MANILA -- The Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) on Thursday night "categorically" denied that it is the source of information of the alleged bank accounts of President Rodrigo R. Duterte that Senator Antonio F. Trillanes IV cited in his plunder complaint filed with the Office of the Ombudsman.
"It (AMLC) has neither provided the Office of the Ombudsman with any report as a consequence of any investigation of subject accounts for any purpose," AMLC said in a statement.
AMLC said its Secretariat received on September 6, 2017 the letter of Overall Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang, dated August 17, 2017, requesting the Council "to initiate investigation on subject accounts."
"We have yet to evaluate the request, and the initiation of an investigation, as well as the release of any report on the subject will depend on such evaluation," it said.
AMCL also pointed out that "suffice it to state that in the attachment to the Complaint, the alleged debits and credits representing outflows and inflows of funds were added together, thus, the resulting total amounts are wrong and misleading."
"Meanwhile, we cannot make further comments considering the confidential nature of the matter," it added.
Trillanes, in his May 2016 complaint against the President, claimed that the former Davao City mayor has a PHP2.4 billion worth of deposits in his accounts and funds were alleged to have come from alleged illegal activities.
The President, in turn, has claimed that he has millions in his bank accounts even when he was still a student because of the sale of a real property he inherited from his late father, former Davao Governor Vicente Duterte.
News reports citing Carandang said the Ombudsman now has a copy of the bank records from AMLC and these "more or less" looks like the ones that Trillanes submitted. (PNA)
