Antipolo City 2nd district Rep. Romeo Acop (left); former president Rodrigo Duterte (Facebook)

Perhaps Antipolo City 2nd district Rep. Romeo Acop summed it up best for the House quad-committee (quad-comm) when he said, "Tayo ay nabudol (We were fooled)."

Acop, vice chairman of the quad-comm, took on the unenviable task of condensing in just a few pages of paper all that had transpired in 13 marathon hearings of the special four-way panel.

A retired police brigadier general whose love and service to the country is unquestioned, Acop went on to read last Thursday night, Dec. 12 the quad-comm report in his usual deliberate, no-nonesense style.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the quad-comm has started to uncover a grand criminal enterprise, and, it would seem that at the center of it is former President Duterte,” Acop said. “Napakasakit po nito dahil pawang tayo ay nabudol.”

(This is painful because seemingly we were fooled.)

“Mahirap po ang trabaho natin dito sa quad-comm. Walang gustong bumangga sa isang popular na dating presidente. Pero kami po, tulad niya, ay halal ng taong-bayan,” said the administration congressman. 

(Our job here in the quad-comm is difficult. Nobody want to go up against a popular former president. But like him, we were also elected by the people.)

Acop and the quad-comm by extension gave these reflections after hearing the testimony of the former chief executive himself. Last Nov. 13, Duterte participated in a 13-hour hearing wherein he rather unsurprisingly reiterated that he took full responsibility of what transpired during his bloody war on drugs.

Other resource persons presented in the mega-panel's hearings have claimed and corroborated details that exposed this drug war as nothing but a sham.

Duterte, 79, won the Palace seat by a landslide during the May 2016 polls, arguably because of his hardline stance against illegal drugs. But that's where the deception began, at least as per the quad-comm's findings. 

The findings said that Duterte and his inner circle allegedly enabled and then profited from the drug trade they had publicly vowed to eliminate.

According to Acop, the Duterte administration’s most trusted officials wielded both the “Purse and the Sword” of the Republic, but instead of serving the people, they weaponized these powers for personal and political gain.

“It is most unfortunate, however, that the Sword was used to slit, stab, and slash the very People it swore to protect—We the People—and the Purse was used not to benefit the Republic, but to line the pockets of the few. Nilunod nila ang bayan natin ng droga, at kumita dahil dito,” Acop said.

(They flooded our nation with drugs, and they profited from it.)

Acop condemned the alleged reward system during the Duterte drg war, which he said systematically targeted laboratories and chemists. This effectively paved the way for imported drugs to dominate the Philippine market.

“It also led to countless extrajudicial killings—over 30,000 deaths, according to data,” he added.

The quad-comm asserted that Duterte himself may have been at the center of this drug enterprise. 

In his affidavit submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC), former police officer Arturo Lascañas tagged Duterte as the “Lord of All Drug Lords", and accused him of using his anti-drug campaign as a tool to eliminate competition while protecting key players in the drug trade.

Lascañas, a self-confessed hitman and former member of the Davao Death Squad (DDS), testified that Duterte directly ordered killings of drug chemists and workers involved in the Dumoy laboratory in a raid dating back to 2004.

His affidavit alleged that Duterte paid as much as P500,000 to eliminate these individuals. For Acop, this raised questions about whether these killings were about eradicating drugs—or eliminating competitors.

Acop underscored the recurring names tied to drug-related activities: Michael Yang, Allan Lim, Johnson Co, and other associates repeatedly surfaced in different narratives. 

From the Dumoy laboratory raid in Davao in 2004 to the Empire 999 Realty warehouse in Pampanga 2023, where P3.6 billion worth of shabu was seized, the same figures appeared at the center of these operations.

“Madami at paulit-ulit na ang lumilitaw na koneksyon ni Michael Yang sa business ng droga...Pero sa gitna ng isang state policy called the ‘war on drugs', wala pa ring nakakagalaw laban sa kanya," Acop said, referring to Duterte's former economic adviser. 

(Many, repeated connections have surfaced between Michael Yang ang the drug trade...But in the middle of a state policy dubbed the ‘war on drugs', he has remained untouchable.)

Acop ended his presentation by vowing to hold those responsible accountable. “We will leave no stone unturned."

The quad-comm will hold its next hearing in January 2025.