Duterte to quit if Trillanes can prove he has P2-billion bank deposit

February 17, 2017

President Rodrigo Duterte said he will resign from his post if Senator Antonio Trillanes can prove that he has amassed P2 billion.

Duterte issued a recorded message Thursday night debunking Trillanes' allegation and he even dared the senator to go to the court and file the proper charges against him.

"If Trillanes can prove his allegation that I have amassed P2 billion illegally or if that bank account under my name has a total deposit at one time of even just half a billion, I will resign as President immediately," he said.

Duterte said Trillanes' accusation against him and even to his three children from his first marriage and his partner Cielito "Honeylet" Avancena was "old and rehashed issue."

"I have answered this allegation before I became president. The people have already spoken they have placed me in the office with 16 million votes," he said.

"I would advise Trillanes to go to court and file the proper case against me and advise him further to stop opening his mouth when he has nothing to say anyway," he stressed.

In an interview before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee held its hearing Thursday morning, Trillanes released documents showing that Duterte allegedly amassed P2.4 billion from 2006 to 2015.

He even said that he was ready to resign if his allegation against Duterte was not true.

The President belittled Trillanes' statement that he would quit as senator, noting that his critic is on his last term already and "would have known nothing to lose if he would resign from office which explains  his penchant for always daring president to resign."

"He actually has no political career after his term in office expires in less than two years."

He also accused Trillanes of using his office to "ask for retainers and that this has become a lucrative business for him."

The President also found it amusing on how Trillanes came up with his accounting of the bank transactions.

"He even included day to day banking transaction of my partner Honeylet. This just shows his ignorance with regard to the revenue and banking business. The people who have personal businesses," he said.

However, he admitted that Avancena has "huge" amount of money.

But he said this is because his partner is a business woman, who started her doughnut business 18 years ago and she also supplies pork in five malls in Davao City.

"That's how big is the money of that woman. She is patient unlike you, ambitious," he said.

As to his daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, the President said that she is a lawyer by profession and she earns from this.

"She has clients who actually pay for her services and not from illegal retainers which Trillanes is so used so doing," he said.

He even hit Trillanes for having "no balls" despite leading at least two mutinies in the past.

Before becoming a senator, Trillanes was a military officer. He was one of the leaders in failed two coup d'etat against the administration of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Unlike Trillanes family, Duterte said they were "not also poor," noting that his late father was a governor of Davao and left something for the family.

"How about you? What was left on you? Air and your being arrogant. The truth is, you are a bandit," he said. Celerina Monte/DMS