Duterte confirming Go's ties to frigate deal an admission of plunder — Trillanes
MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte's remarks on Sen. Bong Go's involvement in the Navy frigate deal is an admission of crime, former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV said.
"Duterte's admission of his and Bong Go's involvement in the frigate scam is actually an admission to the crime of plunder," Trillanes said in a statement.
Trillanes recalled the findings of last year's Senate inquiry, which found that the intervention of Duterte and Go on behalf of the South Korea company "helped make it profit billions of pesos more by forcing the Philippine Navy to accept several substandard equipment, such as the combat management system, that were different from the list specified in the original contract."
The former senator noted that Duterte fired then Navy chief Vice Admiral Ronald Joseph Mercardo when he insisted that the contract must be implemented faithfully.
"These acts made the contract grossly disadvantageous to our government and left the Philippine Navy with an expensive platform with limited capabilities," Trillanes said.
In his fourth State of the Nation Address on Monday, Duterte said the frigate deal made Go a senator.
"Kung ipadala ko 'yung limang — pati 'yung frigate ko na bago, 'yung pinagkaguluhan nila ni Trillanes dyan sa — that made Bong a senator, ubos 'yan because there are already guided missiles in that island," Duterte said.
The president said this to justify his decision not to invoke the country's arbitral victory over the West Philippine Sea as he does not want to go to war with China.
Last year, the Senate conducted an investigation into Go's alleged intervention to favor a supplier of a combat management system for two frigates from South Korean shipbuilding giant Hyundai Heavy Industries.
The Senate inquiry stemmed from leaked new reports of a white paper originating from the Office of the President asking the Navy to look at a proposal by a South Korean subcontractor.
Go, who was then special assistant to the president, claimed that this was "fake news" and that he was only passing on to the Department of Defense a "complaint" the president's office received.
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