Bank records show undeclared VP assets

MANILA, Philippines — The Senate impeachment court has begun looking into the bank records of Vice President Sara Duterte, uncovering 30 active accounts containing P190 million or way above the P13.32 million declared in her statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN).

The financial records were gathered from eight banks between 2022 and 2025. The information on her bank records emerged yesterday on Day 34 of her impeachment trial.

During the proceedings, details of her and her husband Manases Carpio’s bank accounts were made public as House prosecutors move to pin her down for alleged unexplained wealth under Article II of the Articles of Impeachment.

The Duterte spouses’ accounts held more than P59 million in 2022, more than P71 million the following year, more than P22 million in 2024 and more than P35 million in 2025.

The more than P190 million presented by the prosecution was a combination of four separate year-end snapshots. It is not an account balance held on a single date. The prosecution intends to compare each year’s balance with the SALN covering the same year.

Rep. Joel Chua, one of the prosecutors, revealed all these accounts couldn’t be found in the Vice President’s SALNs.

He said Carpio listed P8 million under “other personal properties,” described as “various,” in the 2022 SALN. Duterte listed two amounts under the same category: P2.25 million and P3 million. Her entries totaled P5.25 million.

Combined, their declared “other personal properties” amounted to P13.325 million. Against the prosecution’s delivered figure of more than P59 million in year-end bank balances, the difference exceeds P45.675 million.

“In this tabulation alone, it really doesn’t add up, the gap is big,” Chua said.

The comparison does not add balances from different years. It places the balance recorded at the end of 2022 beside the SALN for the same year.

Chua said the couple’s declared net worth for 2022 was approximately P71 million. The offered bank balance alone would account for most of that amount before other declared assets were counted.

He also referred to firearms worth approximately P7 million presented in earlier testimony as among the assets that would have to fit within the same declared net worth.

Money laundering

The impeachment court also tackled yesterday the possibility that CALE88 Foods Corp., a food manufacturing company linked to Carpio, may have been used for money laundering after it allegedly received funds from China. Carpio holds a 47.5 percent share in CALE88, which received P319 million “remittance” from Chinese companies, the prosecution earlier said.

Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian quizzed Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) executive director Ronel Buenaventura about red flags based on the firm’s balance sheet.

Gatchalian said CALE88 had P776 million “inflow” and P154 million “outflow,” even though cumulative sales only amounted to P23 million, assets at P18 million, liabilities at P20 million and a paid-up capital of only P125,000.

He noted that half of CALE88 sales “came from China,” as he pressed AMLC to also look into the legitimacy of the Chinese entities pouring in the funds.

When Buenaventura said he could not testify beyond what was asked of him in the court subpoena, Gatchalian pressed his point that the banks flagged transactions linked to Cale88 because of “no underlying legal or trade obligation purpose or economic justification.”

Buenaventura said he does not want to add to the interpretation of why it was flagged suspicious.

Gatchalian asked Buenaventura if CALE88 could be considered a “candidate for money laundering” because its books did not show where the P776-million inflow came from.

Buenaventura said CALE88 can be considered a candidate for money laundering, subject to further investigation.

“In general po, we have to determine if there is unlawful activity or transaction that generated the funds,” Buenaventura said.

In his interjection, Sen. Francis Pangilinan said CALE88 received the funds from China during the period 2022 to 2025, or when Duterte is already the vice president. Buenaventura agreed.

He added that total aggregated amount that went to Cale88 according to covered and suspicious transaction reports amounted to P1,254,736,297.08.

Asked by Sen. Erwin Tulfo if the receipt of funds from China was tantamount to a “conflict of interest,” Buenaventura begged off from giving an opinion.

When Tulfo asked if there is “factual basis” to determine if the source of the funds was “legal or illegal,” Buenaventura said he is leaving it up to the court to make a conclusion.

China links

Also during the proceedings, some senator-judges expressed intention to dig deeper to uncover potential links between Beijing state-owned businesses and some local political groups.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros confronted Buenaventura over the P319 million in remittances from China to Cale88.

Hontiveros said her office conducted its own corporate background checks on several remitters and found them to be tied directly to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Beijing’s foreign policy arms.

She said one of the senders of the money to CALE88, Beijing Zhenweifang Food Co., is owned by Xinjiang Fruit Industry Group, an enterprise with an embedded CCP apparatus including its own Party Committee and 11 subordinate party branches.

She added that Beijing Zhenweifang’s chairman belongs to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a body cited in international intelligence reports as the “premier overt United Front organization” for foreign interference.

“Why is this important, Attorney Buenaventura? Because this Xinjiang Fruit Industry Group is not an ordinary company. It’s a Chinese state-owned enterprise. It advances the interests of the Chinese Communist Party,” Hontiveros stressed.

Buenaventura declined to characterize the transactions as a cause for concern, saying he needs to review the background of the entities.

The push to investigate Chinese funding extended to political organizations supporting the Duterte family, with Sen. Bam Aquino citing the Chinese government’s denial of donations to the Tapang at Malasakit alliance.

After Buenaventura confirmed that records of Tapang at Malasakit were not included in the AMLC subpoena, presiding office Francis Escudero observed that the group might not fall under the agency’s regulatory scope.

“If I may, Tapang at Malasakit is not a juridical entity I believe… that may have an account or a policy covered by the AMLC,” Escudero said. — Marc Jayson Cayabyab, Neil Jayson Servallos