Public order chairman Laguna Congressman Dan Fernandez will invite former Duterte economic adviser, Michael Yang, to an investigation by the House Committee on Dangerous Drugs chaired by Rep. Robert Ace Barbers regarding his alleged involvement in the 3.8 Billion drug bust in Mexico, Pampanga in 2023.
Empire 999, the company listed as the owner of the warehouse where the drugs were stored, has been linked to Chinese nationals including Lincoln Ong, who has also implicated Michael Yang. Ong is the incorporator of Pharmally Pharmaceutical, which is at the center of the alleged anomalous P4B transaction regarding RT-PCR COVID-19 test kits. Yang was also implicated in the Pharmally scandal. Former President Duterte appointed Yang, a Chinese citizen, as one of his economic advisers.
In 2019, Colonel Eduardo Acierto, former deputy director for administration of the PNP Drug Enforcement Group revealed that Davao City-based Chinese national Michael Yang is involved in large-scale smuggling of illegal drugs from China.
Barbers said during the panel, “What started as a drug bust turned out to be a national security concern as these personalities and companies acquired real properties all over the country using fictitious documents…I always say that we have no problems with Chinese nationals doing legitimate business in our country. But doing these illegal drug activities is another story. We have extended all invitations to these people and observed due process. They never showed up. Even the NBI could not locate them.”
Senator Antonio Trillanes has repeated his accusations on social media that Michael Yang is a drug lord and partner of former President Duterte. Yang reportedly brought billions worth of shabu to the Philippines from 2016-2023. “The war on drugs was a big lie,” wroteTrillanes on his Facebook page today. He said the drug war was conceived to kill the competition in the drug trade, so to speak, and for Yang and Duterte to monopolize the illegal drug trade. Yang’s participation in Pharmally and his status as an economic adviser only reiterates his protected status, said Trillanes.
