Among this week’s biggest stories is the filing of a criminal complaint by lawyer Manases Reyes Carpio, the husband of Vice President Sara Duterte, against officials led by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Eli Remolona Jr., who is also chairman of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC).
How did it get here?
At the House committee on justice hearing last week, as part of the ongoing impeachment proceedings against VP Duterte, AMLC executive director Ronel Buenaventura revealed that there were suspicious transactions and covered transactions in the Dutertes’ bank accounts.
The AMLC identified 313 covered transactions and 17 suspicious transactions in VP Sara’s accounts, and 317 covered transactions and 16 suspicious transactions in her husband’s. The flagged transactions totaled P6.77 billion, broken down into P3.77 billion linked to Duterte’s accounts and P2.99 billion to Carpio’s (The STAR, April 23, 2026).
That’s a whopping P6.77 billion.
Here’s what happened:
Thus on Monday, Carpio filed the criminal complaint against Remolona, Buenaventura and members of the House committee on justice, including chairperson Gerville Luistro and members Percival Cendaña, Chel Diokno and Leila de Lima, for violation of the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA), bank secrecy laws and the Data Privacy Act.
It is a jaw-dropping complaint filed before the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office that alleges that the respondents connived to illegally disclose and divulge classified and confidential banking records protected under RA 9160 or the AMLA, as amended, the Bank Secrecy Law and the Data Privacy Act.
Carpio, in a statement, said he was constrained to seek legal action in defense not only of his wife, VP Sara, and the Duterte family, but more so in defense of the banking and financial community, especially the unwary general public.
He also said that under the AMLA, as amended, confidentiality and protection of bank records are absolute and without exception, for the security, stability and integrity of the financial and banking system. Even the media is banned and may be criminally charged.
‘Diabolical’
The complaint also charges that the AMLC and the House committee on justice leaked various private records of transactions, expanding to insurance payments, time deposits, investments and utility bill payments.
Carpio claimed that the alleged AMLC leak was used as a tool for black propaganda and political harassment rather than a legitimate regulatory action. “It is intended to destroy the reputation of VP Sara and the entire Duterte family. It is diabolical,” Carpio said.
Furthermore, and not surprisingly, Carpio alleged that the AMLA is “being weaponized to the max even if illegal and contrary to law, for pure black propaganda with a view to the 2028 national election.”
“Evidently, respondents, in apparent conspiracy, cooperation and confederation with each other, criminally and feloniously publicly disclosed and unraveled, without my consent and over my objection, for the world to see and hear, for pure propaganda purposes, the alleged transaction reports of different banks for my and my wife VP Sara’s bank accounts from 2006 to 2025, with evident intent to bloat and sensationalize for pure harassment the ‘transaction value’ of our bank accounts, without providing the detailed bases of the AMLC report as submitted to the HCOJ (House committee on justice) on April 23, 2026.”
He warned that the “unauthorized and illegal disclosure creates a dangerous precedent where no citizen’s financial data is secure under current bank secrecy laws. No one is safe. Instead of our system being governed by law and due process, the ugly head of man seems to prevail.”
I am curious to see what will come out of this but for sure, its final resolution will be critical in succeeding investigations and future impeachment cases against government officials.
A decision in favor of the AMLC would give our officials the confidence and courage to continue their fight against money laundering.
On the other hand, a decision favoring Carpio could mean that the Marcos administration is indeed weaponizing the law for its vested interests. It may send chills through the interagency council tasked to fight dirty money.
Questions remain
The filing of the case also does not answer the question surrounding the VP’s wealth, one of the reasons there is an impeachment complaint against her.
From the public’s point of view, the legal challenge even indicates the accuracy of the information from the AMLC investigation.
As retired Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio said, “The affidavit-complaint of Mans Carpio assumes that these were Sara’s and his bank accounts because he is questioning the release by AMLC of their bank transactions, so he’s assuming that this is true because otherwise they will not be filing the criminal case.”
“He impliedly admitted that these are their accounts. If they are denying the existence of these accounts, they cannot charge AMLC officials for releasing them to the public,” Justice Carpio said in an interview with Richard Heydarian on YouTube.
Justice Carpio also said that public office is a public trust and the AMLC law cannot be used to negate this. He also said that in impeachment cases, the bank secrecy law does not apply.
Bank secrecy
This whole issue again puts the spotlight on the bank secrecy law. It’s time for Congress to ease it in a way that would allow scrutiny of the amassed wealth of public officials while at the same time, protect the privacy of citizens.
After all, if one does not want to lose one’s privacy, then one should not be holding public office.
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