statements coming from Duterte and his camp, which initially denied the mayor had undeclared bank accounts only for the mayor himself to admit later that he had an account at BPI Julia Vargas containing “less than P200 million” in deposits. TVJ