Trillanes made his own financial analysis of the transactions and came up with an amount: P2.4 billion worth of deposits over the years not matching Duterte’s declared net worth. At this time there had already been audit reports on the city government of Davao questioning the salaries of thousands of contractual workers who had insufficient documentation. With these information, Trillanes filed a plunder complaint against Duterte just before the elections, and alleged that those undocumented workers were ghost employees, whose salaries paid from the city’s coffers were part and parcel of that P2.4-billion cash flow.

Trillanes tried to get the Anti Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to confirm his documents, but these requests were denied on the basis of confidentiality. Then Duterte won as president. Deputy Ombudsman Carandang gets bank records, too Following due process, the Office of the Ombudsman investigated the Trillanes complaint.

This happened during the last two years of Conchita Carpio Morales as ombudsman. She inhibited from any Duterte-related cases because she is related to them through Manases Carpio, the husband of Vice President Sara Duterte. Manases’ father is Carpio Morales’ brother.

In his first year as president, the tough-talking Duterte was already waging word wars against AMLC. Still annoyed by the Trillanes accusation, Duterte said he’d whack AMLC officials for protecting actual money launderers, and letting Trillanes continue with his story. Through this all, AMLC denied leaking documents to Trillanes.

But it also never denied — nor confirmed — the information that the documents contained. In January 2017, then-AMLC chief Julia Abad, a former Malacañang official under then-president Noynoy Aquino, resigned. She was replaced by Mel Racela, a San Beda alumnus like Rodrigo and Sara Duterte.

In September 2017, the Ombudsman’s investigation into Trillanes’ complaint made some headway. Documents supposedly from AMLC reached the office of then-overall deputy ombudsman Arthur Carandang. Speaking to Rappler, Carandang said the documents looked “more or less” like Trillanes’ documents, and that these revealed at least a P1-billion cash flow.

Once again, the AMLC distanced itself from the issue. It said it did not provide “the Office of the Ombudsman with any report as a consequence of any investigation of subject accounts for any purpose.” Raw documents and a full-blown investigative report are different. It was never made clear by AMLC whether the raw documents, which are stacks and stacks of paper containing a bunch of numbers, were fake.

All the AMLC said at the time was this: “the alleged debits and credits representing outflows and inflows of funds were added together, thus, the resulting total amounts are wrong and misleading.” Duterte fires Carandang In Malacañang, Duterte was already fuming at Carandang, accusing him of stealing bank records and violating confidentiality. Lawyers allied with Duterte sued Carandang and asked that he be removed from office. These complaints were filed before Malacañang, despite a Supreme Court ruling saying that presidents cannot fire an overall deputy ombudsman.

AMLC had also completely stopped cooperating with the Ombudsman’s investigation, forcing the office to just stop the probe. The investigation was terminated without prejudice to a refiling should new evidence come to light. Carandang was suspended at first, then dismissed altogether, losing his retirement benefits.

When he was suspended, his boss Morales did not implement the suspension because she said she was following the Supreme Court rule. Morales said the Office of the Ombudsman will instead investigate Carandang for alleged breach, and that they would decide if he would be punished with sanctions. This internal investigation was superseded by Morales’ retirement, and the entry of Duterte’s appointed ombudsman in 2018: Samuel Martires.

Martires implemented the dismissal order in 2019. Fast forward to April 22, 2026, during a House justice committee hearing on the impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte. Part of the accusation in the complaint against Sara Duterte is alleged unexplained wealth.

Trillanes attended the hearing with the bank records he has had with him for the past 10 years. LONG LIST. Former senator Antonio Trillanes IV testifies during the House of Representatives justice committee hearing on the impeachment against Vice