The House of Representatives’ quad committee announced on Thursday that it has uncovered a “grand criminal enterprise” centering on former president Rodrigo Duterte in the course of conducting 13 hearings on the connections of illegal drugs, illegal offshore gambling hubs, and extrajudicial killings during the bloody “war on drugs.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the quad committee has started to uncover a grand criminal enterprise and it would seem that at the center of it is the former president,” Antipolo Rep. Romeo Acop said.

Speaking in Filipino, Acop said it was painful that everyone had been deceived. He said the quad committee’s task was difficult because no one else wanted to buck the system or to go against a popular president. 

Still, he said, because he and his colleagues were, like the former president, elected by the people, the quad committee would continue its inquiry and ensure that, through legislation, all that they had discovered would not be repeated. 

Acop stated the committee’s findings based on the testimonies of witnesses in its hearings, including those who, he said, “carried intimate knowledge of the illegal drug trade” in the country and “earned the ire” of Duterte.

At the committee’s 13th hearing on Thursday—the last for this year as Congress goes on holiday break next week—it also lifted contempt citations on witnesses deemed by the lawmakers as evasive and uncooperative in their responses. 

It approved the appeals for the lifting of detention orders on Alice Guo, the dismissed mayor of Bamban, Tarlac; Whirlwind Corp., stakeholder Cassandra Ong; and Chinese businessman Tony Yang.

Guo is being held at the Pasig City Jail and Ong at the Correctional Institute for Women. Yang is in the custody of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission.

Also allowed to be released from detention was Police Maj. Leo Laraga, who was cited in contempt for his evasive responses to queries on his serving a search warrant on the slain Mayor Rolando Espinosa of Albuera, Leyte. 

Ex-PDEA chief

But the quad committee cited former Philippine Drug Enforcement Authority (PDEA) chief Wilkins Villanueva in contempt and reprimanded him for insisting he was not liable for the illegal detention of the wife of suspected drug lord Alan Sy in 2005, in the aftermath of a drug raid on a shabu laboratory in Dumoy, Davao City.

The committee members were outraged by Villanueva’s insistence that he had no knowledge of why Jed Padilla Sy ended up detained without an arrest warrant, and by repeatedly saying that he had delegated her interrogation to his men.

Jed Sy and her brother Jong were arrested, charged with and convicted of drug trafficking, a crime that, she told the committee, she never committed. 

Both Acop and Abang Lingkod party-list Rep. Stephen Joseph Paduano said that Villanueva, being the ground commander of the Dumoy drug raid on Dec.30, 2004, had command responsibility for Jed Sy’s detention.

Jed Sy tearfully testified at Thursday’s hearing, saying she had been forced to sign a document that she was not illegally detained. She said she did not understand what was happening at that time when she was invited twice by the PDEA. 

She denied Villanueva’s statement that she had delivered materials needed to make shabu at the warehouse owned by her husband Alan Sy. She said she had gone to the warehouse to clean it and deliver venetian blinds. 

Jed Sy and her brother were eventually charged with and convicted of drug trafficking. They have been in jail for the past 20 years.

“I have already served the maximum sentence. My wish is for me and my brother to gain freedom,” Jed Sy said, adding that she had availed herself of the good conduct time allowance given to prisoners for good behavior. 

Puzzlement

The committee members expressed puzzlement that Villanueva and his team seemingly missed Michael Yang, Duterte’s former economic adviser, during their three-month surveillance of Alan Sy.

Jed Sy said she knows Michael Yang. She identified him as Hong Ming Yang, who had dealings with her husband, and who they visited at DCLA Plaza which he owns. 

“I’m curious,” Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong told Villanueva. “You’ve dedicated time and invested resources to pin down Alan Sy … How come you did not bother to know why the Sy couple have been going to DCLA Plaza?”

In reply, Villanueva said they did not bother to ask about Michael Yang as “he was not a person of interest at that time.”

Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, the lead chair of the quad committee, said that in the spirit of Christmas, they had agreed to defer Villanueva’s detention until the panel returns next month.

Also cited in contempt by the committee was Police Col. Hector Grijaldo, who is recovering in hospital from shoulder surgery, for ignoring the committee’s summons four times. The panel ordered Grijaldo’s arrest and detention at the House detention facility.

In an earlier inquiry at the Senate, Grijaldo said the quad committee leaders once tried to force him to confirm the testimony of retired colonel Royina Garma that Duterte had ordered a reward system for a nationwide campaign against drug suspects. The panel leaders have denied Grijaldo’s allegation.

‘Two tales’

Summing up the hearings, Acop said the importers of illegal drugs had been able to “skillfully discover cracks” in the system. 

“The question is how these importers were able to know the vulnerabilities of the country’s port security. The answer is simple: It’s because of protection and connections,” he said, adding that this could be seen in “two tales” of illegal drug shipments in 2017 and 2018—the “height” of Duterte’s drug war.

Noting how Duterte had strongly condemned illegal drugs and ordered law enforcers to “kill, kill, kill” those involved in the trade, Acop said the supposed link between the former president and illegal drugs “begin with the testimonies” of customs broker Mark Taguba and former customs intelligence agent Jimmy Guban, who were both convicted of drug trafficking.

“It can be observed that despite these being different shipments and transactions, the details of the two tales are the same,” he said.

Taguba and Guban were linked respectively to the P6.4-billion shabu shipment found in metal cylinders in 2017 and to the P3.4-billion shabu shipment found in magnetic lifters in 2018. Both shipments arrived at the Manila International Container Port, and in both cases, the names of Davao City Rep. Paolo Duterte, Mans Carpio, and Michael Yang—Duterte’s son, son-in-law, and close friend and former economic adviser—were mentioned. All three men have denied involvement.

“This is the world that Taguba entered in his desire to do easy business, and that is to go to the Davao boys,” Acop said of Taguba, who had testified that Paolo Duterte and Carpio allegedly had control of the 2017 shipment. 

Taguba had denied knowledge of the contents of the shipment that his trucking firm had handled.

Guban, for his part, testified that Paolo Duterte, Carpio and Yang owned the shabu shipment in 2018 but that he initially did not name them during a Senate inquiry because, he said, he and his family were under threat if he did so.

Said Acop: “We need to fix or change our laws because it’s the small people who end up being charged and convicted.”

‘Cracks’ in the system

Explaining what he called the “cracks” in the system, particularly in the Bureau of Customs (BoC), Acop cited the “tara” system or “grease money” given to BoC officials, among others, “to push them into a more simple assessment of inbound goods.”

He said payment of grease money was the “style” used by illegal drug importers to be able to bring in their shipment without inspection.

Acop said former police colonel Eduardo Acierto, one of the quad committee’s witnesses, not only “verified and investigated illegal schemes in the BoC” but also prepared thorough reports submitted to the House panel.

Acierto, who has been in hiding for the past six years, was charged with drug trafficking after Guban testified of his alleged involvement in the P3.4-billion shabu shipment. Guban has since recanted his testimony and apologized to Acierto for it, saying his life and family were threatened if he named the three persons close to the former president.

Familiar names

Acop presented the diagram sent to the committee by Acierto, a former antinarcotics operative, which linked Michael Yang and his business partners Alan Lim and Johnson Co to the illegal drug trade.

The lawmaker said the names mentioned by Acierto are familiar because they were mentioned in the committee hearings: Lim is the husband of Rose Nono Lim. Co is said to have financed and established the Dumoy shabu laboratory in Davao City that was raided in December 2004. From supposedly being a transporter of materials needed to make shabu at the lab in 2004, Yang managed to develop contacts in the BoC and became a facilitator of shabu shipments.

Acop said Acierto had earlier reported the links of Alan Sy and Yang to the illegal drug trade but that this was ignored by top officials and the Palace. He also said Arthur Lascañas, a confessed hitman of the Davao Death Squad, recounted the Dumoy raid in 2004 in an affidavit.

“Just like Acierto, Lascañas made the connection of Michael Yang and the Dumoy raid where he was said to be the employer of the Chinese nationals,” Acop said, noting that Lascañas also mentioned that Alan Sy was apprehended and later killed.

“Acierto, Guban, Lascañas and Taguba have bared their stories before this quad committee, and through combined efforts and interpellations we discovered common personalities that seemed to be consistently present in all the narratives,” Acop said, adding:

“What do we make of the war on drugs?  It looked like it was a convenient way to eliminate competition, especially local manufacturers.”

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