Vice President Sara Duterte | PHOTO: Official Facebook apge of Inday Sara Duterte
MANILA, Philippines — Lawmakers on Monday urged Vice President Sara Duterte to convince her husband, lawyer Manases Carpio, and her brother Davao City 1st District Rep. Paolo Duterte to appear before the House quad-committee probing illegal drugs smuggling.
Tingog party-list Rep. Jude Acidre and Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Raul Angelo Bongalon said the Vice President should just convince her relatives to cooperate with the House quad-panel instead of dismissing its hearings as a form of “political harassment.”
“This will benefit her beleaguered family and the Filipino people, who, like us, want answers,” Acidre said.
“We assure VP Sara that Atty. Mans and Cong. Pulong will be given the courtesies and respect due to them, given their stature. There would be no politics in this, the quad-comm is only after the truth,” Bongalon added.
The quad-committee invited Carpio and Rep. Duterte after former Bureau of Customs (BOC) intelligence officer Jimmy Guban accused them of having ties to the missing shabu shipment in 2018.
Guban testified before the quad-committee’s hearing last Friday in Pampanga that former Environment Undersecretary Benny Antiporda sent emissaries in 2018 to warn him that he would die if he named Rep. Duterte, Carpio, and businessman Michael Yang as individuals involved in the P6.8-billion shabu shipment.
READ: 1 ton of shabu worth P6.8B eludes PDEA, PNP
Yang is the former economic adviser of Rep. Duterte’s father, former President Rodrigo Duterte.
Rep. Duterte and Antiporda have denied Guban’s accusations.
According to Rep. Duterte, he has never met Guban and the ex-BOC official cannot be treated as a star witness because he is not credible having been cited for contempt for lying at the Senate blue ribbon committee.
READ: Rep. Duterte denies knowing Guban, calls him not credible as witness
Vice President Duterte on Sunday said the probe is just a case of “political harassment” although she said she cannot speak for her elder brother and her husband.
READ: Impeachment rumors no surprise for VP Sara
Manila 6th District Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr., who chairs the House committee on human rights, said there is nothing political about the quad-committee hearings.
“For me, there is no political harassment, that’s not a political attack. She is the vice president, I am a mere congressman. What we are trying to hear is the truth. That’s why I was shocked when Jimmy Guban mentioned that her husband is involved, to be honest, I didn’t know,” Abante said in an online interview.
“So he (Carpio) has a lot to explain. Maybe our Vice President has nothing to explain at all; if she is accusing that this is politics, who is she referring to? Of course not the quad-committee. But her husband has a lot to explain, with the fact that his name was dragged into this issue,” he added.
Acidre said if the people involved have nothing to hide, they will not be afraid of the House probe.
Earlier, Deputy Speaker David Suarez and Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio Gonzales Jr. said the quad-committee is merely doing its job of ferreting out the truth.
Gonzales also noted that the investigation of the quad-committee traces back to the probe started by the House committee on dangerous drugs regarding the controlled operation where anti-drug operatives tracked a P3.6-billion shabu shipment from the Port of Subic to a warehouse in Mexico, Pampanga.
The investigation into the P3.6-billion shabu shipment started in October 2023.
Gonzales urged the Vice President and her relatives to just answer the allegations, adding that the House would be fair.
READ: VP Duterte told: Nothing personal with House probe into drug links