SINGAPORE — (UPDATE – 1:48 p.m.) A bank in Singapore where President Rodrigo Duterte claimed Senator Antonio Trillanes IV maintained an account said on Tuesday that it did not exist but was unable to give him a certification since he is not a client.
Trillanes, accompanied by some reporters, first asked a teller at the DBS Bank branch at the Alexandra Retail Center to verify if there was an account number 178000296012 in his name, which Duerte had earlier claimed contained “193,000” in an unknown currency.
After checking their records, the teller said the account did not exist.
The supposed DBS account was among those posted on social media that Trillanes supposedly owned in several foreign banks and one of those mentioned by Duterte.
Trillanes then asked the manager of the bank for a certification. After a 10-minute private meeting with the bank official during which he explained the circumstances behind his request, Trillanes said the manager, who declined to be interviewed, had called their main office and was told they could not issue a certification to a non-client.
Trillanes also went to Raffles Tower, where he supposedly has a Hongkong Shanghai Bank joint account — number 0016729915127 — with a Robert Fong containing 278,300 Singapore dollars.
However, there is no Hongkong Shanghai Bank at Raffles Tower. And while a Google search indicates that there is a Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Ltd. there, it does not appear on the building’s business listings.
Trillanes also went to a mall on Raffles Boulevard to check if it had a branch of the bank but found only an ATM.
He said this proved that his supposed overseas accounts were a figment of the imagination.
