"Konting tiwala naman (Have a little trust in me)."

Former senator Antonio "Sonny" Trillanes IV made this appeal to his fellow Filipinos after the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) essentially proved that he wasn't lying with his sworn statement, particularly on his annexes showing bank transactions allegedly linked to Vice President Duterte.

This took place Wednesday, April 22, during the House Committee on Justice hearing on the determination of probable cause in the two active impeachment complaints against the lady official.

"Sana sa susunod, konting tiwala naman kasi hindi naman ako gumagawa lang ng kwento (Next time, I hope there’s a bit more trust, because I’m not just making up stories)," Trillanes, a retired Navy lieutenant, said in a chance interview after the marathon hearing.

"Ito po ay tungkulin ko sa bayan simula pa noong 2003 ginagawa na namin ito. Hindi po kami nag-iimbento ng kwento (This is my duty to the nation, and we’ve been doing this since 2003. We are not inventing stories)," reckoned the known Duterte critic.

According to him, the Dutertes including former president Rodrigo Duterte have "caused a lot damage" to the Philippines in the past 10 years, or ever since they stepped foot onto the national political scene.

Earlier, the justice panel chaired by Batangas 2nd district Rep. Gerville "Jinky Bitrics" Luistro subpoenad Trillanes and instructed him to bring documents tied to allegations of unexplained wealth against the Vice President.

The AMLC on Wednesday confirmed that 18 transactions randomly selected from the annexes of Trillanes sworn statement had matching or similar entries in AMLC records, including three transactions listed under alleged payouts by alleged drug lord Sammy Uy.

“So for the record, 18 out of 18 transactions randomly selected from the annexes of Sinumpaang Salaysay of Honorable Trillanes were confirmed by the AMLC, at least to the extent that similar transactions appear in their report. That is for the record,” Luistro declared.

That validation came after Mamamayang Liberal (ML) Party-list Rep. Leila de Lima drew entries at random from several annexes attached to Trillanes’ affidavit and asked AMLC Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura to check whether or not similar transactions appeared in the council’s records.

The hearing initially gave focus to Annex I, which the panel identified as carrying the title “Sammy Uy Payouts to Sara Duterte and Family".

“So, this total of three transactions appearing in Annex I with the title ‘Sammy Uy Payouts to Sara Duterte and Family,’ all of this were confirmed by the AMLC that similar transactions appear in their report,” Luistro said.

Minutes earlier, Buenaventura had already read the dates and amounts corresponding to the transactions being checked by the committee.

“We informed that on October 25, 2011, there is a transaction in the amount of P7,440,846.07,” Buenaventura said.

“On April 24, 2012, we informed that there is a transaction in the amount of P7,440,846.07,” he added.

House Deputy Speaker Quezon 2nd lone district Rep. David “Jayjay” Suarez then sought clarification if the confirmations being discussed were tied to the materials submitted by Trillanes.

“Tama po ba ang pagkaunawa ko na ito pong kinukumpirma ng AMLC ay yung mga lumabas sa sinumpaang salaysay ng ating dating Sen. Sonny Trillanes?” Suarez asked.

(Is my understanding correct that what the AMLC is confirming here are the same matters that appeared in the sworn statement of our former Senator Sonny Trillanes?)

“That is correct,” Luistro replied.

De Lima, for her part, emphasized that what she was testing was not a single category of transactions but random entries drawn from multiple annexes, precisely to see whether the underlying records would hold when checked against independent AMLC data.

“These are randomly selected entries,” noted De Lima, also a former senator.