(UPDATED), 1st UPDATE. As far as the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) is concerned, President Rodrigo Duterte’s former economic adviser Michael Yang has nothing to do with drugs.
That’s basically what PDEA’s chief Aaron Aquino said today in an interview on the show Headstart on cable channel ANC.
“As of now, he is clear. I believe the President. Michael Yang is clear until such time that there is evidence that would point to him, but as of now, we can’t find any evidence,” he said.
Yang, a Chinese businessman from Duterte’s hometown of Davao City, is allegedly involved in the illegal drug business, according to a disgruntled former cop named Eduardo Acierto.
Yang and another Chinese national named Allan Lim are allegedly the people behind a clandestine shabu (meth) lab that was discovered in 2004 in Davao City, where Duterte used to be a mayor. Yang and Lim are also allegedly the owners of another shabu lab in Cagayan de Oro City,The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.
Acierto said he submitted a report to his former superiors in the police force and other officials about the two Chinese nationals’ alleged activities but the government allegedly didn’t bother to investigate them.
Yesterday, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea said that Yang was no longer working for Duterte because his contract ended on Dec. 31, 2018, the Inquirer reported.
In the same interview, Aquino said that the only Michael Yang that was in the PDEA’s records was an alleged drug pusher who used to live in the town of Sual, in Pangasinan province.
He said: “The report [about him] was [from] 2004 and when we went to the ground [in Sual], that Michael Yang was no longer there. Someone else was living in that place where Michael Yang used to rent.”
Aquino said it was likely that Acierto was referring to someone else — a third Michael Yang. He said the former cop was likely not referring to the alleged drug pusher in Pangasinan because the “Michael Yang” Acierto described was a big-time drug lord.
Meanwhile, the opposition Liberal Party (LP) denied that they had something to do with the reappearance of Acierto, who went into hiding last year around the time he was charged by the PDEA for drug smuggling.
In a speech at a campaign rally yesterday, Duterte said the public shouldn’t believe what Acierto said and denied that Yang was involved in the illegal drug trade, reported GMA News’ State of the Nation. He also said that the “yellows,” or the opposition party, was just using Acierto, reported ABS-CBN News.
A statement released by LP President Senator Francis Pangilinan said that Duterte’s accusation was false, reported ABS-CBN News.
“Malacañang should explain why there are no drug lords who are punished when they keep smuggling huge amounts of shabu [that pass] through the [Bureau of] Customs and the officers who were implicated were even promoted instead of charged,” Pangilinan said in Filipino.
The senator is likely referring to former Customs chief Isidro Lapeña, who courted controversy when, during his tenure as the head of the Bureau of Customs (BOC), several magnetic lifters which allegedly contained shabu were found abandoned and empty in General Mariano Alvarez, Cavite in August last year.
Critics attacked the BOC and Lapeña for failing to intercept the magnetic lifters when they first arrived at the country’s port. But despite his incompetence, Lapeña was appointed by Duterte to head the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, a post which the president said was a promotion.
Meanwhile, another member of the LP, the embattled Senator Leila de Lima, said today that Acierto should release to the public the report he allegedly submitted to his superiors that states Yang’s involvement with illegal drugs.
In her statement posted on her Facebook page, de Lima said: “Almost three years since he launched his anti-narcotics campaign, Duterte still failed to apprehend big-time drug users and pushers who continue to profit from illegal activities, while he persistently targets the poor. Is it because President Duterte is the number one drug lord or protector of drug lords in the country?”
The government’s bloody drug campaign started in 2016 and has killed thousands of drug suspects, many of whom are poor.
De Lima, one of Duterte’s fiercest critics, is currently in jail herself for drug-related charges.
Update: This article was updated to indicate that Yang was a former economic adviser.
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