THE Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) on Wednesday confirmed that 18 transactions randomly selected from the annexes of former senator Antonio Trillanes IV’s sworn statement against Vice President Sara Z. Duterte had matching or similar entries in AMLC records, including three transactions listed under alleged payouts by alleged drug lord Sammy Uy.
“So for the record, eighteen out of eighteen transactions randomly selected from the annexes of Sinumpaang Salaysay of Honorable Trillanes were confirmed by the AMLC, at least to the extent that similar transactions appear in their report. That is for the record,” Batangas Rep. Gerville “Jinky Bitrics” Luistro, chair of the House Committee on Justice, declared during the hearing.
That validation came after Mamamayang Liberal (ML) Party-list Rep. Leila de Lima drew entries at random from several annexes attached to Trillanes’ affidavit and asked AMLC Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura to check whether similar transactions appeared in the council’s records.
The hearing then zoomed in on Annex I, which the committee itself identified as carrying the title “Sammy Uy Payouts to Sara Duterte and Family,” giving the panel a narrower but politically explosive set of entries to test against the AMLC data.
“So, this total of three transactions appearing in Annex I with the title ‘Sammy Uy Payouts to Sara Duterte and Family,’ all of this was confirmed by the AMLC that similar transactions appear in their report,” Luistro said.
Before that summary was placed on record, Buenaventura had already read into the hearing the dates and amounts corresponding to the transactions being checked by the committee.
“We informed you that on October 25, 2011, there is a transaction in the amount of 7,440,846.07,” Buenaventura said.
“On April 24, 2012, we informed you that there is a transaction in the amount of 7,440,846.07,” he added.
The exchange drew a clarification from Deputy Speaker David “Jayjay” Suarez, who wanted to make clear that the confirmations being discussed were tied to the materials submitted by Trillanes himself.
“Tama po ba ang pagkaunawa ko na ito pong kinukumpirma ng AMLC ay yung mga lumabas sa sinumpaang salaysay ng ating dating Sen. Sani Trillanes?” Suarez asked.
“That is correct,” Luistro replied.
Suarez then pushed the point further, noting that the committee had repeatedly discussed the same bank records and now appeared to be hearing that those entries were borne out by the AMLC files.
“So ito po yung mga ilan sa mga bank records na binabanggit ngayon po at nakakailang banggit na po tayo na lumalabas ay tama,” Suarez said.
“At least similar transactions exist in the AMLC report,” Luistro answered.
De Lima, for her part, emphasized that what she was testing was not a single category of transactions but random entries drawn from multiple annexes, precisely to see whether the underlying records would hold when checked against independent AMLC data.
“These are randomly selected entries,” De Lima said.
Luistro underscored the significance of that method when the first round of checking had already produced a clean result.
“Transactions were randomly selected by the Honorable De Lima and she requested the confirmation of the AMLC whether or not similar transactions appear. And so far, eight transactions have been confirmed already by the AMLC,” Luistro said.
The committee then moved to Annex B, where more entries were read into the record, including one on June 11, 2015 for P2,450,000, another on Dec. 6, 2013 for P2,987,542.24, another on Jan. 31, 2012 for P2,926,594.60, and another on May 14, 2008 for P2,114,168.43, all of which Buenaventura said had similar counterparts in AMLC records.
As the hearing progressed, Luistro announced that the random checks had by then gone 13 for 13 extending the pattern of confirmations beyond the first batch.
“So far we have 13 out of 13 transactions randomly selected by the Honorable De Lima but confirmed to be existing at least as similar transactions in the AMLC report,” Luistro said.
De Lima then supplied five more entries from Annex A, which she identified as transactions from the joint account of Rodrigo Duterte and Sara Duterte, and read out the dates and amounts one by one for AMLC cross-checking.
“Yes po. These are also five transactions. Number 9, page 1 of Annex A, 55,131,747.32, March 28, 2014. Got it po? The second one po, Number 16, page 1, 41,721,035.62, October 7, 2013,” De Lima said.
“Third randomly selected entry, at page 3, number 44, page 3, amount of 53,817,613.48, February 25, 2010. Fourth, at page 4, number 60, amount of 52,485,191.85, April 14, 2009. And the fifth one, also at page 4, number 64, 49,281,009.98, May 22, 2007. Five randomly selected entries from Annex A, joint account of Rodrigo Duterte and Sara Duterte,” she added.
Buenaventura then delivered the broadest answer of the exchange, confirming that all the dates and amounts just read into the record had similar transactions in the AMLC report.
“We confirmed that for all the dates and amounts mentioned, there are similar transactions existing in the AMLC report,” he said.
That allowed Luistro to seal the Annex A result before the committee moved to the final count.
“So five out of five transactions randomly selected by Honorable De Lima from Annex A is confirmed by the AMLC, at least that similar transactions appear in their report,” Luistro said.
When the chair asked how many transactions in all had been validated across the annexes sampled by De Lima, the lawmaker gave the number that defined the entire exchange.
“Oh, eighteen. Sorry po, eighteen. Because annex A, annex B, annex H, and annex I. So four, three times five, one is only three. So eighteen. Do you confirm that, total of eighteen transactions?” De Lima said.
“We informed earlier that there are eighteen transactions mentioned, that one we mentioned are existing in our report,” Buenaventura replied.
De Lima closed by stressing that the 18 validated transactions were only a sample from a much larger body of entries in the annexes, explaining that she limited the spot checks because of time constraints even as the records themselves ran much deeper.
“So nakita po natin na na-confirm po ng AMLC ‘yung mga entries na randomly selected from the annexes. Gusto ko rin i-put on record po, Madam Chair, na actually marami po ito. But that’s it, because of lack of time, I just opted to ask for five from the three, from the three annexes, and three from the other annex,” De Lima said.
