PDEA chief on Acierto’s expose’: It looks like he’s lying

PDEA chief Aaron Aquino

Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director General Aaron Aquino has called out dismissed P. Col. Eduardo Acierto for allegedly lying in his exposé implicating the President’s former economic adviser, Chinese businessman Michael Yang, aka Hongming Yang, in the illegal drugs trade.

The PDEA chief made this statement after confirming that Yang, contrary to Acierto’s claim, was not a target in the police-PDEA operation on a clandestine drug laboratory in Davao in 2004.

Acierto was then with the now-defunct Philippine National Police Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force.

“I was a part of that operation. From start to finish, the name ‘Michael Yang’ did not come up. I revisited ‘Oplan Crystal Gold’—the name of our implemented [coordination plan]—we had 13 targets, and Michael Yang was not there,” Aquino said on Friday.

“I don’t know his motive, but one thing for sure is that his credibility is in question. It looks like he’s lying,” Aquino said of Acierto.

Aquino said that based on the PDEA’s drugs watchlist, there were two Michael Yangs—one working in transportation in Bulacan, and another an alleged drug pusher in Sual, Pangasinan; and two Hongming Yangs—a mining operator in Samar, and a Chinese teacher in Caloocan.

“I think they are just namesakes,” he said.

Detained opposition Sen. Leila de Lima, for her part, has urged her colleagues in the Senate to conduct a thorough investigation into the alleged links of Yang to the narcotics trade.