By Ben R. Rosario and Yas D. Ocampo
Cleared in two congressional inquiries, former Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte is turning the tables on his accuser, Sen. Antonio F. Trillanes IV, as he readied criminal and civil complaints against the opposition lawmaker in connection with the purported P6.4-billion shabu smuggling case last year.
The presidential son revealed yesterday that libel charges are being readied against Trillanes for maliciously linking him to the case that both the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability and Senate Blue Ribbon Committee investigated.
The two legislative bodies found nothing that would implicate President Duterte’s son and his brother-in-law, lawyer Manases Carpio, to the illegal drugs smuggling.
The young Duterte vowed to file criminal and civil libel charges against Trillanes for “viciously destroying my name, maligning my reputation and integrity, and for deliberately manufacturing lies and spreading black propaganda against me.”
“Sen. Trillanes manufactured lies and deliberately spread these lies with the obvious intention of destroying my name and maligning my reputation, with a view to impacting negatively against our beloved President,” he said.
“The Senator was apparently emboldened by his false reliance on and abuse of his parliamentary immunity. But this immunity does not apply to libelous remarks made during media interviews, clearly as these attacks were done outside the halls of the Senate – and definitely not when these were discharged with the pure intention of destroying me,” the former local official said.
