Palace: ‘China money’ claim can’t be ignored
Malacañang on Friday raised an alarm over allegations by former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV that a food company partly owned by the husband of Vice President Sara Duterte received more than P319 million from China.
In a statement sent to reporters, Palace press officer Claire Castro said that the allegations, if proven, may explain why some officials were being tight-lipped when Chinese forces harass Filipinos in the West Philippine Sea.
“If there is sufficient evidence, this should not be ignored,” Castro said.
Close to Beijing
“It could be considered an act of betrayal of the country when Filipinos, especially public officials, remain silent about the violence being inflicted upon some of our fishermen by foreign forces, while others are willing to give away parts of our territory or our rights in the West Philippine Sea because their eyes have been blinded by money, causing them to turn their backs on their love for the country and sell our freedom,” she said.
Castro emphasized that the administration was not passing judgment on the fund transfer at this point but said the public should be made aware of the allegations if there were sufficient evidence to support it.
“Those who tolerate such acts should be dealt with—not tomorrow, but now!” she said. “Let us not allow our own officials to be the ones who destroy our country. We must all wake up!”
The Duterte family, particularly its patriarch, ex-President Rodrigo Duterte, is known to be close to China. They have been criticized for not raising a howl against aggressive Chinese moves that undermine Philippine sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea.
The former president, who is awaiting trial for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands, had described the 2016 arbitral award to the Philippines by an international tribunal as just “a piece of paper” he would throw into a garbage bin. The tribunal ruled to nullify China’s expansive claims to the South China Sea, including the West Philippine Sea.
CALE88 Foods Corp.
At a press conference on Friday, Trillanes said CALE88 Foods Corp., a banana chip maker partly owned by Duterte’s husband, Manases “Mans” Carpio, received over P319 million from the Chinese government and China-based corporations.
In addition, the Tapang and Malasakit Foundation where the Vice President serves as a board member, got P150 million in donation from the Chinese Embassy in Manila, he said.
Trillanes said that the funds from China were now part of the conjugal property of Duterte and her husband.
“This is China’s way of supporting the couple. This is very clear,” the former lawmaker said. “That is why we should be horrified because she is the Vice President, there are national security implications. That is not allowed.”
“If that’s not a ground for impeachment, then I don’t know what is,” he added.
Trillanes did not specify the source of the funds or the names of the China-based corporations that remitted the money to CALE88.
Both the Chinese Embassy and the Office of the Vice President have not responded to the Inquirer’s request for comment.
Dropped as witness
The former senator made the disclosures a day after the prosecution panel in Duterte’s impeachment trial announced that he would no longer testify against the Vice President.
Trillanes said that he asked to be withdrawn as a prosecution witness to relieve the “pressure” on the prosecution. He did not elaborate.
His testimony was considered to be crucial in establishing a case for Article 2, as he had been claiming for years that Duterte and members of her family—including her father—had hidden bank accounts.
Trillanes said that according to documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) CALE88 declared over P208,493,000 in sales and more than P300 million in remittances.
He raised several red flags concerning the food company—low electricity costs despite being a food factory, zero trade receivables and payables, and no rank-and-file employees.
‘Humble business’
According to the Ifex Connect website set up by the Department of Trade and Industry and Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (Citem), CALE88 was formed in September 2021 as a “collaboration between friends and family” and started as a “humble business selling homemade banana chips.”
In January 2025, CALE88 was among the participating local companies organized by Citem to showcase Philippine products at the Winter Fancy Food Show 2025 in Las Vegas.
SEC documents showed that Carpio’s ownership share in the company rose from 40 percent in 2021 to 47 percent in 2024. There was no information about his shares in 2025.
In April, CALE88 was among the nine businesses linked to the Vice President and her husband that were placed under audit by the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
Not for court to consider
Senate impeachment court spokesperson Reginald Tongol said on Friday that Trillanes had the right to free speech, but his statements would not be considered by senator-judges in deciding whether to convict or acquit the Vice President.
“He is free to exhaust his freedom of speech because that is part of our democracy,” he said.
“However, our senator-judges, of course, we just have to have faith in them that only the evidence and the testimonies and the exhibits or documents presented before the impeachment court are the only ones upon which they would base their decision on the ultimate question.”
Tongol said that if the House prosecution panel sees that the statements of the former senator would be important to include in their evidence in chief, they were free and have the prerogative to call Trillanes to testify.
The impeachment court will leave it up to the House prosecutors to formally introduce that evidence so that the senator-judges “would be able to take them in, consider them, and weigh them formally.” —WITH REPORTS FROM ISABELLE PECHAY, KEITH CLORES AND INQUIRER RESEARCH
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