The President has accused opposition Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV as the brains behind the viral video alleging that his son former Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte is receiving payoffs from an illegal drug syndicate.
President Duterte also dismissed the six-minute video as an old black propaganda being perpetrated by the “Yellows” or the opposition.
“Purveyor of that is [Trillanes] and the rest of the Yellows, so I just let him be. That has become his passion,” Duterte said in an interview with reporters in Puerto Princesa City.
A viral video, titled “Ang Totoong Narco List (The True Narcolist) Episode 1,” has linked Duterte’s son in the illegal drug trade, accusing him of receiving payoffs from a drug ring, an accusation that he has denied.
The younger Duterte is running for representative of Davao City’s first district in May’s midterm elections.
The video also linked Agriculture Assistant Secretary Waldo Carpio to the narcotics trade.
Carpio is the brother of Manases Carpio, the husband of Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte.
The video showed a list of grease money deposited into two accounts allegedly belonging to the agriculture assistant secretary.
Trillanes and the younger Duterte have been locked in a bitter feud after the opposition senator accused him and Manases Carpio of involvement in drug smuggling.
Colored dragon tattoo
In a Senate hearing in 2017, Trillanes asked Duterte to show a tattoo on his back, which the senator claimed to be a colored dragon, the mark of the triad, a syndicate involved in a number of criminal activities.
The younger Duterte has sued Trillanes for libel for the allegations against him.
But Trillanes denied being the brains behind the “Totoong Narco List” viral videos, describing them as “well-explained”—the kind he wished he was a part of.
‘Sadly, I am not’
“The accusations of the witness were very serious, quite pointed, and well-explained,” he said.
Trillanes added: “Having said that, I really wish I was part of the making of the videos so I could relish these moments but sadly, I am not.”
Sen. Leila de Lima also supported Trillanes’ call for Paolo Duterte to show his tattoo to disprove that he is involved in the illegal drug trade.
Opposition Sen. Risa Hontiveros, for her part, backed calls for the Senate to reopen its investigation on the illegal drug trade, following the viral video.
But Otso Diretso senatorial candidate Gary Alejano said the President’s son should answer the issues.
“They must answer first if the issue is true. Let’s go to the contents of the video. Is it true that you’re involved in drugs?” said Alejano who was in Bohol on Friday for the Otso Diretso sortie together with Romy Macalintal, Chel Diokno and Samira Gutoc.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) has appealed to those implicating individuals in illegal drugs syndicates to forward the evidence to law enforcement agencies.
“If they’re going to ask law enforcers to act on it, first and foremost, we have to determine the authenticity of all they’ve said. How could we do that if not a single document is in the possession of law enforcement?” said PDEA spokesperson Derrick Carreon, in a television interview on Thursday.
“If we don’t have evidence or basis but social media posts, no matter how good the investigator, they will have a hard time,” Carreon said.