Malacanang should move quickly to rid itself of problems by kicking out Paulino Gutierrez as executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS) after imprisoned Bureau of Customs (BOC) intelligence officer Jimmy Guban testified that Gutierrez threatened him when he was detained at the Senate in 2018 during the investigation of the two magnetic lifters containing shabu worth P6.8-billion.
Guban, who testified on Aug. 16, told four congressional panels during a hearing in Bacolor, Pampanga, that it was Benny Antiporda who called him to ask that he facilitate the release of the magnetic lifters while Davao City Councilor Nilo Abellera told him to expedite the release of the cargo since they belonged to “Michael Yang, Pulong Duterte and Mans.” Yang, a Chinese citizen, was the economic adviser of ex-president Rodrigo Duterte, Pulong is the son of the elder Duterte and now a Davao City congressman while Mans is Manases Carpio, husband of Vice President Sara Duterte.
Antiporda was behind the Manila Bay “Boracay” dolomite project that ended up as a fiasco worth more than P300 million when he was an undersecretary at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR.) He was kicked out by the Office of the Ombudsman as chief of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) for harassing NIA lawyers and using employees to fix his air-conditioners at home. He also worked with the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PSAG) until the mysterious disappearance of a Chinese couple held for smuggling shabu. Former officers of the Economic Intelligence and Investigation Bureau (EIIB) claimed Antiporda used to frequent the bureau to seek the release of seized cargoes.
Guban’s disclosures about Antiporda and Gutierrez came as the panels on extrajudicial killings (EJKs), Philippine offshore gaming operations (POGOs), illegal drugs and human rights sought to clear up the mess about the P6.8-billion shabu smuggling case that the Duterte regime denounced as bogus. Guban told the committees that the apprehension of the shabu shipment was based on the intelligence report written by then Col. Eduardo Acierto who was with the Philippine National Police Drug Enforcement Group (PDEG) that documented illegal drugs cargoes at the Bureau of Customs (BOC) “between May and June 2018.”
They eventually found out that Vecaba Trading was the consignee of the shabu shipment that was reported to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in 2018. Vecaba was not an accredited importer or consignee of the BOC, Guban said in his statement read before the committees. He admitted that he never confided to former Blue Ribbon Committee chairman senator Richard Gordon that Carpio, Yang and Pulong Duterte had been implicated in the illegal drug importation in various ports in the country “for fear that my son will be killed and my family will be in danger.”
Waxing apologetic, Guban said: “I testified before the Blue Ribbon Committee on Oct. 30, 2018 and instead of pointing to Pulong Duterte, Mans Carpio and Michael Yang as the owners of the shipment based on the intelligence reports, I pointed to Col. Acierto as the consignee of the shipment.” Now, he is retracting his testimony and saying that instead of pillorying Acierto, he should be commended for exposing the smuggling of shabu. Earlier, Acierto wrote a report about the involvement of Yang in the illegal drugs trade in Mindanao, specifically in Northern Mindanao and Davao City, and submitted the same to Duterte to serve as a warning against the criminal activities of Yang. Instead, Acierto was hounded and his colleague, another police officer, disappeared and presumably eliminated.
Recently, Acierto hogged the headlines anew as he repeated his allegations that the Dutertes had a key role in the illegal drugs trade nationwide and said he would testify before the Senate to reveal what he knows once his security is assured. Curiously, the Pampanga warehouse where a huge cache of shabu was kept is owned by the brother of Michael Yang whose bank accounts had P2-billion in deposits. Yang became a controversial businessman in Davao City by selling cellular phones at lower than market prices, stumping his rivals, and later befriended Bong Go, a former Duterte special assistant who is now a senator.
Acierto’s disclosures will naturally be awaited by Filipinos who have long harbored suspicions that the “war on drugs” was actually a war launched to win a virtual illegally drug monopoly nationwide. The decimation of nearly the entire Parojinog family was cited as a case of the Dutertes eliminating a competitor in Northern Mindanao. Similarly, the ambush-slaying of a suspected drug kingpin and his wife in Aklan was also regarded as a businesslike “neutralization” of a rival. As to Antiporda and Gutierrez, these Duterte footmen must also be investigated for their bogus journalism and for sullying the profession in the service of the Duterte shabu monopoly.
