This has all the makings of a good drama serial. Unfortunately, it’s not as amusing in real life.
A former cop who went into hiding resurfaced on Sunday night and dropped a bombshell by accusing President Rodrigo Duterte’s economic adviser Michael Yang of having links to the illegal drug trade.
To make matters worse, the cop also alleged the government of setting him up after he reported that Yang was involved in drugs.
The cop is Eduardo Acierto, the former deputy director for administration of the now-disbanded PNP Drug Enforcement Group (DEG), who spoke to a select group of local reporters on Sunday night, Rappler reported.
He alleged that Yang, and another Chinese national named Allan Lim, were the people behind a clandestine shabu (meth) lab that was discovered in 2004 in Davao City, where Duterte used to be a mayor. Yang, he alleged, is responsible for receiving shabu shipments from other parts of the country that were delivered into the Davao lab, reported ABS-CBN News.
He also accused Yang and Lim of allegedly operating another shabu lab in Cagayan de Oro City and of working with another Chinese national named Johnson Chua, The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.
Acierto said that he submitted a report about Yang and Lim’s alleged drug operation after he found about it in 2017. He sent the report to several government officials, including then-PNP chief Ronald de la Rosa and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) head Aaron Aquino, the Inquirer reported.
He lamented that the government allegedly didn’t even bother to investigate Yang and Lim. In fact, Duterte exonerated Yang from drug accusations in October, when rumors about his alleged links started surfacing.
What the government did, however, was to charge Acierto in December 2018 in connection with the PHP11 billion-worth (US$209.77 million) of shabu that was smuggled into the country inside magnetic lifters.
Acierto said that his alleged involvement in the smuggling issue was part of a government set-up. He said he now fears for his life which led him to go into hiding.
He asked during the press conference: “If the President was really mad about illegal drugs, why did he not order (Yang and Lim) arrested? Or even just have them investigated?”
However, Duterte’s spokesperson Salvador Panelo denied that Yang was involved in illegal drugs. He was quoted saying by the Inquirer yesterday: “I don’t think Michael Yang was ever involved, otherwise he should be on the [drug] list or should be facing charges.”
But who is this Yang character, anyway?
According to an op-ed published by ABS-CBN News in October, Duterte said that Yang arrived in Davao almost 16 years ago and owns a chain of stores called Los Amigos. At an event attended by Chinese officials held in Malacañang in October, Duterte even said that Yang is rumored to be a drug addict.
Duterte initially denied that Yang was his consultant, saying that he could not have appointed him because he’s Chinese. However, after copies of Yang’s Malacañang contracts surfaced online in November, Panelo admitted that indeed, Yang was appointed as an adviser to Duterte.
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