Trillanes sues Rep. Duterte, VP’s husband, ex-BOC head for drug smuggling
Former Sen. Antonio Trillanes files a drug smuggling complaint against Davao City First District Rep. Paolo Duterte, Vice President Sara Duterte’s husband Mans Carpio, and other respondents at the Department of Justice on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (Photo from TETCH TORRES-TUPAS / INQUIRER.net)
MANILA, Philippines — Former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV filed a drug smuggling complaint before the Department of Justice on Wednesday against Davao City First District Rep. Paolo “Pulong” Duterte, lawyer Mans Carpio (the husband of Vice President Sara Duterte), former Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon, and several others allegedly involved in the P6.4 billion shipment of crystal meth (locally known as shabu) seized in 2017.
Also named in the complaint are former Presidential Adviser on Indigenous Peoples’ Concerns Allen Capuyan, Davao City Councilor Small Abellera, Charlie Tan, and four others.
The case stemmed from a May 2017 incident when 602.2 kilograms of crystal meth, worth P6.4 billion, were imported from China using the Bureau of Customs express lane.
The Senate blue ribbon committee conducted a series of public hearings, which revealed that the contraband was given a “green lane” passage to slip through Customs’s alert system and did not undergo physical inspection or document verification.
“This morning, I filed a case against Pulong Duterte and other members of the Davao group smuggling syndicate,” Trillanes said.
“This is the result of the Senate investigations conducted in 2017, in which we have identified Pulong, Charlie Tan, and Mans Carpio as the masterminds behind the P6.4 billion shabu shipment that was allowed to slip through Customs, in collaboration with its Commissioner Nic Faeldon and former Presidential Adviser Allen Capuyan, who was known as the ‘Big Brother, ” he pointed out.
“The conspiracy to import the subject shipment from China to the Philippines necessitated the crucial interventions of the ‘powerful insiders’ — the corrupt customs leadership, and more importantly, the very powerful protectors who used their influence to consummate this unlawful crime of importation of billions of pesos worth of dangerous drugs into the country,” he added.
Trillanes claimed the 10 respondents violated Section 4 concerning Section 26 (a) of Republic Act No. 9165, also known as the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 as amended by Republic Act No. 10640; and Republic Act No. 3019, otherwise known as the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.
“This is where you can see that Duterte’s war on drugs is fake. Thousands of suspected drug addicts were killed, but it turns out they were the protectors and partners of big-time drug lords. They just eliminated the competition in the illegal drug trade,” he said in Filipino.
INQUIRER.net has sought a comment from the Office of the Vice President regarding the issue and it has yet to respond as of posting time.
