What is truly amusing about Rodrigo Duterte, Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio, Bong Go, and Bato de la Rosa is that they are incapable of telling the truth. In the case of Rodrigo, the godfather, he can confirm everything today and deny it tomorrow. For Sara, who is commonly known as Duterte Jr., honesty is not required in politics, so she can weave yards of lies to deceive. Go is just like the godfather, confirming the rewards system for “ninja” cops and denying that he said it all. To cap the cast, Bato de la Rosa reduced the disastrous, incriminating disclosures of Duterte Sr under oath to a bloody “joke.”
Why are these characters getting a shadow of respect at all? Tag them as the Gang of Four Liars, for they are damaged goods even as in the US, damaged goods win a second trip to the White House but condemn them as completely unqualified to be the nation’s lawmakers or leaders. Go and de la Rosa are supposed to be senators charged with crafting laws and investigating shenanigans in the bureaucracy and beyond but what do we see? They want to be glued to the hearings of a Senate panel probing extra-judicial killings (EJKs) under the bogus “war on drugs” from 2016 to 2022, with the numbers of the dead at 39 for openers, then 58, then hundreds in succeeding days. In three months, the Duterte slaughterhouse operated by de la Rosa and managed by Go scored 3,000 in 100 days. An incredible record in a country where justice fled.
Those who were profuse with excitement when they announced the launch of the “war on drugs” and now twisting their tongues in belying that there was “tokhang,” summary killings, and indiscriminate shooting in “drug dens.” Cheaper by the dozen even if those killed include children, toddlers, and babies, prompting then PNP chief del la Rosa to exclaim “shit happens.” But that turd would not have materialized had they realized that Duterte’s “war on drugs” was void ab initio as an illegal policy that imposes capital punishment sans trial. All because Duterte Sr. is obsessed with corpses, including those of female Australian missionaries. Duterte Sr. fingered both Go and Bato for their involvement in the mass killings and waxed heroic by saying he was responsible for the carnage but would not apologize for it. What’s wrong with Duterte Sr.’s neural network? Perhaps everything.
How many times did the broadcast networks catch him blurting out “shoot them dead,” or “shoot to kill” if they fight back? In truth, there was no “nanlaban” as the “nanlaban” bit is only for the birds. The corpses can be rearranged, the handcuffs removed, shabu sachets can be planted and rusting revolvers can be tossed on the right hands of left-handed victims. These are the standard police pieces of evidence, guns with the same serial numbers that wander from place to place and packets of illegal drugs that moonlight from evidence rooms. Duterte is completely wrong to think that the people would put up with 21 curses during a Senate hearing. Yet, one instance when Duterte Sr. nearly broke was when he was put on the griller for the deaths of 122 children as his hitmen ran amuck during the drug war.
He stopped and then argued that those involved in the shooting of the children should face the music for criminal liability is personal and good, old, creepy, and irascible Duterte Sr. wasn’t in those crime scenes save for those murdered in Davao City where he was videotaped kicking the body of a fatality. So, there was Duterte Sr. throwing every one of his obedient hitmen under the bus. His pledge to support them was useless as the cops convicted in the Kian de los Santos murder have found out. Former police Col. Eduardo Acierto on Thursday accused former Duterte Sr. of protecting suspected drug lords Michael Yang and Allan Lim, whose real name is Lin Weixiong. Yang even became Duterte Sr.’s economic adviser despite being a Chinese citizen and thus barred from being elected or appointed to any government position. Acierto submitted an intelligence report in 2017 detailing Yang and Lim’s roles in the drug trade but the report was ignored. Acierto said Yang operated drug labs in Mindanao since the early 2000s, including a Davao City facility raided in 2004, where more than 100 kilos of shabu valued at more than P300 million were seized.
Yang is also linked to the Johnson Chua drug syndicate led by Johnson Co, now based in China. Yang and Lim facilitated the entry of illegal drugs with alleged support from officials in the Bureau of Customs. Lim also owned a Cavite drug laboratory raided by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in July 2018, which yielded P10.4 billion in illegal drugs and equipment. Lim was arrested during the operation but was later released. Acierto alleged that Yang provided shipping documents for the illegal drugs seized in a Cagayan de Oro warehouse operated by a certain Allan Sy in 2005. In the same hearing, convicted customs employee Jimmy Guban reiterated that he was pressured by ousted Malacanang official Paulino Gutierrez and Benny Antiporda to go slow in attacking the Dutertes for their role in shabu smuggling. Gutierrez and Antiporda both worked for Duterte Sr. Until now, Antiporda has not clarified what has happened to Anthony Ang, who mysteriously “fled” the country after the Philippine Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG) in 2008 proudly announced the seizure of 744 kilos of premium shabu with an estimated estimated street value of P15 billion in Subic. Ang, a businessman based in Subic and the alleged owner of this substantial drug cache, was allegedly brought to Chinatown for interrogation in “The Chinese” language and afterward vanished and is believed to have fled to China. Then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered an investigation into the possible involvement of government officials in Ang’s flight amid reports that he bought his way to freedom with a P50-million bribe. The Ombudsman has barred Antiporda from government employment, while Malacanang and the Journal Group kicked Gutierrez out.
Duterte Jr. is not a senior partner at the Gang of Four Liars as the 1,347 acknowledgment receipts (ARs) she produced appeared to be cheaper copies of the well-crafted receipts crafted at Universidad de Azcarraga, now known as the hub of instant theses and dissertations. Imagine producing 787 ARs with the same initials, and hundreds of Ars with unreadable names, dubious signatures, and wrong dates, proving that a task force did the job in haste. There were no succeeding operations or reports to justify the expense, the Commission on Audit (COA) found out upon questioning by lawmakers. Worse, Sara and her staff used the Philippine Army (PA) to certify that the Department of Education (DepEd) assisted in the conduct of the counterinsurgency Youth Leadership Summit (YLS.) A retired general did the trick for the DepEd, costing taxpayers P15 million, and putting resigned DepEd spokesman Michael Poa in harm’s way.
Based on a frequency count, Sara appears to have clinched the title “primus inter pares” in the gang, with each of the thousands of ARs a different lie. She thus needs to be crowned, only that Duterte Sr. hustled another lie, a plea for Duterte Jr. to quit politics. Duterte Sr. claims Duterte Jr. obeys her mother, Elizabeth Zimmerman, rather than him. The last time Duterte Jr. talked about her mum was when she claimed three Dutertes would be running for the Senate and Elizabeth wanted her to return to Davao City. Duterte Sr. is not running for the Senate but for his old post as mayor. Meanwhile, Duterte Jr. is stuck with a P733-million budget for 2025 as the Senate accepted the House recommendation. No more confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs) and hundreds of millions of pesos in slush funds to curry favor with the urban poor in Metro Manila from 2025 onwards, which is a big demographic for the 2028 presidential elections.
