INQUIRER PHOTO/LYN RILLON
Sen. Richard Gordon, chair of the Senate blue ribbon committee, said on Saturday that he was ready with a preliminary report on the smuggling of P6.4 billion worth of “shabu” (crystal meth) into the country.
He said the report, which he could submit as early as Monday after several weeks of investigation by his committee, would identify the culprits and the charges he would recommend against them.
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, one of President Rodrigo Duterte’s most outspoken critics, said he would block Gordon’s report if it prematurely exonerated the President’s son and son-in-law, who have been linked the so-called “Davao Group” which is allegedly involved in smuggling through the Bureau of Customs (BOC).
“I will not allow it,” Trillanes said in a radio interview on Saturday.
Gordon said Trillanes’ reaction showed “how biased he is.”
“That’s how disrespectful he is,” Gordon said.
A verbal tussle erupted between the two senators during the blue ribbon committee hearing on Thursday over whether the President’s son, Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte, and son-in-law, Manases Carpio, should be summoned to testify.
Gordon refused to invite the two, prompting Trillanes to call the blue ribbon committee a “comité de absuelto” (committee of exoneration).
In response, Gordon said he would file an ethics complaint against Trillanes for disrepecting him and the Senate.
The names of the President’s son and son-in-law came up in testimonies by customs fixer Mark Taguba, who is under investigation for allegedly facilitating the shabu shipment, which slipped through the BOC in May.