The Duterte family’s criminal enterprise

Davao’s Duterte family was one grand criminal enterprise.

Their main business has been illegal drugs. The family flooded the archipelago with illegal drugs imported in huge volumes with the help of Chinese partners and cohorts in China and in the Philippines.

A side family hobby was capricious and wasteful use of billions of taxpayers’ money, confidential and intelligence funds (CIF).

Rodrigo Roa Duterte was at the center of the family’s giant criminal enterprise and systemic corruption involving high-ranking government officials and international drug trafficking networks, the House super quad committee said on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024.

Quad is composed of four powerful House committees: dangerous drugs chaired by Rep. Robert Ace S. Barbers, public order and safety chaired by Rep. Dan S. Fernandez, human rights chaired by Rep. Bienvenido M. Abante Jr. and public accounts chaired by Rep. Joseph Stephen “Caraps” S. Paduano. Quad is like the Nuremberg Trials of World War II – uncover atrocities and horrible acts so they may not happen again, said Congressman Barbers, with singular focus on illegal drugs, extrajudicial killings and POGOs, Philippine offshore gaming operations.

After 12 hearings, quad’s senior vice chairman, Antipolo Rep. Romeo Acop, a former police general and a cum laude law grad, summarized the panel’s initial findings. Duterte and his inner circle enabled and profited from the drug trade they had publicly vowed to eliminate.

“Duterte is the drug lord of all drug lords,” Arturo Lascañas told the quad comm. A cop, he was a former member of the Davao Death Squad.

“This is truly painful,” Acop bewailed, “we were victims of budol (fraud).”

For Duterte’s criminal activity, a key partner was a Chinese businessman, Michael Yang, who the president then designated as an economic adviser and was given access to the government’s highest offices.

Relatedly, the House committee on good government and public accountability has questioned Vice President Sara Duterte’s misuse of P615.2 millions of CIFs in 2022 and 2023. Over 1,300 alleged recipients of OVP’s CIF did not exist at all, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority. Tax money disappeared into nothingness.

As Davao mayor and as president of six years, Digong Duterte used his so-called war on drugs (WOD) as a cover to hide his criminal enterprise, to eliminate competition and to expand the business.

The WOD was marked by extrajudicial killings numbering up to 30,000. Most victims were innocent, killed by the police who were given cash rewards which ranged from P20,000 to P1 million, as testified to by former Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office general manager Royina Garma and corroborated by former National Police Commission head Edilberto Leonardo, who handled the reward money as paymaster on Duterte’s behalf.

“It appears the war on drugs was a convenient way to eliminate competition in the drug trade. More specifically, the local manufacturers,”Acop said.

Duterte himself ordered the killings, making his presidency the deadliest of 17 Philippine presidents.

The business was so well-entrenched it compromised several agencies of the government, including the Bureau of Customs, which his son Paolo and his son-in-law, Manases Carpio, controlled to engage in large-scale smuggling of illegal drugs, agricultural products and other items, quad hearings showed.

A series of PNP and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency heads routinely ignored reports of subalterns about the existence the Chinese drug cartel. Worse, some of the heads of the PNP and PDEA became part of the illegal drugs business.

Acop said Duterte’s trusted officials wielded the “purse and the sword” and weaponized these both for personal and political gain.

“It is most unfortunate that the sword was used to slit, stab and slash the very people it swore to protect and the purse was used not to benefit the Republic but to line the pockets of the few. They flooded our country with drugs, and they benefited from this,” Acop added.

Quad comm chair Surigao del Norte Rep. Ace Barbers said Yang “may be one of the biggest ‘budol’ (frauds) who posed as a legitimate businessman.”

“Behind all of his businesses, Yang used our officials so that he could ship tons of illegal drugs into our country in the guise of being a legit investor. That’s how we were duped,” Barbers said. Yang has been in hiding.

Yang was also tagged in the so-called Pharmally scandal. Pharmally, an upstart drug company with just P625,00 capital but backed by Yang, won P18.8-billion contracts to supply COVID test kits and other supplies. The items were either overpriced, substandard or never delivered, but the company was paid just the same.

Acop cited the testimonies of three principal witnesses – broker Mark Taguba, agent Jimmy Guban and Col. Eduardo Acierto.

Taguba and Guban were witnesses in two major illegal shabu shipments – P6.4 billion worth inside metal cylinders in 2017 and P3.4 billion worth inside magnetic lifters in 2018. Both shipments entered the Manila International Container Port and involved Duterte son Paolo Duterte, his son-in-law Atty. Mans Carpio and Michael Yang, alias Dragon, the presidential adviser and a Davao mall owner.

Rodrigo Duterte, Paolo Duterte, Carpio, Yang, along with now Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, chief of the Philippine National Police during Duterte’s presidency, were the leaders of what Acop pictured as the Davao Mafia. The illegal drug trade had hubs in Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Bukidnon and Pampanga.

A police intelligence officer, Acierto categorically named president Duterte and Dela Rosa as “integral personalities in protecting the illegal drugs network in the Philippines.”

“Worse, they served as key figures in ensuring that large volumes of illegal drugs slip right through our borders. And where is Col. Acierto now? He’s in hiding because former president Duterte wants him dead,” said Acop.

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