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Cristina Chi - Philstar.com
April 23, 2026 | 3:13pm
MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Sara Duterte lashed out at the Anti-Money Laundering Council and the Commission on Audit on Thursday, April 23, after both agencies publicly shared evidence of billions of pesos in flagged bank transactions tied to her and her husband that do not appear in her wealth declarations.
Duterte, in a statement, accused the AMLC of being staffed by "newly-installed" officials who refuse to clear her of wrongdoing, and the COA of timing its findings to align with political attacks against her.
She made no mention of the specific allegations shared at Wednesday's hearing, her third consecutive absence from the House justice committee's impeachment proceedings since they began on April 14.
The first part of the vice president's statement questioned the credibility of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, whose allegations of hidden Duterte family wealth were partially corroborated by the AMLC at the hearing yesterday.
But besides accusing Trillanes of long having an axe to grind against her family, Duterte also directed her ire at the two agencies and implied that the two agencies were working at the behest of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his allied lawmakers.
"Today, [Trillanes] is backed by a sitting President who must be compelled to submit to a simple drug test," Duterte wrote. She called House members "law-benders" who "have received 'maletas'" — suitcases, a euphemism for cash payoffs.
Trillanes is also backed by a "Commission on Audit that appears to time its issuances in a manner that conveniently aligns with political attacks; and newly-installed AMLC officials who remain silent and refuse to clarify that there have been no findings of violations of anti-money laundering laws, and the billions of peso in bank accounts are untrue," Duterte continued.
What was revealed
At Wednesday's hearing, AMLC Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura told the House justice committee that banks had filed 630 covered transaction reports and 33 suspicious transaction reports involving accounts held by Duterte and her husband, lawyer Manases Carpio, from 2006 to 2025.
The total value of the flagged transactions reached P6.77 billion — P3.77 billion from Duterte's accounts and P2.99 billion from Carpio's.
None of these transactions appeared in Duterte's Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN).
The Office of the Ombudsman, which submitted her SALN filings from 2007 to 2024, confirmed that Duterte declared zero cash on hand and zero bank deposits for six straight years starting in 2019, even as her net worth climbed from P55.6 million to P88.5 million over the same period.
Duterte's defense
In her statement, Duterte insisted her record is clean. "Malinis ang aking service record; hindi ako kailanman nagkaroon ng kaso sa paggamit ng pondo ng bayan," she wrote.
(My service record is clean; I have never been charged with misusing public funds.)
She said all her assets and money are accounted for in her SALN, and that every centavo comes from legitimate, documented sources.
Duterte — Marcos' running mate in the 2022 polls — left the Cabinet in July 2024 when she resigned as education secretary, a step she made after the government's alleged mishandling of the DepEd budget. Her exit also came amid an escalating rift with Marcos and his allies, particularly then-House Speaker Martin Romualdez and First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos.
House justice panel chairperson Rep. Gerville Luistro (Batangas, 2nd District) opened Wednesday's hearing by noting the vice president's continued refusal to appear at the impeachment hearings.
"The chair right in front of us, it remains empty," Luistro said.
She added that Duterte has chosen to respond through press releases and social media rather than testify under oath.
Luistro said the proceedings had entered a phase driven by documents and data rather than witness testimony. "Numbers do not have motives. Numbers do not lie," she said.
The House panel has one more scheduled hearing, set for April 29, which will focus on Duterte's alleged threats to assassinate Marcos, the First Lady and former House Speaker Romualdez.
Duterte's legal team has chosen to challenge the proceedings in court. On April 7, the vice president filed a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court, arguing the impeachment complaints are unconstitutional and asking for a temporary restraining order to halt the hearings.
