WHAT really happened when Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV faced off against celebrity lawyer Salvador Panelo, representing presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte, at the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) branch on Julia Vargas Avenue on Monday morning?
Nothing.
Despite the 58,000 people who expressed interest in the Facebook event “Sampalan ng Passbook sa BPI Julia Vargas,” and despite the phalanx of riot police deployed, only meaningless pieces of paper were waved before media.
To recap, on March 11, Duterte signed a “pledge to open all our bank accounts” (not a waiver of bank secrecy) and invited rivals to sign it.
On April 27, Trillanes accused Duterte of having more than P200 million in a BPI Julia Vargas account. Duterte denied he had an account there and refused to sign a waiver of bank secrecy.
On April 28, Duterte admitted the account existed. The next day, Duterte stated it contained “a little less than 200 million.” Trillanes then claimed Duterte had over P2.4 billion of transactions.
Duterte announced that if Trillanes gave an affidavit explaining why he had confidential bank information, Panelo would open the BPI Julia Vargas account.
(I explained the legal mumbo jumbo in my Monday column, “Will Ombudsman accept Duterte, Roxas waivers?”)
So why did nothing happen?
Panelo arrived first, dashing as usual with a maroon suit and Louis Vuitton messenger bag. He carried a notarized special power of attorney (SPA) signed by Duterte.
However, the SPA did not authorize Panelo to open the account.
Instead, it authorized Panelo to ask for a bank certificate for two things. First, BPI would certify the amount currently in the account. Just the balance now, not the past deposits and withdrawals.
Second, BPI would certify that “at no time since the opening… was there a deposit either singly or collectively of two hundred eleven million pesos (P211,000,000.00).”
Duterte probably wanted BPI to say that all the deposits ever made in the account would add up to less than P211 million, without revealing the actual total. This was not, as Panelo told media, a standard bank certification.
BPI understandably asked for seven days (or after the election) to respond. No bank manager has authority to issue a nonstandard bank certificate. Nor is a lawyer usually assigned to a bank branch.
The nonstandard request was likely forwarded to an unfortunate head office lawyer who now has to figure out what exactly BPI is being asked to certify.
Affidavit
On Trillanes’ end, he was ready with the affidavit Duterte wanted but got no bank secrecy waiver.
The affidavit was one and a half pages long. It stated that Trillanes met “Joseph de Mesa,” an ex-Duterte supporter who had a relative who was a government officer investigating officials’ ill-gotten wealth.
This relative allegedly showed De Mesa documents “showing that Mayor Duterte maintained numerous bank accounts where hundreds of millions, if not billions of pesos, were deposited/transferred over the years.”
De Mesa gave Trillanes documents “showing the bank accounts” of Duterte and his daughter Sara.
Trillanes asked “accountants and finance specialists” to tally the alleged transactions. Deposits from 2006 to 2015 in various accounts allegedly added up to P2.4 billion.
Trillanes attached a summary of Duterte’s alleged transactions to his affidavit. No actual bank documents. No sworn affidavit by De Mesa or his relative.
So what do we know?
To quote Ygritte, “You know nothing, Jon Snow.”
No bank secrecy waiver. No bank records.
If you want to see a showdown, “Civil War” was certified by the Inquirer’s Ruel de Vera as “the best Marvel movie so far.”
(React: oscarfranklin.tan@yahoo.com.ph, Twitter @oscarfbtan, facebook.com/OscarFranklinTan.)
