Palace says exposé of Trillanes empty

Malacañang on Wednesday dismissed Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV’s latest contention that it bought the bogus documents on his purported offshore bank accounts from a certain Daniel “Snooky” Cruz Jr. for P10 million.

President Rodrigo Duterte earlier alleged that Trillanes, his perennial critic, maintained several accounts in banks abroad. This came after the senator accused Mr. Duterte of having bank transactions of more than P2 billion from 2006 to 2015.

Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said Trillanes had not presented evidence to support his allegation, save for photos of Cruz with the President and other administration officials.

“On a certain Daniel ‘Snooky’ Cruz, who is the alleged source of (Mr. Duterte’s) information on the purported bank accounts of the senator abroad, again Mr. Trillanes did not present any proof, except photos of Mr. Cruz with the President and other government officials, which are obviously taken from social media,” Abella said.

“In the end, Senator Trillanes’ exposé was as empty as the hall he spoke in,” Abella added.

Photos with Duterte

The President denied knowing Cruz despite several photos showing the two of them together, as presented by Trillanes during his privilege speech.

The opposition senator said he got the information about Cruz supposedly fabricating the documents about his accounts from his informants inside Malacañang.

Cruz “pretends to be well-connected with the United States Embassy,” Trillanes said. Cruz also supposedly claimed to be a former federal agent who had access to banks “all over the world.”

One of Mr. Duterte’s allegations was that Trillanes had an account at the DBS bank in Singapore. But the senator, who flew to Singapore, obtained a denial from the teller that he had kept any account in the bank.

Trillanes documents

Abella also said the Palace was standing by the statement of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) that it was not the source of documents attached to Trillanes’ complaint against the President in  the Office of the Ombudsman.

Abella noted that the AMLC had said the amounts in the supposed accounts were wrong and misleading.

In his privilege speech on Oct. 3, Trillanes said the AMLC had flagged Mr. Duterte’s transactions in bank accounts that held at least P50 million from 2006 to 2015.

The senator said that more than P50 million went into the President’s bank accounts 13 times during the period.

The Office of the Ombudsman has begun an inquiry into the bank transactions of Mr. Duterte and his family.

But it has also come under attack from the President, who has accused its officials of corruption, and from his allies, who have claimed that agency officials are biased and out to destabilize the administration.