Remember the P6.5B shabu shipment from China released through the Bureau of Customs in 2017? Customs broker Mark Taguba testified in the senate that the shipment belonged to the “Davao Group.” He testified that he received a text message on his cellphone from a certain Tita Nanie of the Davao Group that said:
“Good am, Mark. Will make final arrangement with Jack. He is the handler of Paolo. Now we have to advance the enroll. He can fly down to Davao to arrange a meeting with Pulong ASAP. During the meeting, you personally turn over the P5 million same manner you likewise turn over the LMLN to Jack when we meet.”
The P5 million was an enrolment fee that would allow Taguba’s shipments to go through Customs smoothly. The fee would allegedly go to Paolo Duterte and his Davao Group. That was because Customs officials would name-drop Paolo Duterte to the broker for his transactions. The enrolment fee was grease money. In 2017, Paolo Duterte was vice mayor of Davao city and his father was president.
The P6.5B shabu loot of the Davao Group was later seized by Customs at a Valenzuela city warehouse. Who went to jail? Not Paolo Duterte and his cohorts, among whom was his brother in-law Manases Carpio. No, it was the warehouse bodegero Fidel Anoche Dee who was jailed. It was typical Filipino law and order charade. Of course, Dee was acquitted in 2019. He was not even aware that the crates contained shabu. He was compartmentalized for knowledge. But for the drug shipment’s high profile masterminds, they were never charged in court like Dee.
That is the justice that former senator Antonio Trillanes is now looking for when he filed a case of drugs smuggling against Paolo Duterte, Manases Carpio et al. It is a case that could never have prospered under Rodrigo Duterte’s regime. The case is important – it will establish the druglords (Michael Yang and Charlie Tan) and their drug trade protectors – Paolo Duterte, Carpio, and several other Davao city officials and close Duterte loyalist appointees.
Understand thus how Paolo Duterte reacted. Less than two weeks later, he filed a bill in Congress proposing routine drug tests every 6 months on all elected and appointed officials, including the president. This is a bluff. It is a red herring – a piece of information that is meant to distract. In filing the bill, Paolo Duterte can shift his fall-out from the case filed against him. Ergo, the current public narrative on the Duterte family changes to Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s alleged cocaine use.
In the 2017 senate hearings, one of the witnesses on Paolo’s drug links was the former Davao Death Squad team leader Arturo Lascañas. A reminder to readers – Lascañas has since fled the Philippines and is now in hiding. His freedom came at the right time – Rodrigo Duterte had cancelled the Lascañas family members’ passports. An arrest order was also issued.
Lascañas had included the Paolo Duterte drug protection ring in his 186-page affidavit submitted to the International Criminal Court. This was strong evidence that Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war was a sham – killing thousands but exonerating the drug lords and their Duterte family protectors. Again, a reminder to troll readers – the Lascañas affidavit was subjected to a pre-trial hearing and passed the stringent requirements for criminal evidence by the ICC prosecutor.
The Lascañas testimony should send jitters down the Dutertes’s spines. Several pages are headlined as “Smuggling Activities of Presidential Son Paolo “Polong” Duterte”:
“It was in the year 2011 when we initiated our smuggling activities in the Ports of Davao City, upon instruction of City Councilor Paolo ‘Polong’ Duterte and was approved and cleared by City Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte.”
“After my first appearance in the Philippine Senate inquiry on Davao Death Squad and extra-judicial killings on October 03, 2016, Mr. Sigmund Barte Jr., a Bureau of Customs – Port of Davao employee and one of the main characters in Polong Duterte’s smuggling activities in the Port of Davao City, now transferred in BOC Port of Manila – together with Atty. Edward Dybuco, another main character in Davao City Councilor Polong Duterte’s smuggling activities in the Port of Davao City, called me for a meeting in Manila and to receive a monetary protocol (Pasalubong) from his new group in the Bureau of Customs – Port of Manila.”
And then goes the part where even Baste Duterte was involved:
“The money was P500,000 for me, and P500,000 for Baste Duterte.They would give the one million pesos cash money and for me to give to Baste Duterte the other P500,000 in Davao City. We met in Promenade – Greenhills in San Juan City, Metro Manila. With Jun Barte were three other B.O.C. employees he introduced, all were ‘Freemasons brothers.’ Jun Barte, Paolo ‘Polong’ Duterte, and myself are Freemasons. We belong to Davao Masonic Lodge 149 in Davao City. When Polong Duterte and SPO3 Jim Abragan Tan ‘Knocked’ in Freemasonry, I was then the Lodge Worshipful Master.”
“Several weeks later, Jun Barte called me and informed me to come to Manila for I was their guest speaker instead of Polong Duterte in the coming anniversary of the Bureau of Customs – Customs Police Association in the Port of Manila, and I agreed. I remember after the said event which was held in a restaurant somewhere in Luneta, Manila, I, Jun Barte, and Atty. Edward Dybuco discussed the setting-up of the ‘grand circus’ in the Port of Manila and nationwide as Polong Duterte had planned. I recall it was sometime in November 2016 when Sonny Buenaventura introduced to me two Filipino-Chinese individuals from Cebu City. They were allegedly businessmen engaged in the importation of farm fertilizers from China. They have the latest milling technology that can segregate fertilizer and rice when it would be mixed for purposes of smuggling of rice from China mixed in farm fertilizers.”
“They wanted to finance the smuggling operations of rice from China thru the ports of Davao, Cotabato, and Cagayan de Oro City; hence they wanted the back-up and protection of the ‘Davao Group’ of Vice Mayor Paolo ‘Polong’ Duterte. I told them that I would contact the main smuggling operators of Vice Mayor Polong Duterte now assigned in the BOC Port of Manila and for them to meet in person to discuss their business proposals.”
“When Mayor RRD asked me about our smuggling of rice and sugar in the ports of Davao City with his son Paolo ‘Polong’ Duterte, who are the non-Davao City players-financiers, and Davao City base players-financiers, I told him the following:
- Michael Yang of DCLA represented by Mr. Randy Usman (His deputy mayor for the Maranao Tribe in Davao City); b. Stuart Santiago, a Filipino-Chinese rice trader in Davao City – represented by Mr. Mark Quiñonez, a customs employee in Davao City; c. Ms. Mary Abdul, a customs broker-player-financier; d. Mr. Daniel Tan, also known as Mr. Davidson Bangayan, represented by Mark Suico; e. Mr. Mark Suico – the cashier-broker of Paolo ‘Polong’ Duterte’s smuggling activities in the Port of Davao, Sasa, Davao City.”
“Mayor RRD warned me in bisayan dialect concerning his beloved son Polong Duterte, I quote – ‘Basta Tor ayaw gyud ipabantang si Polong sa mga taga-BOC (Bureau of Customs) nga kaoban ninyo sa grupo. Ok ra na buhi-buhi ra mo. Kung naay bolabog stop dayon, deny tanan, ako na bahala mo Salida (scenario)’ (Tor, don’t expose Polong to your contacts inside BOC. That’s OK as your extra income. If someone makes noise about it, stop immediately and deny everything. I’ll take care of the Salida [scenario]). Mayor RRD acted perfectly in his ‘kill salida’ during Senate inquiry on rice smuggling activities in Davao City.”
True enough, in January 2014, when he was still city mayor, Duterte testified in the senate on the rice smuggling probe. Duterte named David Tan a.k.a. Davidson Bangayan as the rice smuggling king of Davao city (“I will kill him”). The beloved son was spared.
If Arturo Lascañas’ affidavit was not threatening to the Dutertes, why would he cancel their passports and issue an arrest order against him?
