At the second Quad Committee hearing, ex-President Duterte’s spokesman Harry Roque, had asserted that he had legitimately acquired the funds that Biancham Holdings and Trading, Inc. (“Biancham”) had reported in its Audited Financial Statements (“AFS”).
According to him, he had legitimately acquired the P67-million from the sale of their family’s property in Multinational Village, Paranaque and then reinvested this money into the Biancham’s subsidiary First Bataan Mariveles Holdings Corp. (“FBMHC”).
But something just doesn’t seem to add up. While his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) indicates that he has only P60 million, he stated that he invested P90 million in FBMHC. So where did the P30 million come from?
When asked to submit his SALN, income tax returns and deed of sale, among others, he declared that he would submit all documents requested and even do the Quad Committee a favor by giving more than what is being required of him, just to establish that he did not acquire his money from Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (“POGO”).
However, despite earnest efforts and follow-ups from the Quad Committee, Roque unsurprisingly failed to submit the documents that he volunteered and those being required of him and even claimed that the documents are not relevant to the POGO investigations
This is indicative that he is hiding something. Roque also seems to contradict himself.
When Roque claimed that the records requested are private, it is reminiscent of ex-President Duterte’s P2.5 billion confidential funds in 2022 and now, VP Sara Duterte’s P112 million confidential funds, which was claimed as a part of the Department of Education’s (“DEPED”) budget.
In what has gone viral over social media, Sara Duterte, in her repeated “shiminet” phrases, refused to identify how the confidential funds were used by the DEPED which she used to head.
She even went so far as to give a very general itemization of how the confidential funds were spent, as she even chose to forego defending the funds to be allocated to the Office of the Vice President.
Obviiously, “transparency” seems to be a problem for those associated with the previous administration.
