LAWMAKERS will invite Chinese businessman Michael Yang, the ex-economic adviser of former President Rodrigo Duterte, to attend the next hearing of the House committee on dangerous drugs into the discovery of 560 kilos of shabu in a Mexico, Pampanga warehouse in September last year.
Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, panel chair, said Yang, an alleged drug lord, will be invited to answer questions in connection with the P3.6 billion drug bust by the NBI and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) after the committee found out that Empire 999, the company that owns the warehouse where the drugs were found, appears to be owned by Chinese citizens who have been previously linked to anomalous activities under the past administration.
“The connection of alleged drug lord Michael Yang to these drug activities is no surprise. Remember that in the past administration, he was named by a top official of the PNP who was then tasked to investigate illegal drug activities. It was discovered that the one on top of the drug trade was Michael Yang,” Barbers said.
The administration lawmaker said the panel has discovered that Yang’s interpreter, Linconn Ong, a controversial figure in the Pharmally scandal, is an incorporator of a company with links to other companies, including Empire 999.
Yang’s name cropped up during a hearing last week after Rep. Joseph Paduano (PL, Abang Lingkod), chair of the House committee on public accounts, made a PowerPoint presentation.
To find out the connection, Laguna Rep. Dan Fernandez, chair of the House Committee on public order and safety, moved that Yang be invited to the next hearing.
Pharmally was investigated after it cornered billions in contracts with the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM), headed by then Undersecretary Christopher Lao, for the supply of medical needs during the pandemic under the Duterte administration.
It was later revealed that the acquisition of supplies abroad was financed by Yang.
Last week, the Office of the Ombudsman affirmed its 2023 decision ordering the filing of multiple graft charges Lao, Pharmally officials, and others over the alleged anomalous procurement of P4 billion worth of RT-PCR COVID-19 test kits.
The Barbers panel has also discovered that the owner of Empire 999 “also owned other shell companies together with other personalities who have been previously linked to anomalous activities under the past administration.”
It was through the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) port that the 560 kilos of shabu entered the country before being transported to Barangay San Jose Malino in Mexico, Pampanga.
Barbers said it was further established that most of the incorporators of the different companies are Chinese who present fake Philippine documents to make it appear that they are Filipinos.
He said what started as a drug bust “turned out to be a national security concern as these personalities and companies acquired real properties all over the country using fictitious documents.
“This matter has now gone from a simple illegal drug smuggling to a national security concern. We need to establish the link between these companies and Michael Yang, the financier of Pharmally. It is not as simple as it seems. These personalities and their interests are so intertwined and intricately woven in an elaborate multi-layered company structure that resembles a maze deliberately designed to avoid detection and ultimate liability in case the scheme is discovered,” Barbers said.
“The activities of these other companies have not been unearthed yet but the incorporators have gone into hiding already and have started disposing their assets. There is more than meets the eye. We intend to get to the bottom of this issue in order to find out if indeed the drug bust is just the tip of the iceberg,” he added.
Barbers said that in the course of his panel’s investigation, “more names came out like Aedy Yang and Henry Yang, Elaine Chua, and a lot more Chinese who all pretended to be Filipinos but are actually Chinese.”
Using fictitious documents and corporations, he said they “went on buying sprees and allegedly bought hundreds and possibly thousands of hectares of agricultural and residential lands in Northern Luzon and started building warehouses.
“These very suspicious activities have stopped as soon as we started the investigations. So now, they again resorted to hiding these assets by ‘selling’ them to other Chinese nationals. We promise that we will leave no stone unturned in getting to the bottom truth of this mess these Chinese nationals created here in our country,” Barbers said.
While he has no issue with Chinese doing legitimate business in the country, Barbers said “doing these illegal drug activities is another story.
“We have extended all invitations to these people and observed due process. They never showed up. Even the law (and) NBI could not locate them. There is a saying that flight is indicative of guilt. If they are really innocent, we urge them to come out and explain their roles in the labyrinth they created,” he said.
Police seized over P1.5 million worth of suspected dangerous drugs, a firearm, ammunition and nabbed a man in a buy-bust operation in Binangonan, Rizal last Saturday afternoon.
Col. Felipe Maraggun, Rizal provincial police office (PPO) director, identified the suspect as alias Charlie, 40, a resident of Barangay Pag-asa, Binangonan Rizal.
Seized from him were eight (8) sachets containing more or less 221.94 grams of suspected shabu with a street value of P1,509,192, and a Smith and Wesson revolver with four bullets. — With Christian Oineza
