The leading presidential candidate according to various surveys, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte admitted the existence of several bank accounts at BPI but none of them contain the alleged P200 million. Mayor Duterte said that he has several bank accounts at the Bank of the Philippine Islands and one of them was with Julia Vargas Avenue branch in Ortigas.
In an interview with the reporters, the 71-year-old Mayor Duterte stated that he has a BPI account on the said branch but was quick to say that it did not contain the alleged millions revealed by Sen. Antonio Trillanes who exposed Mayor Duterte’s account on national media and not on proper court of law.
The Davao City Mayor was quoted as saying during the interview that “Meron ako sa BPI. Meron ako sa BPI. Hindi ganun kalaki. Thousands lang. It could not go beyond even..’Yung isa 17 (thousand) ‘yung isa below 50 (thousand.),” he told reporters.
(I have accounts at BPI. But it does not contain that much money. Just thousands. It could not go beyond that. One contains P17,000, the other has P50,000.)
The PDP-Laban official candidate for President who established a rock star status due to the huge turnouts in every events he attended since the start of the campaign period also challenged Sen. Trillanes to proved his claims and execute an affidavit detailing where and how he obtained bank records showing the mayor’s alleged millions in deposit.
Mayor Duterte also challenged Sen. Trillanes who according to some supporters of the Davao City mayor is connected to presidential candidate Sen. Grace Poe, to file a case against him and make his allegations legal. The Davao City mayor was quoted as saying “Let’s make it legal. File a case,” he said.
The most popular candidate on social media and on various political rallies, Mayor Duterte maintained that Sen. Trillanes’ accusations that he has millions in bank were “fabricated.” The camp of the mayor also released a statement through social media that the senator’s allegations were just part of some smear campaign against the future president of the Philippines.