The Dutertes Demand Our Loyalty.They Owe Us Receipts.

An opinion piece on dynastic power, unexplained wealth, and a family that treats a bank

waiver as an insult

Here is the cheapest, fastest and most devastating thing the Duterte family could do this

week: sign the bank waivers.

One signature per account. One afternoon. If former SenatorAntonio Trillanes IV is lying

when he says that Rodrigo, Sara, Paolo and Sebastian Duterte together hold at least ₱2.4

billion in undeclared bank deposits, open accounts would prove it in public and humiliate

him before the entire country. No libel suit could do that as well. No spokesperson's

statement could come close.

They have not done it. Rodrigo Duterte has threatened libel charges instead, while,

according to reporting on the matter, remaining opposed to signing waivers that would

open the accounts. The Vice President's spokesperson, Salvador Paolo Panelo, calls the

whole thing "exhausted lies." And the country is invited, once again, to take a powerful

family's word for it.

I am done taking their word for it. So, I would argue, should you be, whatever you think of

Trillanes.

What we know, and what we are told to assume

Let me be precise, because precision is the one weapon the family's loudest defenders

cannot stand.

At his October press conference, Trillanes alleged that the four Duterte family members

hold at least ₱2.4 billion in undeclared deposits, and said his documents came from

records submitted to the Anti-Money Laundering Council and the Office of the

Ombudsman. He alleged that a joint family account received ₱181 million from Samuel Uy,

whom he called an illegal drug operator. Social media personality Jesus Falcis, amplifying

the presentation, claimed the records showed Baste Duterte paying roughly ₱1 million in

monthly bills at age 21, and the Vice President holding hundreds of millions in time

deposits missing from her Statement ofAssets, Liabilities and Net Worth.

Op-Ed: Allegations Are Not Evidence, But a Dynasty Owes Us Answers

Page 1 of 7 None of that has been proven. I will say so as many times as it takes. A document waved at

a press conference is not a document admitted in court. A claim of drug money is not a

finding of drug money. Trillanes has a long feud with this family, a history of promised

bombshells that fizzled, and, in the impeachment trial itself, he was dropped from the

prosecution's witness list. Prosecutors have said his corporate and China-related

allegations were not entered into the record through him.

But notice what the family's reply consists of. It is a campaign against the messenger, not a

rebuttal of the message. The Vice President has said she checked account numbers

leaked in earlier rounds and found some did not exist. Fine. That is an answer about some

numbers from an earlier round. It is not an answer about the ones in this one. And it does

not explain why the same family that insists the accounts are fiction will not simply let the

public look.

The waiver is the whole argument

Sit with the logic for a moment.

If the accusation is invented, a waiver is a gift. It hands the family the cleanest vindication

politics has ever offered. A defense lawyer would call it a gift-wrapped acquittal. Any

innocent person with this much to lose would take it before breakfast.

If, instead, the accusation has something to it, a waiver is the single most dangerous

document a politician can sign. That is why the refusal is so revealing. I do not claim it

proves anything. There are principled reasons to resist blanket waivers, including privacy

and a fear of selective leaks. But officials do not get to pick which privacy principles apply

to them. Public office is a bargain. In exchange for power over other people's lives and

money, you accept that your finances are the public's business. The constitution requires

a SALN for exactly this reason.

A public servant who hides behind the privacy of a bank account has misunderstood the

job. A family that has held the same offices for more than three decades has forgotten it.

So here is my challenge to the Dutertes, offered without apology: if it is all lies, prove it.

Not with a hashtag. Not with a press release attacking a former senator. With documents.

If you will not, stop asking the rest of us to act as though your silence is an answer.

Op-Ed: Allegations Are Not Evidence, But a Dynasty Owes Us Answers

Page 2 of 7 The Davao model was never about order

To understand why so many Filipinos are inclined to take these allegations seriously, you

have to understand where this family's power comes from.

It comes from Davao, and from the story the family tells about Davao: a city made safe by a

strongman who cut through the paperwork and did what the weak institutions could not.

It is a powerful story. It is also a story that hides its price.

The price was due process. Human rights groups have for years tied Rodrigo Duterte's

long tenure as mayor to the Davao Death Squad and to reports of more than a thousand

extrajudicial killings of suspected criminals and drug users. He used weekly television

addresses to name people he considered criminals, and warned them what was coming.

Think about what that is. In one office, in one man, sat the accuser, the judge, the jury and,

in the telling of his critics, the executioner. That is not a justice system that works

efficiently. That is the abolition of a justice system.

And a system like that does not stay in one box. A city where the mayor can name you on

television and threaten you has a local press that thinks twice, a business community that

learns whom to please, and a political class that discovers the benefits of loyalty. Scholars

and journalists who have studied the Davao model describe exactly this patronage

system, one in which the space for independent oversight shrinks until it barely exists.

Now add the family tree. For over three decades the family has passed the city's highest

offices among its own. In the most recent local elections, Rodrigo Duterte won the

mayoralty with Baste as vice mayor, Paolo sat as representative, and grandsons Omar and

Rigo took congressional and council seats. Analysts call it an "obese" dynasty, and the

word is cruel but accurate. When the mayor, the vice mayor, the congressman and the

grandchildren all come from one household, the checks and balances in the charts of

civics textbooks are not checks and balances. They are a family reunion.

That is the environment in which these allegations of unexplained wealth arise. Not a level

field where an honest family is being ambushed, but a landscape where the people with

the most power to investigate are, for decades, the same people being investigated or

their allies.

The books do not close

If you want to know what a government does with money, ignore the speeches and read

the audit.

Op-Ed: Allegations Are Not Evidence, But a Dynasty Owes Us Answers

Page 3 of 7 The Commission on Audit flagged more than ₱8.1 billion in questionable and unreconciled

property, plant and equipment records in Davao City under Mayor Baste Duterte.

Unreconciled does not mean stolen. It means that the city's own books did not match

reality, on a scale that would end careers in the private sector, and raised the worrying

possibility of "ghost" assets that exist only on paper. The mayor has said he was not aware

of the details. Think about that sentence. Eight billion pesos, and the man in charge was

not aware.

Separately, National Bureau of Investigation probes have looked at multi-billion-peso flood

control contracts in the city, with allegations that a single construction firm with ties to

the family collected an outsized share. Again: probes, not convictions. But when you add

them up, the pattern is a city government whose accounts do not reconcile and whose

biggest contracts allegedly flow to friends of the house. If that were any other political

family, we would not need a press conference to feel uneasy.

Two courtrooms, one question

The good news is that this will not be settled by shouting. It is being routed into two

courtrooms, and I trust neither to be swayed by a hashtag.

In the Senate, the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte is examining

unexplained wealth, misuse of confidential funds, and betrayal of public trust, along with

a security-threat article. Prosecutors are placing financial documents, property records

and firearms listings against her declared SALN. They argue that cumulative bank records

will show a vast gap between declared and actual wealth. Notably, they are pruning their

own case, having announced they will drop the bribery charge to focus on the stronger

articles. A prosecution that cuts its weakest claim to concentrate on the rest is behaving

the way serious prosecutors behave. Whether the senator-judges rise to the same

standard is the real test.

In The Hague, Rodrigo Duterte sits in International Criminal Court custody. The charges,

crimes against humanity of murder tied to the war on drugs during his time as Davao

mayor and as president, have been confirmed, and his trial is set to begin on November 30,

2026. That is not about money. It is about whether the architecture of violence his critics

describe will be examined by a court that does not answer to him. He is presumed

innocent, and he will have every procedural right that his own critics were denied in the

streets. Let that sink in: the man whose critics say he made himself accuser and judge will

finally face a trial with neither role in his hands.

Op-Ed: Allegations Are Not Evidence, But a Dynasty Owes Us Answers

Page 4 of 7 The two cases touch at a single point. Duterte reportedly sought legal aid from the ICC

Registry, claiming he lacked the personal means to pay for his defense. The Registry said

no. I do not know what the Registry reviewed, and the denial proves nothing about hidden

wealth. But the family cannot complain that people ask about its finances when those

finances are now appearing in procedural rulings of an international court.

The best defense, and why itfails

Fairness requires me to give the family's case its strongest form.

The Dutertes are enormously popular. They won votes, repeatedly and honestly, from

people who believe Davao works and the rest of the country does not. Their enemies are

political, and Trillanes is the most political of them. The impeachment, in this telling, is a

weapon wielded by an administration that shields and elevates the accuser. And anyone's

finances can be made to look sinister when stripped of context by people who want them

to.

Some of that is true. Politics is a blood sport, and motive matters. Trillanes's record of

promises that did not pan out is a legitimate reason for caution. And millions of voters

chose this family; treating them as dupes is both wrong and strategically stupid.

But look at what the defense never touches: the numbers. Every argument is about who is

speaking and who is listening. None is about what the records say. A politically motivated

accuser can be right. A beloved family can have unexplained wealth. A well-ordered city

can have books that do not reconcile. Popularity and guilt are simply different axes.

Worse, popularity is an argument for more scrutiny, not less. The more votes a family

commands, the more it can reward friends and punish critics, and the more urgent it is

that someone independent can look at its affairs. A family genuinely confident in its

innocence and its mandate would welcome the audit. It would want to be the first in line.

And the claim that the administration is propping up Trillanes cuts both ways. If the

allegations are politically convenient for the government, then the Senate and the courts

are exactly where that convenience gets tested, with witnesses cross-examined and

documents authenticated. Nobody needs to take Trillanes's word. The family, notably, is

asking us to take theirs.

What accountability demands

So here is what I want, and what I think a self-respecting country should insist on.

Op-Ed: Allegations Are Not Evidence, But a Dynasty Owes Us Answers

Page 5 of 7 From the accusers: Stop trying cases at press conferences. Every sensational claim that

collapses makes the next, potentially well-founded accusation easier to dismiss, and you

hand the family its favorite talking point. If the records are real, put them where they can

be tested.

From the Dutertes: Open the books. Sign the waivers. If the allegations are fabrications,

nothing could be easier. If you will not, spare us the speeches about being victims. Public

figures who ask to be trusted without being checked are asking for a monarchy.

From the Senate: Judge the evidence, not the surname. Your electoral calculations and

personal loyalties should be left at the door. The bank records, the SALNs and the

witnesses are what they are. Weigh them in public.

From the courts, in Manila and The Hague: Be thorough, be fair and be fast enough to

matter. Justice that arrives after the voters have forgotten teaches the powerful that they

can wait out any reckoning.

From the rest of us: Refuse the false choice. You do not have to believe Trillanes to

demand answers from the Dutertes. You do not have to hate the Dutertes to want their

money examined. The only position that is incompatible with a healthy republic is the one

that says some families are above being asked.

The price of an unanswerable family

This is bigger than one family, which is why it matters.

There are two kinds of political order. In one, power is an heirloom, handed from father to

son to grandson. Critics are managed, courts are waited out, and the question "where did

the money come from?" is treated as an act of war. In the other, officials understand that

they are stewards of something that belongs to the public, and that the voters who

elevate them are entitled to see how they live.

The Dutertes have thrived for decades in the first. The cases now moving through Manila

and The Hague are a chance to build the second. We will squander it if we let ourselves

become cheerleaders: believing Trillanes because we dislike the family, or defending the

family because we dislike Trillanes. Either way, the verdict will arrive without us having

done the one thing citizens are supposed to do, which is to demand the evidence.

If the evidence is real, let it convict. If it is hollow, let it collapse in public, and let the

accusers answer for it. But the family does not get a third option. It does not get to say "it

is all lies" and keep the books closed.

Op-Ed: Allegations Are Not Evidence, But a Dynasty Owes Us Answers

Page 6 of 7 Sign the waivers. Open the accounts. Let the facts do what the press releases cannot.

If you have nothing to hide, it will be the easiest afternoon of your career.

Fair counterpoint: the Duterte family and its supporters maintain that these allegations are

politically motivated fabrications, that earlier leaked account numbers were checked and

found not to exist, and that privacy rights justify declining blanket bank waivers. Nothing

described above has been proven in court.