MANILA: The son and son-in-law of the Philippine president, who has been accused of condoning extrajudicial killings of thousands of drug suspects, on Thursday appeared in a Senate inquiry looking into a huge shipment of illegal drugs from China that slipped through Manila’s port.
Paolo Duterte, currently vice mayor of southern Davao city, and lawyer Manases Carpio have not been directly implicated in the drug shipment. The two were invited to appear in the Senate hearing after they were mentioned as belonging to an influential group that receives bribes from smugglers operating in Manila and elsewhere.
They denied any wrongdoing. The president has urged them to attend the televised hearing, denying insinuations of corruption against them by opposition Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV.
The allegations would likely further infuriate the tough-talking president, who has been criticized by human rights groups and Western governments of presiding over a bloody crackdown on illegal drugs that has left thousands dead. He said over the weekend that Trillanes, his political foe, has been trying to undermine him and his family with baseless allegations, calling the senator a “political ISIS” who aims to destroy him but could not offer any shred of evidence.
“Once and for all, I now have the time to deny any and all baseless allegations thrown against me,” Paolo Duterte told the senators.
He said a senator, whom he did not identify, has accused the Dutertes of being “a family of murderers and I am untouchable.” He added without elaborating that “every talk has its day ... the law of karma will operate specially to those with evil intent.”
Carpio, the husband of Sara Duterte, currently the Davao city mayor, said he and his brother-in-law “have been publicly crucified based on rumors and gossips.”
At the height of the Senate inquiry, Trillanes accused Paolo Duterte of being a member of the Chinese triad, an organized crime group, citing intelligence information he said was provided by a foreign government. The young Duterte, Trillanes alleged, has a tattoo at the back that is the mark of a triad gang member.
Paolo Duterte acknowledged he has a tattoo during questionings by Trillanes but refused to show it, citing his right to privacy.
Trillanes also said he has information that the two have separate bank accounts with huge cash deposits. The two refused to a sign waivers for Trillanes to investigate the alleged bank accounts.
Duterte’s family grilled at Senate inquiry on drugs, payoffs
Duterte’s family grilled at Senate inquiry on drugs, payoffs
WHO chief says reasons US gave for withdrawing ‘untrue’
- US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a joint statement Thursday that Washington had formally withdrawn from the WHO
- And in a post on X, Tedros added: “Unfortunately, the reasons cited for the US decision to withdraw from WHO are untrue”
GENEVA: The head of the UN’s health agency on Saturday pushed back against Washington’s stated reasons for withdrawing from the World Health Organization, dismissing US criticism of the WHO as “untrue.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that US announcement this week that it had formally withdrawn from the WHO “makes both the US and the world less safe.”
And in a post on X, he added: “Unfortunately, the reasons cited for the US decision to withdraw from WHO are untrue.”
He insisted: “WHO has always engaged with the US, and all Member States, with full respect for their sovereignty.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a joint statement Thursday that Washington had formally withdrawn from the WHO.
They accused the agency, of numerous “failures during the Covid-19 pandemic” and of acting “repeatedly against the interests of the United States.”
The WHO has not yet confirmed that the US withdrawal has taken effect.
- ‘Trashed and tarnished’ -
The two US officials said the WHO had “trashed and tarnished” the United States, and had compromised its independence.
“The reverse is true,” the WHO said in a statement.
“As we do with every Member State, WHO has always sought to engage with the United States in good faith.”
The agency strenuously rejected the accusation from Rubio and Kennedy that its Covid response had “obstructed the timely and accurate sharing of critical information that could have saved American lives and then concealed those failures.”
Kennedy also suggested in a video posted to X Friday that the WHO was responsible for “the Americans who died alone in nursing homes (and) the small businesses that were destroyed by reckless mandates” to wear masks and get vaccinated.
The US withdrawal, he insisted, was about “protecting American sovereignty, and putting US public health back in the hands of the American people.”
Tedros warned on X that the statement “contains inaccurate information.”
“Throughout the pandemic, WHO acted quickly, shared all information it had rapidly and transparently with the world, and advised Member States on the basis of the best available evidence,” the agency said.
“WHO recommended the use of masks, vaccines and physical distancing, but at no stage recommended mask mandates, vaccine mandates or lockdowns,” it added.
“We supported sovereign governments to make decisions they believed were in the best interests of their people, but the decisions were theirs.”
- Withdrawal ‘raises issues’ -
The row came as Washington struggled to dislodge itself from the WHO, a year after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to that effect.
The one-year withdrawal process reached completion on Thursday, but Kennedy and Rubio regretted in their statement that the UN health agency had “not approved our withdrawal and, in fact, claims that we owe it compensation.”
WHO has highlighted that when Washington joined the organization in 1948, it reserved the right to withdraw, as long as it gave one year’s notice and had met “its financial obligations to the organization in full for the current fiscal year.”
But Washington has not paid its 2024 or 2025 dues, and is behind around $260 million.
“The notification of withdrawal raises issues,” WHO said Saturday, adding that the topic would be examined during WHO’s Executive Board meeting next month and by the annual World Health Assembly meeting in May.
“We hope the US will return to active participation in WHO in the future,” Tedros said Saturday.
“Meanwhile, WHO remains steadfastly committed to working with all countries in pursuit of its core mission and constitutional mandate: the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right for all people.”
