Vice presidential candidate Senator Antonio Trillanes, who had accused presidential front runner Rodrigo Duterte of acquiring P2.4 billion in “hidden wealth,” vowed to go after the Davao City mayor regardless of the results of the elections.
“We will see each other and I will go after him . I will deal with him after the election, I will not buckle down,” Trillanes said after casting his vote at the Holy Infant Montessori Center in Caloocan City. His mother and brothers arrived ahead of him at the polling precinct.
Donning an orange shirt, the political color of Nacionalista Party of which he is a member, Trillanes, arrived at precinct 0687B of the school around 9 a.m.
“I feel good. Regardless of the results of the election, I will continue to serve,” said Trillanes.
Trillanes had vowed to withdraw from the vice presidential race and resign as senator if his accusations about Duterte’s “undeclared funds” were not true.
He had challenged Duterte to sign a waiver to make public his bank deposits at BPI Julia Vargas branch in Pasig City to disprove allegations of the deposits not declared in the mayor’s SALN filed in 2014.
But Duterte stood his ground not to sign a waiver and insisted that the other presidential bets should first do it ahead of him.
Trillanes vowed to go after crooks.
He also filed a plunder case against Duterte before the Office of the Ombudsman over the hiring of 11,000 ‘ghost employees’ in 2014.
In a nine-page complaint-affidavit, Trillanes said he based his allegations on a Commission on Audit report in 2015 questioning the recruitment of 11,000 contractual workers that cost the Davao City government some P708 million in 2014.
Duterte’s lawyer Salvador Panelo refuted Trillanes’ allegations and said that no case has been filed by the COA against Duterte.
“If CoA found the hiring of contractual employees irregular, then it would have already filed a case against Duterte. But there’s none, so what is Trillanes talking about? He is a congenital liar and a publicity hound,” added Panelo.
The Duterte camp called Trillanes a congenital liar and a publicity hound.
“No ghost employees, just ghost accusations,” said PDP-Laban spokeswoman Paola Alvarez, adding that Duterte has better things to do than to dignify the unfounded allegations of Trillanes.
The camp of Duterte charged the senator, along with President Noynoy Aquino with treason and espionage before the Ombudsman over “back-channel talks” with China that “only advanced [the] interest of our Asian neighbor.
But Trillanes branded as “misdirection” the filing of the charge by Duterte’s national campaign manager Martin Diño. The senator said it also showed his (Dino’s) gross ignorance about the issue.
“Duterte knows that my message struck him at the heart of his fraudulent image so he is trying to smear my name as the messenger,” said Trillanes