DAVAO CITY, Philippines — The government has launched an investigation into deals allegedly entered into by the parents of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV with the Philippine Navy, President Duterte disclosed yesterday.
“We are looking into the paper. We’re investigating the deals quietly, during the time of his father and mother,” Duterte said in a speech in Davao City.
“You can be very sure na lalabas lahat ‘yan (that will all come out),” the President said during kick-off ceremonies for the Davao Bulk Water Project here in Barangay Calinan along the Bukidnon-Davao road.
Duterte had earlier declared Trillanes’ amnesty void from the beginning and ordered the senator’s arrest. Trillanes holed out in his Senate office, challenging the President’s move. A trial court judge later allowed Trillanes, a former Navy officer, to post bail.
The President has said that Trillanes took advantage of the position of his father who was also with the Armed Forces when the senator was a cadet in the Philippine Military Academy.
Duterte also alleged that Trillanes’ mother was a supplier for the Philippine Navy. This was “a clear case of conflict of interest” as the senator was then a Navy officer, Duterte said.
He said the results of the investigation on Trillanes’ parents would soon be out. Duterte declined to provide details.
Trillanes had earlier denied the accusations of corruption hurled against his mother Estelita, 84, who is suffering from advanced Parkinson’s Disease.
“The public knows how low that blow was,” Trillanes said in Filipino at a press conference last September. “If he has a problem with me, stick with me because I can fight for myself. But to drag my mother, that’s personal. Don’t go there, that is not the act of a real man.”