Vice President Sara Duterte’s defense panel is set to continue its cross-examination of Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) Secretariat Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura on Tuesday.
After an eight-hour trial on Monday, the defense was only able to examine Buenaventura, who testified on the bank transactions of Duterte and her husband, lawyer Manases Carpio, who breached P500,000.
666 transactions
In particular, he said that, from 2007 to 2025, the couple had a total of 666 transactions above P500,000 or covered transactions reported by banks and 55 suspicious transactions.
In total, the transactions amounted to P4.4 billion.
But during the first hour of cross-examination on Monday evening, defense counsel Atty. Mark Vinluan pressed that the transactions presented by Buenaventura do not take into account the frequency of rotating the same amount of money over P500,000.
He also pointed to the lack of Buenaventura’s knowledge of the exact nature of the transactions.
Vinluan also warned Buenaventura and members of the press of possibly being charged for violating bank secrecy laws.
This line of questioning faced the scrutiny of some senator-judges who condemned the seemingly ‘chilling’ or ‘threatening’ tone of the defense.
The defense earlier opposed the presentation of Buenaventura, citing financial confidentiality laws.
Before Buenaventura’s presentation, they moved to exclude him as a witness, but the court ruled otherwise, saying that confidentiality laws are not absolute, especially in exercising accountability proceedings.