Duterte scorns Trillanes: ‘You want evidence? Not from my mouth’

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday frowned on Senator Antonio Trillanes IV’s challenge to sign a waiver that will allow a public scrutiny of his bank accounts purportedly containing billions of pesos.

Speaking to reporters in Taguig, the President said he would not feed Trillanes evidence that might be used against him.

“If Trillanes wants to find something of fault with me, tell him, ‘Go somewhere else and fly a kite,’” Duterte said on the sidelines of his visit to the wake of a slain soldier at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

“In the same manner that if he wants to get evidence, do not get it from my mouth. You must be stupid. Even if it is true or false, why would I give you the pleasure? See for yourself. Don’t involve me in that,” he added.

Duterte’s statement came after the senator challenged him to sign bank secrecy waivers that will permit the Office of the Ombudsman and the Anti-Money Laundering Council to scrutinize his alleged ill-gotten wealth hidden in several bank accounts.

On September 11, Trillanes signed waivers for 12 bank accounts being linked to him, and dared Duterte to do the same to prove his innocence and debunk his allegations against the President and his family.

The President, in a speech delivered on September 9, had accused Trillanes of owning clandestine bank accounts in Hong Kong, Australia, and America jointly with an unnamed Chinese national.

Duterte said Trillanes might face appropriate cases over his bank accounts abroad.

The President said “there is much thing to do” to expose the senator’s irregularities but stressed that he was keen to release the senator’s bank accounts in the coming days.

He said he has enough ground as the information about Trillanes’ offshore bank accounts came from a “foreign government.”

“We are building a case. It’s kind of difficult [because of] Bank Secrecy Law,” he said.

Duterte turned the tables on Trillanes, saying that the latter “has perfected the art of crime.”

“He (Trillanes) is the one lying. He’s smart. He has perfected the art of crime,” he said.

“Trillanes thinks that really, people are ignorant. His joint accounts, he partnered with a Chinese. So even if he signs a waiver, if the cosigned does not, nothing will happen. And the bank would never, never name who is the partner,” he added.