Former president Rodrigo Duterte has consulted a lawyer to formalize his intention to file a libel case against former senator Antonio Trillanes IV over the latter’s claim that Duterte maintains multimillion pesos bank deposits of suspicious origin.

Duterte consulted former presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo with the two discussing the issue via phone call that was streamed live on Tiktok on November 14.

Duterte said Trillanes must prove his claim in court.

A day before, Trillanes and Duterte confronted each other during the House Quad Committee hearing, with the former presenting to the legislative panel alleged bank documents showing PHP2.4 billion bank deposit of Duterte and his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte,.

The bank accounts reflected alleged deposits made from 2011 to 2015.

“I called ton consult Trillanes lies with you because I have to file libel cases against him. There isn’t an ounce of truth …” said Duterte in the telephone conversation with Panelo.

According to Duterte the documents presented by Trillanes even misspelled the names of the members of his family.

“Somebody should teach him a lesson in life. He keeps on destroying other people’s reputation and gets away with it,” he said.

During the hearing, Duterte was seated next to former Senator Leila De Lima whom he had incarcerated on drug trafficking charges.

The courts junked two criminal cases filed against Delima after prosecution witnesses admitted being coerced into linking the former lady senator to illegal narcotics.