Former President Rodrigo Duterte has been implicated in a criminal syndicate tied to the illegal drug trade and extrajudicial killings, according to Antipolo Representative Romeo Acop, vice chairperson of the House Quad Committee (QuadComm). The revelation comes after 12 marathon hearings conducted by the joint panel investigating the Duterte administration’s drug war.
Acop claimed that testimonies from various witnesses painted a damning picture of Duterte’s alleged involvement in illegal activities. “The Quad Committee has started to uncover a grand criminal enterprise, and it seems that at the center of it is the former president,” Acop said in a GMA News report.
Key witnesses, including former Customs intelligence officer Jimmy Guban, retired Colonel Royina Garma, and self-confessed hitman Arturo Lascañas, linked Duterte and his associates to illicit drug operations. Guban alleged that a multi-billion-peso shabu shipment seized in 2018 was connected to Duterte’s son, Davao City Representative Paolo Duterte, Vice President Sara Duterte’s husband Mans Carpio, and former presidential economic adviser Michael Yang.
Acop also highlighted accounts of a reward system during the drug war, incentivizing police to kill drug suspects, with rewards reportedly reaching up to ₱100,000 per kill. He pointed out that the systematic killings targeted not only small-time drug suspects but also operators and chemists of local drug labs, eliminating competition in the drug trade.
In a 2024 press conference, Duterte reportedly confirmed ordering the killing of 11 Chinese shabu lab workers in a 2004 raid, saying, “Inubos ko sila (I got rid of all of them).”
“This hurts because President Digong campaigned on a hardline stance against illegal drugs, yet it turns out he may have been deeply entrenched in the very problem he vowed to eradicate,” Acop lamented. He added that the war on drugs appeared to serve as a mechanism to monopolize the drug trade while leaving a trail of an estimated 30,000 deaths, many of which Duterte dismissed as “collateral damage.”
Duterte’s camp has not issued a statement in response to QuadComm’s findings as of press time.
