Trillanes sets drug smuggling raps vs Duterte son, in-law

MANILA, Philippines — Former senator Antonio Trillanes III will be filing today illegal drug smuggling charges against lawyer Manases Reyes Carpio, the husband of Vice President Sara Duterte, Davao City 1st district Rep. Paolo Duterte, former marine officer and Bureau of Customs commissioner Nicanor Faeldon and several others.

In an interview with “Storycon” on One News yesterday, Trillanes said he is filing the illegal drug smuggling charges against Carpio, Duterte, Faeldon and Allen Capuyan based on the pieces of evidence he had gathered from the Senate investigation on the smuggling of P6.4 billion worth of illegal drugs.

The investigation was prompted by the discovery in Valenzuela City of 600 kilos of shabu or methampethamine hydrochloride from China, which were reportedly hidden in printer rolls and entered the country through the “green lane” of the Bureau of Customs.

“This involved the P6.4-billion shabu shipment in Valenzuela in 2017 which we investigated in the Senate. They are the mastermind in this,” Trillanes said.

Trillanes recalled it was also in that Senate investigation that he asked Paolo Duterte to remove his shirt and show his back to the public, which could prove that he is a member of a triad or criminal gang. Duterte refused.

Trillanes said he has complete evidence against those that he would charge.

“All the drugs, pieces of evidence, are deposited,” Trillanes said, declining to expound further.

“But I don’t want to preempt the charges. We have thick pieces of evidence,” he said.