Sara camp: Bank ‘suspicious’ flags not proof of criminal activity

The defense of Vice President Sara Duterte on Tuesday drew a sharp distinction between a bank flagging a transaction as suspicious and proving that it was illegal.

Defense counsel and spokesperson Michael Poa said the reports cited by Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura were based on narratives submitted by banks when they flagged transactions as suspicious.

“Ang nasabi lang naman po kanina ng witness ay yung mga ganong naratibo regarding malversation, etc. Yun po ay batay lamang doon sa mga reports na isinumiti sa kanila ng bangko ayon doon sa mga suspicious transactions that were reported,” Poa told reporters after Tuesday’s proceedings.

Buenaventura testified that AMLC records showed about P4.4 billion in covered and suspicious transactions involving Duterte and her husband, lawyer Manases Carpio, from 2007 to 2025. The amount included P1.63 billion in inflows, P1.31 billion in outflows and about P1.46 billion that the AMLC could not reliably classify as either.

But during cross-examination, Buenaventura acknowledged that the filing of a suspicious transaction report is a compliance measure and does not amount to a legal conclusion that an illegal activity occurred. Transactions flagged as suspicious still have to be analyzed and investigated.

That distinction undercut any attempt to treat the reports themselves as proof of criminal conduct.

House prosecutors said the P4.4-billion figure came from reports submitted by covered financial institutions and would have to be reconciled with Duterte’s declared net worth of P98.5 million as of end-2025.

Among the records presented were suspicious transaction reports involving Duterte and Carpio that cited allegations including graft and corrupt practices, malversation and drug trafficking. One report involving Carpio referred to allegations surrounding the importation of 602 kilograms of shabu in 2017.