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Cristina Chi - Philstar.com
April 22, 2026 | 4:22pm
MANILA, Philippines — The third day of the House justice committee's impeachment hearings against Vice President Sara Duterte surfaced a whopping P6.77 billion in bank transactions that passed through her accounts and those of her husband over nearly two decades.
The amount — reported by banks to the Anti-Money Laundering Council from 2006 to 2025 — is not irregular on its own. But House lawmakers said it becomes questionable when compared with Duterte’s wealth declarations, which for six straight years listed no cash on hand and no money in the bank at all.
That is the central tension the House justice panel pulled into the open on Wednesday, April 22: Duterte's bank accounts showed billions in movement, but her Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN) show she only had a peak net worth of just P88.5 million, and zero declared cash from 2019 to 2024.
AMLC Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura presented the data under subpoena.
House justice panel chairperson Rep. Gerville "Jinky" Luistro (Batangas) was also careful to say that the numbers are not from the AMLC's own investigation. They come from 630 covered transaction reports and 33 suspicious transaction reports that banks are required to file with the council.
Covered transactions are for all transactions with amounts above P500,000, and suspicious transactions are reported regardless of amount.
Duterte again skipped the impeachment proceedings, and a response from her defense team was not immediately available.
Flagged amount
Of the P6.77 billion in total reported transactions, P4.4 billion flowed into Duterte and her husband Mans Carpio's accounts. Meanwhile, P1.55 billion flowed out, according to the AMLC's summary presented to the committee.
Another P791.1 million in older transactions could not be classified as either inflows or outflows because the AMLC's early systems did not distinguish between the two.
Rep. Antonio Tinio (ACT Teachers) shared his own back-of-the-napkin math for these numbers: essentially, P4.4 billion minus P1.55 billion leaves roughly P2.9 billion more going in than coming out.
"So roughly mga 2.9?" Tinio asked. Buenaventura confirmed the math.
But the AMLC chief cautioned that this does not necessarily mean P2.9 billion is sitting in the accounts. The agency only receives reports on transactions above P500,000, and withdrawals below that amount would not show up.
He noted, however, that deliberately keeping transactions below the threshold to avoid detection is itself a red flag. If banks spot the pattern, they are required to report all of the account holder's transactions as suspicious.
Zero cash declared, but cheque deposits kept appearing
Much of the questions on the AMLC's report focused on what lawmakers say is the mismatch between Duterte's SALN and the actual money flowing in and out of her and her husband's bank accounts.
From 2019 to 2024, Duterte declared no cash on hand and no cash in bank — six consecutive years of zero, according to the SALNs presented by the House justice committee, which it received from the Office of the Ombudsman.
Yet the AMLC recorded P230.87 million in transactions involving her and Carpio's accounts during those same years.
Rep. Percival Cendaña (Akbayan) noted that cheque deposits were flagged in Duterte's accounts from 2019 to 2022 — the same years her SALN showed nothing.
"Meron pong mga cash deposit na na-flag sa account ni VP Sara Duterte," Cendaña told the committee. "At ito rin po 'yung panahon na batay sa kanyang SALN ay walang nakalagay na entry sa cash on hand tsaka cash in bank."
The SALN itself, presented by the Office of the Ombudsman, listed the following:
From 2007 to 2012, Duterte declared cash on hand and in bank ranging from P2 million to P4.32 million.
From 2016 to 2018, the figure was around P3.75 million. Then from 2019 onward: zero, even as her declared net worth kept climbing, from P55.6 million to P88.5 million by 2024.
"Kailangan po natin ibangga ito pong amounts na ito doon po sa P88 million net worth ng ating pangalawang Pangulo," Rep. Terry Ridon (Bicol Saro) said. The AMLC numbers — whether total transactions, inflows, or investment activity — do not line up, Ridon added: "Hindi magbabangga."
Duterte's 30 suspicious transactions
Duterte's accounts alone generated P3.92 billion in reported transactions from 2005 to 2026 — 371 large and 30 suspicious, with single transactions reaching as high as P55.16 million.
Identified inflows totaled P1.51 billion from 2006 to 2022, heaviest between 2009 and 2011 when annual figures topped P597 million.
She also had P327.89 million in investment inflows from 2010 to 2025, against P111.15 million in outflows. Investment activity stopped entirely from 2023.
Her husband Mans Carpio's accounts showed P3.13 billion in transactions — 310 large and 21 suspicious — from 2007 to 2026. His activity was modest early on but surged starting 2020 and peaked in 2024 at P1.84 billion across 70 transactions.
'Numbers do not lie'
Duterte has now been absent from all three impeachment hearings since the committee began proceedings on April 14.
To stay within the country's bank secrecy laws, the committee subpoenaed the AMLC's reports rather than the bank records directly.
The approach echoes the strategy used in the country's only successful impeachment in history. In 2012, the Senate convicted Chief Justice Renato Corona for failing to disclose assets in his SALN, removing him in a 20-3 vote. The discrepancy between Corona's declared wealth and his actual bank deposits was the centerpiece of that case.
