Senator Antonio Trillanes IV and President Rodrigo Duterte. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS
On April 27, 2016, the Inquirer reported that President Duterte, according to Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, had at least P227 million in an account at a bank branch in Metro Manila that he did not declare in his latest statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN).
Mr. Duterte denied the existence of the account in the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) branch on Julia Vargas Avenue in Pasig City, which allegedly contained the big amount. “I will not play into their hands by issuing a waiver. The account is nonexistent,” he told the Inquirer in a phone interview.
In a news conference at the Magdalo headquarters in Quezon City on April 28, 2016, Trillanes dared then presidential candidate Duterte to sign a waiver that would allow the opening and scrutiny of his bank accounts, and to file a libel case against him if the allegations were false.
After some netizens uploaded their copy of deposit transaction receipts in Mr. Duterte’s BPI account, he admitted that he had two accounts in BPI Julia Vargas, one with P17,000 in deposits and another with less than P50,000.
The Inquirer also reported that Mr. Duterte had transactions, including deposits and withdrawals, amounting to P2.407 billion in three bank branches (two in Metro Manila and one in Davao) over a nine-year period.
He said he had “less than P200 million” in the BPI Julia Vargas branch and that he did not declare it in his SALN in 2014 because he had already spent it. He said the money came from friends as birthday gift.
On May 2, 2016, people trooped to the BPI Julia Vargas branch but no bank records were opened during the much-awaited face-off between the camps of Duterte and Trillanes.
Instead of a waiver, Duterte lawyer Salvador Panelo requested BPI to look into his client’s records and to issue a certification that “at no time since the opening of the account has there been P211 million whether singly, collectively or cumulatively deposited to his bank account.”
On May 4, 2016, in an attempt to disprove the accusations against him, Mr. Duterte came up with his 11 passbooks but allowed the media to only take a peek at some of his bank transactions. At a press conference in Manila, he merely presented selected contents of his bank accounts. —INQUIRER RESEARCH
Source: Inquirer Archives