Palace: Duterte’s claim on Trillanes’ account needs verification

MANILA – Malacañang has admitted Monday that President Rodrigo Duterte's claim that Senator Antonio Trillanes IV closed his account at the DBS Bank in Singapore still needs verification.

Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said both Duterte and the banks’ statements need to be verified.

“The President claims that it was done that way… and there’s a party that says its not. Both aspects need to be verified,” Abella said in a news conference.

In an interview on state-run television aired last Friday, Duterte claimed Trillanes closed his account at the Alexandra Road branch of DBS Bank on September 8 online, a few days before he issued a waiver allowing authorities to scrutinize it and flying to the city-state to prove he had no such account.

However, the DBS Bank on its Twitter account, responding to a flurry of questions on account closure, said accounts cannot be closed online.

“Acct closure cannot be done online. Accts must be closed personally at the branch or by form,” the banks official Twitter account said.

Duterte presented a diagram of the supposed transactions of the senator’s bank account prior to its closure. He said some of the money was transferred to a certain Fabian Go, among others.

Duterte also claimed that Trillanes and his alleged cohorts may have used funds in the offshore accounts to destablize the government.

Trillanes on Sept. 11 announced he signed a waiver for 12 bank accounts being linked to him, and dared President Rodrigo Duterte to do the same. He also went to Singapore and visited banking institutions there in a bid to reject Duterte's allegation that he maintained secret bank accounts.