(Eagle News)—Senator Leila de Lima has urged a probe into what she said were “serious accusations” hurled against President Rodrigo Duterte’s family and its “allies.”
“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,” De Lima said in a statement.
De Lima noted Yang was linked by former Col. Eduardo Acierto, who was dismissed for his role in the illegal sale of AK-47 rifles to the New People’s Army, to the illegal drug trade, while the presidential son was “tagged as among 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 former Davao vice mayor has vehemently denied the allegations, and has vowed to file charges against Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, who he said was behind the video.
They “should not be spared from investigation and prosecution, especially if they are influential public figures,” De Lima said.
According to De Lima, the Duterte administration should also be taken to task 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 said.
She said the President was “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.