Bombshell claims link Philippines’ Duterte clan to huge meth smuggling scheme (2024)

Wearing a bulletproof vest over his orange prison uniform, a convicted drug trafficker made a bombshell allegation last week that has sent shock waves through the Philippines. In testimony before a congressional committee, Jimmy Guban implicated family members and allies of Rodrigo Duterte in a major drug-smuggling operation, casting further doubt on the legitimacy of the former president’s vaunted “war on drugs”.

Guban, a former customs intelligence officer with 17 years of experience, told lawmakers that Congressman Paolo Duterte; lawyer Manases Carpio, husband of Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio; and Chinese businessman and economic adviser Michael Yang owned the massive magnetic lifters used to secretly transport hundreds of kilograms of crystal meth, or “shabu”, into the country in 2018.

The scandal first erupted when several of these steel-plated lifters arrived in Manila from Vietnam, later found to be packed with at least 1.68 tonnes of shabu worth billions of pesos. Law enforcement seized two of the lifters containing 355kg of drugs, but missed four others containing a staggering 1.68 tonnes – worth 11 billion pesos (US$195 million) – that flooded the market, causing street prices to plummet.

In 2018, Guban had named a different suspect, police officer Eduardo Acierto, before the Senate. But now, appearing before a newly formed congressional “super committee”, he claimed he had received death threats and was pressured to falsely implicate Acierto, describing himself as the victim of a “grand conspiracy to clean the name of the First Family [the Dutertes] and Michael Yang”.

Recanting his previous Senate testimony, Guban at the August 16 hearing asked to be placed in a witness protection programme. He named additional alleged members of the syndicate, including Davao City councillor Nilo Abillera Jnr, who he said represented Yang and Carpio, as well as journalists Paul Gutierrez and Benny Antiporda. Guban identified Gutierrez, speaking on behalf of Antiporda, as one of the individuals who had threatened to kill him and kidnap his child.

The accused vehemently denied Guban’s allegations. Congressman Paolo Duterte, the former president’s son, said he did not know Guban. Carpio dismissed the “baseless and maliciously false” imputation against him, while Gutierrez and Antiporda, now in government positions, issued separate denials. There has been no reaction from the elusive Chinese national Michael Yang, who faces a congressional arrest order in another drug-trafficking case.

Guban was a “surprise witness”, appearing midway through a seven-hour hearing of the newly formed “quad committee” – a Lower House group formed earlier this month by merging the work of four other committees: dangerous drugs, public order and safety, human rights and public accounts.

Barry Gutierrez, a criminal law professor and former congressman, told This Week in Asia that if Guban’s revelations proved true, it would “confirm what many have suspected all along: that the ‘drug war’ was a sham, and that the supposed ‘opponents’ of illegal drugs were actually its biggest purveyors.”

“Guban is obviously a scoundrel, and vulnerable to pressure to boot. Still, witnesses to criminal operations of this level – large-scale drug smuggling in this case – are never saints.”

While acknowledging Guban’s tainted credibility, Gutierrez emphasised that his testimony was just the start, and a “credible investigation and possible prosecution will require more” to substantiate the claims.

The reaction to Guban’s testimony was mixed. Former senator Antonio Trillanes IV told This Week in Asia that he was “still on the fence” as some of Guban’s information aligned with his understanding, but he was still validating the rest.

However, Gutierrez noted that with Congress now investigating corruption and abuse under the Duterte administration, it was only a matter of time before a witness emerged pointing to the alleged involvement of the Dutertes and their allies in illegal activities.

When asked if he found it conceivable that the Duterte family could be tied to the drug trade, Gutierrez pointed to a 2019 report by the Interagency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs that found a “suspiciously low rate of drug seizure – 1 per cent of the total estimated market volume”.

He suggested that the “involvement of high-level players with government connections would go a long way to explaining that apparent paradox”.

Not everyone was convinced by Guban’s bombshell claims, though.

Senator Ronald dela Rosa, who served as police chief under Duterte, lashed out at the quad committee members as “unprincipled opportunists”.

Dela Rosa went on to criticise the credibility and timing of Guban’s testimony, dismissing it on Thursday as “obvious[ly] scripted”. He said he would file a resolution for his own Senate committee to study Guban’s “very unbelievable stories”.

The Duterte clan is currently embroiled in a tense political feud with President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr and his family. Vice-President Duterte-Carpio on Tuesday accused Guban’s testimony and the quad committee of being part of a concerted effort to “topple the Duterte family, not only politically but also personally”.

“They want to project the [Duterte] family as corrupt, as criminals, as worthless selfish people … because we are a threat to the perpetuation in power of [certain] people,” Duterte-Carpio said.

Her remarks echoed the case against former justice secretary Leila de Lima, who incurred Duterte’s ire for investigating extrajudicial killings while he was mayor of Davao City. She was confronted with drug charges, based on the evidence of convicted criminals presented in Congress, and was imprisoned for seven years

The competing narratives and long-standing political feuds have transformed Guban’s testimony into a high-stakes showdown, with the fate of the Duterte family’s political legacy and the credibility of the anti-drug campaign hanging in the balance.

As the investigations continue, the public will be watching closely to see whether the claims of corruption and collusion can be substantiated, or if this is merely the latest chapter in the Philippines’ ongoing political drama.

Gutierrez, the criminal law professor, told This Week in Asia that there was a sense of “what goes around comes around” in the current saga.

“But if this is going to be more than political theatre, additional witnesses and evidence will have to be brought forward,” he said.