CHINESE state-owned enterprises were among the companies that remitted P319.33 million to Cale88 Foods Corp., a firm linked to Vice President Sara Duterte’s husband, lawyer Manases Carpio, Senator-Judge Risa Hontiveros said Tuesday, as the impeachment trial examined the source of funds flowing through the company and Duterte’s alleged unexplained wealth.
Hontiveros made the disclosure during the 34th day of Duterte’s impeachment trial after asking Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura whether the agency was examining the Chinese companies that did business with Cale88.
Buenaventura said he could not answer because the documents submitted to the Senate impeachment court were limited to records covered by its subpoena, including AMLC summary reports, financial investigation reports and confidential information-sharing documents.
Hontiveros said her office separately examined companies identified in the AMLC records and found that some firms that remitted funds to Cale88 were Chinese state-owned enterprises.
“One of them is the China National Township Enterprises,” she said.
She said research by her office showed that China National Township Enterprises had previously been directly under China’s Ministry of Agriculture and had been described as a large state-owned agricultural enterprise under the supervision of the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.
Hontiveros also cited company materials describing the firm as supporting China’s Belt and Road Initiative and foreign policy.
She identified another company in the records, Beijing ZhenweiFang Food Company.
Hontiveros said open-source research by her office showed that Beijing ZhenweiFang is owned by Xinjiang Fruit Industry Group, another company owned by the Chinese state, which includes in its corporate structure a Chinese Communist Party organization, a party committee, a Party Committee Organization Department and subordinate party branches.
She also noted that the chairman of Beijing ZhenweiFang is a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
National security concerns
The latest revelations at the impeachment trial led Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. to call for an investigation into the channeling of Chinese money into a company linked to the vice president.
“If this is truly proven and there is already prima facie evidence, as the AMLC has stated, this really needs deep and serious attention. This has profound national security implications that could influence government processes. That is why we are expecting our law enforcement to investigate this properly and take immediate action,” Teodoro said in Filipino.
Remittances from China, Hong Kong
At the trial, Hontiveros asked Buenaventura if the AMLC looked into the links between Chinese state companies and Cale88.
Buenaventura reiterated that the subpoena covered only specified records and said he could not say whether the AMLC was examining the linkages raised by Hontiveros.
Hontiveros then asked whether the transactions she described would constitute a cause for concern for the AMLC.
Buenaventura said he would first have to review the information presented by the senator.
The exchange followed Buenaventura’s testimony that Cale88 received P319.326 million in remittances from China and Hong Kong, based on AMLC records submitted to the impeachment court.
Of the total, P315.935 million came from mainland China and P3.39 million from Hong Kong.
Senator-Judge Sherwin Gatchalian separately flagged P776 million in financial inflows recorded in Cale88’s accounts and questioned whether the amount could indicate money laundering if it could not be accounted for in the company’s books.
Buenaventura said an unaccounted inflow substantially exceeding a company’s capital or declared assets could serve as a starting point for further investigation.
However, he said the AMLC would still need to establish an underlying predicate crime or unlawful activity, such as drug trafficking or corruption, before determining that money laundering had occurred.
Gatchalian noted that Cale88 had paid-up capital of only P125,000 and cumulative sales of about P23 million since 2021, while financial records showed P776 million in inflows, about half of which came from foreign entities.
Senator-Judge Raffy Tulfo also pressed Buenaventura on what action the AMLC had taken after Cale88 was flagged for suspicious transactions.
Asked whether the agency had investigated the company to determine whether its transactions involved possible money laundering, Buenaventura said Cale88 had been the subject of three suspicious transaction reports (STRs), but he could not disclose any further action taken.
The AMLC official also told the impeachment court that AMLC transaction records do not, by themselves, establish Duterte’s actual wealth or prove allegations of unexplained or ill-gotten wealth.
Defense counsel Mark Vinluan asked whether the aggregate figures in the AMLC’s summaries constituted conclusive proof of Duterte’s cash on hand, cash in bank or “true wealth.” “We just rely on the records,” Buenaventura said.
He said the summaries were based on transactions reported to the AMLC through covered transaction reports and STRs.
Buenaventura said he had no personal knowledge of Duterte’s SALNs or of whether she had accumulated hundreds of millions or billions of pesos.
The defense argued that the AMLC figures, by themselves, did not establish ownership of the funds, their source or the existence of unexplained or ill-gotten wealth.
Buenaventura also addressed discrepancies between AMLC figures submitted at different stages of the proceedings.
He said the records provided to the Senate had already been corrected after the agency validated a request from a covered person. The correction request had not yet been validated when earlier records were submitted to the House, he said.
Not adding up
Senate impeachment court Presiding Officer Francis Escudero, meanwhile, said Duterte’s declared assets from 2022 to 2025 totaled about P336 million, below the P424 million in combined inflows and outflows recorded in the accounts of Duterte and Carpio over the same period.
Escudero acknowledged that adding SALNs across different years is not ordinarily appropriate because later declarations may already include assets declared in earlier years.
Even under that assumption, however, he said the P336 million total would not reach the P424 million reflected in the financial records presented by Buenaventura.
The P424 million figure is separate from the P4.4 billion in covered and suspicious transactions that Buenaventura said were recorded in Duterte and Carpio’s accounts from 2007 to 2025.
Buenaventura said about P1.63 billion of the P4.4 billion represented inflows, P1.3 billion represented outflows, while about P1.4 billion involved transactions for which the direction of funds had not been determined.
Escudero said adding Duterte’s SALNs from 2007 through 2025 produced a total of about P840 million, still below the P4.4 billion in transactions reflected in the AMLC records.
Buenaventura said he could not explain the discrepancy.
Buenaventura’s testimony formed part of the prosecution’s presentation for Article II of the impeachment case, which concerns allegations involving Duterte’s wealth and financial declarations.
Duterte’s camp on Tuesday said the AMLC executive director’s testimony did not confirm former senator Antonio Trillanes IV’s allegations against the vice president.
“If anything was confirmed, it is only that Trillanes obtained his information illegally in violation of the Anti-Money Laundering Act and Bank Secrecy Laws,” Duterte spokesman Salvador Panelo Jr. said.
Panelo said Buenaventura testified only on covered and suspicious transaction reports filed by banks and did not establish that funds attributed to Duterte were illegally sourced, hidden or belonged to her.
Account authenticated
Also on Tuesday, LandBank Davao branch manager Eunice Sumatra took the witness stand to authenticate a bank account belonging to Vice President Duterte, as prosecutors began presenting bank records they said would establish the extent of her and her husband’s financial holdings.
Sumatra was asked to authenticate one of Duterte’s LandBank accounts as the prosecution moved to present representatives of banks
and financial institutions subpoenaed by the Senate impeachment court in connection with Article II, which alleges that Duterte accumulated unexplained wealth and failed to truthfully disclose her assets in her statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs).
Prosecutor James Bryan Ibrahim Alih said the bank witnesses would establish that Duterte and Carpio maintained at least 30 active bank accounts across eight banks from 2022 to 2025.
Based on the bank records, Alih said, the prosecution would seek to show that the couple had combined ending balances exceeding P190 million that allegedly were not declared in Duterte’s SALNs. The claim remains subject to authentication and challenge by the defense.
Sumatra was among representatives of 15 banks and insurance companies who appeared before the impeachment court Tuesday. The court had earlier subpoenaed representatives of LandBank, Asia United Bank, Philippine Savings Bank, Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co., Bank of the Philippine Islands, Philippine National Bank and BDO Unibank.
