MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte turned down Senator Antonio Trillanes IV’s dare to sign a bank secrecy waiver so both of them could prove who was keeping hidden wealth in accounts.
At the same time, however, Duterte, who claimed he had the goods on Trillanes and would disclose the details of the lawmaker’s alleged accounts, including those supposedly in overseas banks, admitted he might not be able to do so after all despite the waiver signed by the senator.
“If Trillanes wants to find something (at) fault with me tell him, ‘Go somewhere else and fly a kite.’ In the same manner that if he want(s) to get evidence, do not get it from my mouth. You must be stupid, even if it is true or false,” Duterte said.
“Why would I give you the pleasure? Kung gusto siyang maghanap, ‘di maghanap siya. Bakit niya ako damayin (If he wants to look for evidence, let him look. Why drag me into it),” he added, pointing out that he had to “go to lengths” to convince “contacts” to share what they knew of Trillanes’ supposed accounts.
He also called the waiver signed by Trillanes “useless” claiming the senator maintained “joint accounts” with Chinese partners whose agreement would also need to be secured before the accounts could be opened to scrutiny.
“So even if he (Trillanes) signs a waiver, if the co-signer does not, walang mangyari niyan (nothing will happen). And the bank would never, never name who is the partner. Eh nakuha lang namin ‘yan sa (Well, we just got that information from) — well, a foreign government supplied that,” he added.
Despite this, he said he would make the contents of Trillanes’ supposed accounts public “in a few days” because “it is enough that the people know that he has so many bank accounts.”