Ex-President Rodrigo Roa Duterte | PHOTO: ROBINSON NIÑAL/ PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Dismissed colonel Eduardo Acierto on Wednesday claimed that former President Rodrigo Duterte wanted the military and the police to kill him due to his move to have former Presidential Economic Adviser Michael Yang and Allan Lim investigated because of their alleged link to illegal drug trade.
Acierto worked at the Philippine National Police (PNP) – Drug Enforcement Group.
READ: Ex-cop linked to P11-B ‘shabu’ smuggling fears for life
“Ako rin po ang parehong Police Col. Eduardo Acierto na matagal na ipinapahanap at ipinapapatay ni Pangulong Duterte sa military at kapwa ko pulis,” Acierto told lawmakers during the House Committee on Dangerous Drugs hearing.
(I am also the same Police Col. Eduardo Acierto whom President Duterte has been trying to find and wanted to be killed by the military and my fellow policemen.)
“Pinapapatay po ako ni Duterte dahil talisod ko at pina-i-imbestigahan ko si Michael Yang at Allan Lim na malapit nilang kaibigan ni Bong Go,” he added.
(Duterte wants me to be killed because I went astray and had Michael Yang and Allan Lim, who are close friends with Bong Go, investigated.)
Based on reports, Acierto prepared a confidential report about Yang and Lim in August 2017.
Back then, Acierto said he submitted the report to former PNP chief Oscar Albayalde, former Senator Richard Gordon, and former Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, hoping the government would act on his information favorably, but nothing happened.
The sacked police official also prepared a nine-minute video that detailed the supposed involvement of Yang and Lim in the operations of clandestine shabu laboratories in Davao and Cagayan de Oro cities and their connection with alleged Chinese drug lord Johnson Chua.
Acierto said he also informed Duterte, then-Special Adviser to the President and now Senator Christopher “Bong” Go, and then-PNP chief and now Senator Ronald dela Rosa about Yang and Lim’s alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade.
Acierto was dismissed from the police service over the alleged sale of AK-47 assault rifles to communist rebels.
He also claimed that five armed men reportedly abducted one of his fellow police officers at a lobby in Bacolod in 2017.
INQUIRER.net sought Duterte’s side, through former Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque, but he has yet to respond as of posting time.
Before Acierto’s revelation, the panel cited Yang for contempt and ordered his arrest for repeatedly refusing to attend the lower chamber’s probe into a September 2023 drug bust in Pampanga.