MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV on Wednesday claimed that Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte failed to declare P211 million in his 2014 Statement of Assets and Liabilities (SALN) as required by law.
In a telephone interview on ANC's Headstart, Trillanes challenged Duterte to sue him for libel and said that he will resign as senator if his allegation is proven false.
"That is just the tip of the iceberg. You have no idea how wealthy Duterte is," Trillanes said.
Trillanes, a vice presidential aspirant, said that he is not exposing Duterte's alleged wealth to boost his survey rankings.
He stressed that this is not the first time that he has exposed someone for alleged corruption and that he is just doing his job. Last year, he and Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Aquilino Pimentel III held hearings on allegations of corruption against Vice President Jejomar Binay, who had been leading in surveys at the time.
Trillanes supports Sen. Grace Poe, Duterte's closest rival in recent pre-election surveys. Poe, meanwhile, is running with Sen. Francis "Chiz" Escudero.
"I stand by my track record in exposing political pretenders," Trillanes said.
According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, which broke the story, Trillanes claims that Duterte has an undeclared bank account with a balance of around P211 million in a bank in Pasig City. Duterte has dismissed the allegation as a fabrication and has called Trillanes "money for hire."
Trillanes also challenged all presidential candidates to sign a waiver on the bank secrecy law.
Earlier this week, Trillanes described Duterte as a "psycho" who does not deserve to become the country's next president.
“I am now so motivated to make sure that he doesn’t become the president of our country. We cannot have a psycho as our commander-in-chief. Within the next few days, he would be exposed as a fraud,” Trillanes said.
Duterte, however, said that Trillanes is just making noise to boost his vice presidential bid. He also claimed that Trillanes asked him to be his running mate in the upcoming elections.
The Davao City mayor topped the latest Pulse Asia presidential survey with a 12-point advantage over Sen. Grace Poe.
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