If Vice President Sara Duterte indeed had P96 million in joint time deposit accounts with her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, the amount should have been reflected in her statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN), Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian said.
Testifying before the Senate impeachment court on Wednesday, Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) Central Metro Manila Branches Division Head Marwin Galvez confirmed that the father and daughter opened joint time deposit accounts worth P40 million and P55 million in 2010.
According to public prosecutor James Bryan Ibrahim Alih, the P40 million joint account had grown to P41.72 million when it matured in March 2011. This brought the total value of the two accounts to P96 million.
The P96 million fund was later used to purchase manager’s checks starting in 2011, according to the prosecutor.
Alih was responding to Gatchalian, who asked how the fund was transferred from the joint accounts to the bank as payment for the manager’s checks.
‘The reason why I am asking is because I’m comparing this with Vice President Sara’s Saln. If there was a P96 million joint time deposit account, that should have been reflected in her Saln because it was a joint account and she knew that such an account existed,’ the Senate chief said.
However, Gatchalian said he could not find a P96 million entry when he reviewed the vice president’s 2010 SALN.
‘I’m trying to link that to what you said earlier about purchasing a manager’s check, depositing the funds first into the bank account, and the manager’s check becoming unutilized. I’m trying to link that to the Saln to see if there is a pattern. That’s the point I’m trying to make,’ he explained.
While recognizing the questions raised by the Senate chief, defense lawyer Michael Poa insisted that the vice president had no knowledge of the transactions involving the joint accounts.
‘I think the good Senate president’s question is correct. The operative phrase is, ‘if she is aware.’ You were saying that these accounts, the time deposits, if she was aware of them, should have been reflected in the SALN. The operative phrase there is, ‘if she is aware,’ Poa said.
‘And secondly, as we demonstrated during cross-examination, none of these time deposits or transactions bore the signature of our Vice President. And all of them were done by the former President Rodrigo R. Duterte. We’ll leave it at that, Your Honor. We will not make conclusions of law or facts,’ he added.
Senator-judge Risa Hontiveros later pursued Gatchalian’s line of questioning and asked the defense lawyer whether the former president was the real owner of the accounts, and not the vice president.
Hontiveros also read Poa’s letter to BPI Legal, in which he said that the vice president had ‘no knowledge, participation, or recollection of maintaining or having any beneficial interest’ in the two accounts with the bank.
‘So my related question regarding this letter you sent to BPI Legal, Attorney Poa, is this: Based on what you have said so far, my understanding is that the actual owner of and the person who controlled the P41 million manager’s check was Rodrigo Roa Duterte, and not Sara Duterte. Is that correct?’ she asked.