by Diego Morra
When former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV told the prosecution panel in the impeachment trial of Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio that he gladly would withdraw from appearing as a witness, it was a calculated move t0 unsettle the defense, which had opposed his appearance but crafted their questions to attack his motives and reduce his testimony as nothing but personal vendetta. They have to go back to their drawing board as the devil they wished to exorcise had sailed away and stole the wind in their sails.
When the scenario that would have featured Trillanes receiving a fusillade from the best litigator they could summon disappeared, their bubble burst and Sara’s lawyers are now reduced to tackling the authenticity, verifiability or falsifiability of the records submitted by banks and the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC.) Sara’s previous statements acknowledging that those bank accounts were genuine would now have to be torpedoed to maintain the miracle that she and her father had nothing to do with the accounts opened without their knowledge.
Had these accounts been bogus, both Sara and her husband should have hied off to the banks to complain that somewhere, doppelgangers materialized to open accounts for them through identity theft. Yet, Sara and her hubby, as well as dear daddy Digong, did not bother to do so. Suspicion is rife that those accounts were supposedly layered accounts meant to be way stations for cash, like the secured maleta-impounding rooms. Bank managers should have known that such accounts had a sinister character, with money being deposited and withdrawn by designated personnel for transfer to more mysterious accounts and deeper pockets.
Since all the bank and AMLC documents have been photocopied and provided to both the prosecution and defense weeks ago, it is strange why the defense will still need forever and a day to authenticate them. Weaker than weak is the defense contention that all those 25 boxes of documents were “confidential” and disclosing their contents would violate the AMLC’s confidentiality rule. Yet, these pieces of evidence were submitted in compliance with the subpoena of the impeachment court and the Constitution is clear that when fraud is suspected, when graft and plunder are alleged, then the confidentiality rule is set aside.
The argument of Chel Diokno on this matter was sustained by the impeachment court and there is no sense relitigating it. But then they have to do it to warm the cockles of one’s heart. The defense has to defend to the death the correctness of the legal theory that Sara is immune from being charged with offenses reserved for lesser mortals. The Commission on Audit (COA) has no business evaluating, accounting and auditing Confidential Funds (CFs) because they are confidential and the disbursement was aboveboard. No evidence is required as the COA should trust and obey whatever Sara says. These are the arguments of monarchs and potentates, warlords, emperors and kings. In prehistory, there were no absolute rulers in these parts, not in Southern Leyte, Northern Cebu or in the fastnesses of Davao before the massive cultivation of abaca.
Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte’s cameo role in the impeachment trial made it harder for Sara to deny her unethical behavior as she maintained her business interest in GenCorp, which landed 19 contracts from the Davao City Hall, and in less than five years, the same corporation notched revenues in excess of P1-billion. Self-dealing is profitable, especially when the gatekeeper of the people’s coffers simply delegates the authority to award projects to an underling or to change the rules of the bids and awards committee without notice. This is akin to delegating the payment of rewards to informers and “intelligence” assets through persons not authorized to act as special disbursing officers (SDOs.) The cavalier treatment of taxpayer money is appalling, to say the least.
Documents from the Davao City Register of Deeds also confirmed that Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio acquired properties in the city and in Samal when she was already occupying the Office of the Vice President (OVP) while her husband was also listed as the owner of another property, and one property was mortgaged to the Philippine Savings Bank. In total, Sara’s properties amounted to more than P141-million, including real estate, vehicles and others. Sara continued to amass properties from 2007, the year when she officially entered matrimony. It is not known whether she and her husband signed a pre-nuptial agreement allowing each spouse to retain properties individually rather than lump them altogether as conjugal properties.
Even as Trillanes officially would not be presented as witness on Oct. 5, he presented his 11-page testimony before journalists and alleged the following: The Duterte family members received ₱181.65 million from alleged drug lord Sammy Uy. The patriarch Rodrigo received ₱15.65 million, Sara got ₱22.32 million, Paolo Duterte was paid ₱38.81 million and Sebastian secured Sebastian Duterte ₱51.58 million. Naturally, Trillanes stressed, Rodrigo’s housemate Honeylet Avanceña and her daughter Veronica “Kitty” Duterte also had a ₱53.27 million windfall.
Trillanes also disclosed that businessman and trusted Duterte partner Jaime T. Cruz, might actually be a Chinese named Ang Hai Peng. Worse, Trillanes revealed that the ₱319 million that Atty. Mans Carpio’s Cale 88 received came from China while ₱150 million was also allegedly remitted by China to Sara Duterte’s Tapang at Malasakit Foundation. These are far more serious allegations that bear directly on national security, Trillanes argued, since the receipt of money from China compromises Sara’s solemn duty to protect, defend and promote Philippine national interest. Sara has to register as a Chinese agent to enjoy her emolument from Beijing and abjure any desire to champion Philippine sovereignty. For this alone, Sara deserves to be removed. Or be deported to China. #
