Impeachment respondent Vice President Sara Duterte and her husband, lawyer Manases Carpio have so far given no denial regarding the alleged billions that their bank accounts held.

Bicol Saro Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon highlighted this point as he brushed off comments from Carpio that a correction made by Bank of Philippine Islands (BPI) was not included in the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) report submitted to the House Committee on Justice during its just-concluded impeachment hearings.

BPI had clarified that a certain P2-billion transaction was actually only P2 million. Ridon said this was reflected in the AMLC report.

"Bakit hindi namin sinama? Eh nakalagay nga sa report ‘yon (Why didn't we include it? It's actually in the report). The report is there for everyone to see. But again, ang sabi pa rin ho ng AMLC (the AMLC maintained) in their summary list, it is still P6.7 billion,” Ridon said in a chance interview on Monday, May 4.

“And even assuming it became P2 million from P2 billion, it is still in the billions. It doesn't change the fact that the total transactions are still in the billions. It doesn't change the fact that the inflows are still in the billions,” he said.

It is these same "billions" that the second couple have yet to give a categorical denial to, said the Committee on Justice member.

During the April 22 impeachment hearing of the justice panel, the AMLC confirmed that Duterte and her husband were linked to 663 transactions—630 "covered" and 33 "suspicious"—amounting to P6.77 billion.

Of the total, P4.42 billion were inflows, P1.55 billion were outflows, while P791.1 million were classified as undetermined.

“And ultimately who are these personalities? Public servant? Lawyers? Losing businesses? Paano ipapaliwanag ang (How do you explain the) P6.7 billion in total transactions, P4.4 billion in net inflows? Hindi ho ganyan yung profile ng mag-asawang mga abogado (A lawyer-couple shouldn't have that profile),” reckoned Ridon.

The AMLC report showed that flagged banks transactions of the Vice President and her husband covered over a 20-year period.

"This was not reflected in the Vice President’s statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs)," Ridon said.

The party-list congressman underscored that the SALNs filed for six years--from 2019 to 2024--had blank spaces for “cash on hand or in bank".

Vice President Duterte's impeachment is being sought--among other reasons--for her alleged unexplained wealth and discrepancies in her SALN filings.

Deputy Speaker La Union 1st district Rep. Paolo Ortega V, an endorser of one of the impeachment complaints filed against Duterte this year, believes that the P6.7 billion in bank transactions represent just the 'tip of the iceberg" of the second couple's money flow.

“Kung nagugulat tayo sa P6.7 billion (If the P6.7 billion is a shock to us), we should understand this is not the full amount—ito ‘yung nakita lang ng AMLC under its limited scope. This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Ortega said.

The House leader says banks are required to report only transactions of at least P500,000 in a single day, as well as those deemed suspicious, leaving a wide range of financial activity unmonitored.

“Anything below that threshold is not automatically reported. Pero kung paulit-ulit ang maliliit na galaw ng pera, those can accumulate into very large amounts na hindi agad makikita sa AMLC data,” Ortega noted.

(But if movements of small money keep repeating, those can accumulate into very large amounts that won’t immediately show up in AMLC data.)

As such, Ortega stressed that the figure should not be treated as a complete accounting of funds, but as a partial snapshot that already raises serious questions.

“This is not a definitive total. It only reflects what the system is designed to capture. At kung ganito na kalaki ang lumalabas sa limited reporting (And if limited reporting already shows a figure this big), it is reasonable to ask how much more is outside that net,” Ortega said.