Sara Duterte impeachment trial Day 35: No hand in joint bank accounts, payout

The camp of Vice President Sara Duterte distanced her from the activities recorded under her BPI joint account with her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, involving purchased and unused manager’s checks and a payout to alleged drug lord Sammy Uy.

Defense counsel Michael Poa made the argument after Marwin Galvez, BPI Central Metro Manila division head, testified that the joint account of the Vice President and her father purchased two sets of unutilized manager’s checks valued at P41 million and P55 million, respectively.

It was also revealed that P16 million of the amount was paid to Uy, who has been tagged by former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV as a drug personality.

“Nung lumabas ang mga accounts, tinitingnan namin itong mga accounts na ito and I was asked by the Vice President to verify kasi hindi niya natatandaan na may ganitong account at wala daw siyang transaksyon,” Poa said.

(When these came up, the Vice President asked me to verify because she does not recall these.)

“Wala siyang naging participation," Poa added.

(She has no participation in this.)

Manager's check: Ticket to concealment?

BPI’s Galvez also told the court that the owner of the manager’s check has an option not to use it and later deposit it again in his or her bank account within six months of the issuance of the manager’s check.

Upon the senator-judges’ inquiry, Galvez also confirmed that the amount indicated in the manager’s check won’t be reflected in the ending balance of the account holder at the end of the year.

This ‘floating’ scheme stirred the interest of the senator-judges.

Senator Bam Aquino said he was surprised that the scheme was allowed, while Senator Panfilo Lacson said the prosecution was clearly seeking to prove concealment on the part of the Vice President.

Lacson later added, although in jest, that Senator Lito Lapid is already contemplating buying a manager’s check worth P100 million.

Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, for his part, said such a scheme is akin to the Filipino folk dance Tinikling wherein the dancers try to avoid being caught by striking bamboos which play to a certain beat or harmony.

Closed accounts, child with P1 million

Security Bank’s Leslie Cham revealed that two checking accounts of Cale88 Foods Corporation, a declared business interest of the Vice President’s husband, Manases Carpio, were closed last July or the same month when the impeachment trial started.

Lawyer Niña Ferren Aguilar of the Anti-Money Laundering Division of Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company, meanwhile, testified that one of the children of the Duterte-Carpio couple had over P1 million in bank deposits at the end of each year from 2022 to 2025.

Likewise, Aguilar said that their banks’ reporting of suspicious bank transactions to the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) is based on news reports and comprehensive evaluation, not gossip.

Ahead of Aguilar’s pronouncement, AMLC Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura said that the bank accounts under the names of the Vice President and her husband recorded P4.4 billion worth of covered and suspicious bank transactions.

BPI’s Galvez also told the court that the Vice President and her husband have nine bank accounts in the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) with a collective ending balance of P8 million as of 2025.

Galvez said that the nine accounts include the joint accounts of the Vice President and her father, former president Duterte, at the BPI Julia Vargas branch in Pasig City and the BPI Davao Main Branch.

It can be recalled that former senator Trillanes alleged in 2016 that then-Davao City mayor and presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter Sara had millions that he did not declare in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth.

Galvez said that the Duterte-Carpio couple already closed their 34 accounts in BPI, although he did not say when these accounts were closed.

Bank representatives also said that Vice President Duterte and her husband posted a P39 million ending balance in several bank accounts across eight banks under their names from 2022 to 2025.

The bank officials who made the testimony were from the following financial institutions:

• Landbank of the Philippines
• AUB (Asia United Bank)
• PS Bank
• Metro Bank
• Security Bank
• BPI (Bank of the Philippine Islands)
• PNB (Philippine National Bank) and
• BDO (Banco de Oro)

The 2025 ending balance for the bank accounts of the Vice President and her husband is slightly higher than their 2024 ending balance of P22.2 million.

The 2024 ending balance of P22.2 million, however, was way below their 2023 ending balance which reached P71.3 million.

The 2022 ending balance of the Vice President and her husband, the first year of Duterte in office, amounted to P59 million.

Lawyer Sotero Roman, representative of FWD Life Insurance, also told the Senate court that Carpio bought P10.6 million in investment insurance in 2024.

Roman said that this insurance is already paid for, has a financial value of P13.2 million, and lists the children of the Duterte-Carpio couple as beneficiaries.

Defense counsel CJ Narvasa, in response, cited the provisions of the Insurance Code which state that “the consent of the spouse is not necessary for the validity of an insurance policy taken out by a married person on his or her life or that of his or her children.”

The witnesses from the banks were presented by the prosecution to prove Article 2 of the impeachment case against the Vice President, who amassed unexplained wealth due to alleged failure to truthfully disclose assets in her SALN and failure to divest in businesses as required for the President and Vice President under a Constitutional provision. —LDF, GMA News