The Duterte family's criminal enterprise

Davao's Duterte family was one grand criminal enterprise.

- TONY LOPEZ

Their main business has been illegal drugs. The family flooded the archipelago with illegal drugs imported in huge volumes with the help of Chinese partners and cohorts in China and in the Philippines.

A side family hobby was capricious and wasteful use of billions of taxpayers' money, confidential and intelligence funds (CIF).

Rodrigo Roa Duterte was at the center of the family's giant criminal enterprise and systemic corruption involving high-ranking government officials and international drug trafficking networks, the House super quad committee said on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024.

Quad is composed of four powerful House committees: dangerous drugs chaired by Rep. Robert Ace S. Barbers, public order and safety chaired by Rep. Dan S. Fernandez, human rights chaired by Rep. Bienvenido M. Abante Jr. and public accounts chaired by Rep. Joseph Stephen "Caraps" S. Paduano. Quad is like the Nuremberg Trials of World War II - uncover atrocities and horrible acts so they may not happen again, said Congressman Barbers, with singular focus on illegal drugs, extrajudicial killings and POGOs, Philippine offshore gaming operations.

After 12 hearings, quad's senior vice chairman, Antipolo Rep. Romeo Acop, a former police general and a cum laude law grad, summarized the panel's initial findings. Duterte and his inner circle enabled and profited from the drug trade they had publicly vowed to eliminate.

"Duterte is the drug lord of all drug lords," Arturo Lascañas told the quad comm. A cop, he was a former member of the Davao Death Squad.

"This is truly painful," Acop bewailed, "we were victims of budol (fraud)."