By ANTONIO L. COLINA IV
DAVAO CITY – Resigned Vice Mayor Paolo Z. Duterte and brother-in-law Atty. Manases Carpio have filed separate libel charges against opposition Sen. Antonio F. Trillanes IV for accusing them of corruption and extortion during an interview on Sept. 8, 2017 in Cebu.
In their complaint-affidavits dated Sept. 6, 2018, Duterte and Carpio said the opposition lawmaker made malicious remarks when he accused them of conspiring with Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board Central Visayas Director Ahmed Cuison to extort from Uber and other similar companies during a radio interview with Leo Lastimosa of DYAB Cebu.
Duterte and Carpio said the senator also hurled malicious and derogatory accusations against them after he made similar accusations involving the Philippine Road Board and Department of Public Works and Highways as part of their supposed corrupt tentacles and “shakedown.”
Both dismissed these accusations as downright false, baseless, and unfounded.
The former Davao City Vice Mayor said Trillanes’ remarks were intended to “malign, destroy, and kill my good name and reputation locally, nationally, and internationally.”
“It is based on double, if not multiple, hearsay information which he claimed to have received from someone, the identity of whom however he did not even bother to divulge. It is pure black propaganda,” Duterte said.
Duterte resigned from his post on Christmas Day last year after the senator dragged his name and Carpio’s into the P6.4-billion shabu from China that arrived in the country via Manila International Container Port in Tondo, Manila on May 16, 2017. He also cited as reason the squabble with his daughter, Isabelle, on social media. (Antonio L. Colina IV)
The presidential son and his brother-in-law filed on December 5, 2017 a civil case against Trillanes for similar accusations. They asked Trillanes to pay P6.6 million in damages – P3 million moral damages, P3 million exemplary damages, P500,000 attorney’s fees and expenses of litigation and P100,000 nominal damages.
