by Diego Morra
Today, Oct. 5, 2026, should be the best day for the House prosecution panel to go for Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio’s jugular as it tackles the testimony of Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) executive director Ronel Buenaventura on the covered transaction reports (CTRs) and suspicious transaction reports (STRs) submitted in evidence to the Senate Impeachment court.
The CTRs and STRs involved 15 juridical persons from 2007 to 2025 while CTRs and STRs linked to Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio and her husband Atty. Manases Carpio were dated from 2022 to 2025. The newly-revealed CTRs and STRs pertaining to inward remittances to Calle 88 Foods Corp. from China and other countries will also be tackled along with the CTRs and STRs involving insurance policies and investment-related transactions.
Despite Sara’s feverish attempt to declare as bogus and fabricated all the bank documents validated by the AMLC and the willy-nilly argument of defense counsel Sheila Sison that the AMLC documents were still confidential and could not be used in the impeachment proceedings, her arguments fell flat during the congressional hearings. Atty. Ephraim Cortez of the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) already debunked the arguments months ago, stressing that impeachment proceedings are not covered by the AMLC confidentiality rules.
The documents to be discussed are part of the locus delicti covered by the subpoena power of the Senate impeachment court. They litter Sara’s trail of tears. AMLC data are invested with public interest and Sara herself admitted that those bank accounts existed, were used and continue to be used even as the account owners “still wonder” who opened them on their behalf. Private prosecutor Lorna P. Kapunan also gave short shrift to the defense tack, saying the rules on Bank Secrecy and Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) do not cover impeachment proceedings. The argument will sink.
The law is clear: When public officials amass enormous wealth that could not have come from their salaries and emoluments, the same is treated as ill-gotten, and the accused must produce proof that the funds came from legitimate activities. How could the stash be legitimate when Sara herself could not explain the extra-source of manna from her heaven? During the House hearings on the impeachment complaint against Sara, Buenaventura testified that bank transactions totaling P6.7 billion—classified as covered and suspicious—were recorded under the names of the Vice President and her husband, Manases Carpio.
Of the huge amount, P3.7 billion was traced to Sara while P2.998 billion was linked to Carpio. The mystery deepened as the AMLC found out that transactions worth P791 million have undetermined inflows and outflows. Buenaventura also told the House probers that Sara’s accounts generated a total of 371 large transactions and 30 suspicious transactions from Oct. 13, 2005 to Jan. 28, 2026, with transaction amounts reaching as high as P55.158 million.
“A review of the identified inflow transactions shows total inflows of approximately P1.51 billion, recorded only from 2006 to 2022. These inflows are largely dominated by credit memo transactions amounting to P1.41 billion, which account for the majority of recorded inflows. Other notable sources include check deposits totaling P48.33 million, deposit transactions amounting to P45.73 million, and cash deposits of P4.95 million,” the AMLC reported. It should be noted that Sara was still single in 2006, yet she had access to billions of pesos through dubious accounts. She became Davao City vice mayor only in 2007 but already had access to billions of pesos a year earlier. From whence did her money come? Rodrigo Duterte entered the political fray only after the Marcos dictatorship perished in but not even two years into his post, the Philippine Constabulary-Integrated National Police (PC-INP) kicked out his security detail for harassing his political rivals, forcing him to fly to Manila to plead for the return of his bodyguards, as recounted by the late Maj. Gen. Ramon Montano.
The Port of Davao City became notorious for the smuggling of rice, vegetables and meat products and the hub of gold trading, with politicians sharing in the proceeds of destructive mining operations that have contaminated the city’s water sources. In due time. the city became notorious for drug operations where before, the area was only good for abaca cultivation that employed thousands of Japanese workers. Political power grows out of a barrel of a gun, said Mao Zedong in August 1927 and repeated in November 1938 but the context is entirely different since Mao was fighting the Kuomintang during the White Terror and the Japanese during World War II. Rodrigo Duterte used it to create units of homicidal maniacs funded to annihilate political rivals and install a political warlord dynasty. And political warlords could only prolong their rule with money accumulated from illicit activities. That pretty much explains why Sara could play around with billions of pesos even before she earned her spurs. Same with her brothers.#