Lawyers from the camp of Atty. Manases Carpio said that the House Committee on Justice was practicing “selective justice” in its disclosure of the records from the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) pertaining to the bank transactions of their client and Vice President Sara Duterte
Atty. Neil Abayon said that their sentiments pertaining to the Justice panel’s inconsistent rulings were brought about by the latter’s decision to defer the opening of the box containing tax records from the Bureau of Internal Revenue during its previous session on 29 April.
Abayon explained that the pursuit of accountability on the part of government officials should not come at the expense of confidentiality of private citizens, claiming that the exposure of AMLC findings was a “grave abuse of discretion.”
“When we talk about the issue of right to accountability versus the rights of private citizens, we have to remember that the rights of private citizens is also a constitutionally protected right under the bill of rights,” he said.
The lawyer noted that the burden of clarifying why the actions of the congress were not constitutional fell on the lawmakers themselves who should explain to the public.
Addressing a different issue, Atty. Peter Paul Danao shared that Carpio vehemently denied having P6.7 billion in transactions, stating that the figures were “fake and a blatant lie.”
Danao playfully likened the reports of the AMLC to the Filipino slang term, “Marites,” as the amounts were merely rumors and allegations since the council simply added all transactions throughout a 20 year span.
He mentioned that neither the AMLC nor the committee fully illustrate how and where the amount was taken from.
“Iniwan lang nila sa ere na meron daw six billion, allegedly, pero hindi naman nila sinabi kung pano nila nakuha yun,” he said.
(They just left the information that there was allegedly six billion in the accounts, yet they did not say where they got it)
Adding on to his point, Danao revealed that a portion of the report which they only sourced from social media indicated that the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) had stated that 13 transactions from Carpio’s bank account which amounted to P2 billion was subject to a system bug.
The lawyers, however, have yet to confront the BPI regarding the finding as they noted that they have not received the AMLC report from the Committee on Justice despite requesting for a copy since 29 April.