‘Vice Mayor Duterte should also show his own tattoo’

Presidential son Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte. LYN RILLON/PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV on Sunday thanked President Rodrigo Duterte for helping prove his point that his son, Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte, did not have an ordinary tattoo.

By readily showing his rose tattoo on his upper arm, the President reinforced the perception that there was nothing extraordinary about tattoos, according to Trillanes.

The senator has accused the vice mayor of being a member of the Chinese triad because of a dragon tattoo on his back.

At last week’s Senate hearing on the P6.4-billion “shabu” (crystal meth) shipment from China, the younger Duterte admitted to having a tattoo on his back but he refused to show it, citing his right to privacy.

Trillanes said the younger Duterte focused too much on his legal defense that he forgot about the natural reaction of someone being accused of a serious matter.

If what he was saying was not true, the vice mayor would have gotten angry and denied it outright.

The younger Duterte would have even taken the opportunity to shame him by showing his tattoo at the hearing on Thursday, Trillanes said in a radio interview on Sunday.

The senator said the vice mayor did not deny being a member of the triad.

“He forgot the basic thing to deny his membership when he was there (at the hearing). He couldn’t deny because maybe gang members would not like it,” Trillanes said.

Asked for evidence other than the tattoo that would prove the vice mayor’s membership in the Chinese syndicate, Trillanes said that in the past seven hearings, he was able to show the connection of the younger Duterte to the “key players” of the shabu shipment that got past through the Bureau of Customs in May.

He said the vice mayor was a close friend of Kenneth Dong, who through customs fixer Mark Taguba II had brought in the shabu in coordination with Richard Chen, whose HongFei company shipped it from China.

The younger Duterte is also close to Davao City Councilor Nilo “Small” Abellera whom Taguba said received from him P5 million in “enrollment fee” to the “Davao Group” to ensure the release of shipments at the customs ports without inspection.

Trillanes added that the vice mayor was a friend of Charlie Tan, who was identified as a drug lord and smuggler by confessed Davao hitman Arturo Lascañas.

Sen. Richard Gordon, chair of the Senate blue ribbon committee, said Trillanes’ claim that the vice mayor was a triad member “had no probative value.”