Duterte Jr denies drug link
Philippines president’s son says allegations over US$125mil shipment are baseless.
MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s son has told a Senate inquiry that he had no links to a seized shipment of US$125mil (RM529mil) worth of narcotics from China, dismissing as “baseless” the allegations of his involvement in the drugs trade.
Opponents of the president, who has instigated a fierce crackdown on a trade he says is destroying the country, say they believe his son Paolo may have helped ease the entry of the drug shipment at the port in Manila, the capital.
On Tuesday, Duterte said he had told Paolo to attend the Senate investigation if he had nothing to hide, besides advising him not to answer questions and invoke his right to keep silent.
“I cannot answer allegations based on hearsay,” Paolo, the vicemayor of the southern city of Davao, told the Senate yesterday.
“My presence here is for the Filipino people and for my fellow Davaoenos whom I serve,” he added, referring to the people of Davao, where his father served as mayor for over two decades before being elected president last year.
The Philippine leader has repeatedly said he would resign if critics could prove any members of his family were involved in corruption.
Senator Antonio Trillanes, a staunch critic of the president, displayed to the Senate panel photographs of Paolo beside a businessman who was behind the shipment in which the alleged drugs were found.
The president’s soninlaw Manases Carpio, who has also been accused of links to the May drug shipment from China, told the hearing he had no involvement.
Duterte unleashed his bloody campaign the day he took office on June 30 last year, after promising Filipinos he would use deadly force to wipe out crime and drugs.
Police records show more than 3,800 people have died in police operations since July last year, and more than 2,100 other reported murders are linked to drugs.
Police reject activists’ allegations that they are executing suspected drug users and dealers and say officers shoot only in selfdefence.
Trillanes said he had intelligence information from an undisclosed foreign country that Paolo was a member of a criminal syndicate, citing as proof a “dragonlike” tattoo with secret digits on his back.
Asked about the tattoo, Paolo said he had one but declined to describe it, invoking his right to privacy.
Asked by Trillanes if he would allow a photograph to be taken of the tattoo and sent to the US Drug Enforcement Agency to decode the digits, Duterte said: “No way.”
He also refused to respond to questions about his bank accounts, calling them “irrelevant”.
Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said the attendance of Paolo and Carpio “demonstrates that both gentlemen are willing and ready to face malicious allegations intended to impugn their character and credibility”. — Reuters