Senator-Judge Vicente Sotto III questioned officials of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) on Tuesday regarding a reported banking system glitch that adjusted a multi-billion-peso transaction involving attorney Manases Carpio down to P2 million.
The inquiry arose during the continuation of the Senate impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, after AMLC Secretariat Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura testified that the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) requested technical corrections to covered and suspicious transaction records involving Carpio, who is the Vice President’s husband.
Buenaventura confirmed that following validation audits, the council approved BPI’s request to adjust an erroneously reported P2-billion transaction entry down to P2 million.
“Ang tagal-tagal na panahon na meron akong account sa banko, ni minsan hindi ako nakaranas nun o may kilala man lang na naging bilyon ang pera dahil sa bank system glitch. Nangyari ba talaga ito na P2 billion naging P2 million?” Sotto asked during his interjection.
Buenaventura explained that the council’s intervention was limited to reviewing and verifying the technical documentation submitted by BPI to determine whether a genuine clerical or data transmission error occurred.
He clarified that covered banking institutions periodically submit requests to correct automated transaction disclosures, which are then subjected to standard AMLC audit processes.
”BPI made a request and we acted on the request by validating and conducting the necessary audit to confirm whether an error indeed occurred in the reporting…We found out po that there is and we granted the request,” Buenaventura said.
The witness stated that BPI formally submitted its request for correction on April 8, 2026, days prior to his appointment as AMLC executive director.
He added that the validation was still pending when he previously appeared before the House Committee on Justice during its preliminary inquiry into the impeachment complaints.
Buenaventura noted that the official financial records submitted to the impeachment court on October 5, 2026, already reflected the validated BPI corrections, effectively reducing the aggregate flagged transactions linked to the couple from P6.7 billion to P4.4 billion.
He acknowledged that while an error adjustment of this magnitude was a first under his direct leadership, protocol allows financial institutions to rectify reporting anomalies upon verification.
During the same hearing, Senator-Judge Juan Miguel Zubiri requested the tribunal to provide senator-judges with complete copies of the AMLC summary detailing cross-border remittances directed to Cale88 Foods Corporation.
Zubiri observed that the intelligence report cataloged financial inflows originating from foreign jurisdictions including China, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine, and Tajikistan.
”May we ask the Presiding Officer, can you give us a breakdown of the companies that are remitting from these other countries? Binanggit kasi natin Mainland China at saka Hong Kong. There are other countries that almost add up to P50 million. It’s interesting to find out kung ano ang mga kompanyang ito,” Zubiri said.
Senate President and Presiding Officer Francis Escudero subsequently directed the Clerk of Court to collate the relevant evidentiary submissions and distribute copies of the detailed AMLC reports to members of the tribunal.