Probe Duterte family, Chinese allies linked with illegal drugs - De Lima

Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has renewed her call to probe prominent personalities linked to illegal drug trade in the country amid serious accusations against presidential son Paolo Duterte and former presidential economic adviser Michael Yang into narcotics.

De Lima, the first prominent political prisoner under the current regime, said the President's family and allies should not be spared from investigation and prosecution, especially if they are influential public figures.

"Michael Yang should have been blacklisted and his operations monitored. Paolo Duterte should be investigated, as to his and his alleged dummy's bank accounts, and even his tattoo, examined to see whether the allegations are true or not," she said in her recent Dispatch from Crame No. 503.

"Both Michael Yang and Paolo Duterte are indubitably public figures with considerable influence. And the public interest for the investigation into their culpability and accountability far outweighs their right to privacy," she added.

Yang was named by dismissed police officer Eduardo Acierto to the illegal drug trade, along with his business partners Allan Lim (aka Huen Li Gen or Ayong) and Johnson Chua (aka Chung Nga Way or Greg Sia) who is based in Macau.

According to Acierto, he submitted a confidential written report detailing the supposed links of Yang and Lim into the illegal drug trade to his superiors in the Philippine National Police, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, and to Sen. Richard Gordon and other officials from Malacañang in 2017, but no actions were done.

Polong, on his part, was tagged as among the syndicate leaders who purportedly got kickbacks from the illegal drug trade in a seven-minute video entitled "Ang Totoong Narcolist - Episode 1" that went viral after it was uploaded on YouTube last April 2.

The narrator in the video who identified himself as a certain "Bikoy" claimed that the dragon tattoo on Duterte's back can prove the presidential son's ties to a drug trafficking triad which is a syndicate involved in a number of criminal activities.

De Lima, a former justice secretary, berated the Duterte administration for freely using tax-paid resources to protect the President's family instead of protecting the country from the drug syndicates.

"Duterte called at the AFP and PNP to murder Acierto. Bong Go and Bato de la Rosa were quick to exonerate Michael Yang even before any bona fide investigation on the allegations were made. Duterte's men in the Senate, as if on clock work, immediately called for the arrest of Acierto and discouraged any Senate investigation on the matter," she recalled.

The lady Senator from Bicol said that Mr. Duterte is the one responsible for the surge of the illegal drug trade in the country, making his government's all-out war on drugs a complete "failure."

"The simple explanation for the monumental failure of Duterte's 'War on Drugs' is that those responsible for the proliferation of illegal drugs in our country could very well be his own family, cronies and Chinese allies," she said.

"This is also probably the reason why China is able to keep Duterte on a leash like their loyal dog. They know that he is the real coddler of druglords and protector of the drug trade in the Philippines," she added.

President Duterte recently raised his estimate of Filipino drug users to 7 to 8 million, which the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police defended as the former's way of allegedly "challenging" law enforcers to up their fight against illegal drugs.

A victim of political persecution under the vengeful Duterte regime, De Lima was illegally detained since Feb. 24, 2017 based on trumped-up charges that were all based primarily on perjured testimonies of convicted criminals and manufactured evidence.