Trillanes presses AMLC on Duterte bank accounts

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV
INQUIRER PHOTO/LYN RILLON

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV will call President Rodrigo Duterte’s bluff by asking this week the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to disclose amounts of money it flagged in the bank accounts of the President from 2006 to 2015.

Trillanes made this statement in a radio interview on Sunday. Contacted by the Inquirer, he said he would write the AMLC to make the request using the President’s directive for the council to reveal how much he was worth.

Rehashed charges

The President gave the directive in front of the members of the Philippine Military Academy Class of 1967, which adopted him as member, in Baguio City on Friday, as he denied he and his family had hidden wealth as alleged by Trillanes.

Describing Trillanes’ latest allegations as mere rehash of his previous accusations, Mr. Duterte called the opposition senator a “bandit” and vowed to quit as President if Trillanes would be able to prove his claim.

Last week, the senator urged anew Mr. Duterte to open his bank accounts and show he did not have P2.2 billion in transactions between 2006 and 2015 in three bank branches. Trillanes made the same call to the then presidential candidate in last year’s election campaign.

Trillanes said he would resign as senator if proven wrong.

The senator last week also showed documents indicating that the President’s common-law wife, Honeylet Avanceña, had almost P200 million in bank transactions from 2004 to 2009 and that she and his children received P120 million from Sammy Uy, Mr. Duterte’s close friend and a campaign financier, from 2011 to 2013.

Verbal waiver

Trillanes yesterday described the President’s directive to the AMLC as “verbal waiver.”

Asked if Mr. Duterte would release the transaction history of his three bank accounts between 2006 and 2015, presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said, “That’s his call. But I suppose he will.”

“Everything depends on the AMLC, I suppose, to do what they need to do,” Abella added.

Trillanes said he would ask information from the AMLC about the President’s every transaction of at least P500,000 that it had reported or “flagged.”

Flagged bank transactions

“The President gave the directive on national TV and if he backs down, then you see he is fooling again the people,” Trillanes told the Inquirer.

The senator said if the AMLC responded that it was not allowed to do so, “then I will go back to the media and say they really do not want it to be known.”

“I will call his bluff. I will keep on pressing,” he added, underscoring the need for people to really get to know Mr. Duterte.

In the radio interview, the senator said he would still request the AMLC to give him a list of flagged bank transactions of the President even if everybody knew that the council had a “limited mandate.”

AMLC mandate

Trillanes said that the AMLC was a repository of information on bank deposits reported to it and that it could investigate suspicious bank transactions.

But the AMLC has no mandate to determine a depositor’s worth and cannot see bank transactions below half a million pesos, according to Trillanes.

“The way I understand it, the AMLC is prohibited from divulging information and will only do so when the subject is for litigation,” he said.

The senator said he would disclose more scandals involving the President soon.