Political harassment, Sara said of drug cases

DAVAO CITY — Vice President Sara Duterte said Saturday that the allegations pressed against her husband and brother are a political attack and political harassment.

“As I always say, it’s not only the case filed against them — all of these are political harassment and political attacks. As you can see, these came out when I resigned from DepEd and when I talked about the things that we need to do for our country,” she said in an interview.

Jimmy Guban, a former customs intelligence officer, said that in a House of Representative hearing on 16 August Davao City First District Rep. Paolo Z. Duterte, Manases Carpio, Duterte’s husband, and a Chinese businessman were involved in a multi-billion drug shipment in 2018.

“Unfortunately, I cannot speak for Cong. Pulong and I understand that he already released his statement about this issue. I also talked to my husband about it and I will let him answer the issue,” Duterte said.

However, Duterte said that the real problem being confronted by the nation is poverty.

“The basic problem of the Filipinos here is the expensive food. Let us focus on the real problem of the country — the difficulty of people to buy cheap food,” Duterte added.

Duterte also said that she is not surprised anymore by the impeachment complaint being filed against her by some members of the House of Representatives.

“Well, yes, that is expected. Lagi naman pinag-uusapan among members of the House of Representatives ang impeachment at naririnig naman namin ‘yun base sa mga kaibigan doon sa loob,” she said.

Asked about her relationship with President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., Duterte said she has no label with it.

Duterte and Marcos were running mates in the 2022 national elections under the UniTeam ticket.