Davao City”•The eldest son of President Rodrigo Duterte, Paolo Duterte, is set to file criminal and civil charges against Senator Antonio Trillanes IV for “maliciously maligning him” in the case of the P6.4-billion shipment of shabu that was smuggled into the country last year.
In his statement, the presidential son said Trillanes has been destroying his name by implying that he was behind the smuggled shabu in several media interviews last year.
“Senator 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,” Paolo added.
Earlier, Paolo labeled Trillanes’ words as pure lies, based entirely on gossips and as part of his ‘desperate black propaganda’ against him and towards his family.
Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte said that it is now up to her brother to pursue criminal and civil charges against the senator.
Recently, Mayor Duterte and Trillanes again traded barbs when the senator said the mayor would run for president in 2022 to save her father from jail.
Mayor Duterte noted that Trillanes is just making all the noise against her to gather media attention as he seeks another term.
“I will still answer him if he will mention my name again. Like what I have been mentioning, I will be a pain in the ass for him,” she said.
“I guess the best way to tease him is maybe I should run in the 2022 presidential election,” she said.
In December, Paolo Duterte also filed civil charges against Trillanes.
Aside from Paolo, Trillanes also implicated the husband of Mayor Duterte, lawyer Manases Carpio.
Trillanes shrugged off the libel suit.
“That’s another frivolous lawsuit meant to harass or divert my attention,” Trillanes told reporters.
“Clearly, during the Senate inquiry [last year], I was able to present circumstantial evidence of the links of Paolo Duterte to the major players involved in the P6.4-billion shabu shipment to include [Customs fixer] Mark Taguba’s testimony,” Trillanes added.
The opposition senator also said he would not be cowed by the administration, whom he accused of using the justice system against the political opposition. With Macon Ramos-Araneta
