The month of September was a whirlwind of activity as the authorities closed in on the nation’s most wanted fugitives, some of whom had evaded arrest during the tail end of the previous Duterte administration.
The government nabbed six high-profile suspects in a span of nearly three weeks – a feat that analysts say was laudable, but would probably not have happened if President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s alliance with his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte, was still intact.
Four of those arrested have evaded the authorities for weeks, if not months, and were cornered by law enforcement agents only after it became clear that Marcos and the Dutertes were no longer friends.
“I look at it as Marcos being on the offensive against the Dutertes,” Dr Carmel Abao, political science department chair at Ateneo de Manila University, told The Straits Times.
“He’s doing this to project an image, saying, ‘We’re the good guys. We’re nice, but we also get things done’,” she said.
First to be netted was former mayor Alice Guo (pic), who was accused of being a Chinese spy and of having links to a criminal syndicate which used now-banned online casinos to run scamming operations that thrived during the Duterte presidency.
She fled the country in mid-July but was arrested by Indonesian authorities on Sept 3 and deported back to the Philippines the next day.
Just days after that, on Sept 8, Philippine police arrested infamous doomsday preacher Apollo Quiboloy in Duterte’s home turf of Davao City.
Quiboloy, the former president’s spiritual adviser, faces arrest warrants, both at home and in the United States, for allegedly raping and trafficking women and girls as young as 12 years old.
Then, on Sept 18, police nabbed former budget undersecretary Lloyd Christopher Lao, who was implicated in the procurement of allegedly overpriced Covid-19 pandemic supplies under the Duterte administration.
A day later, the authorities arrested Chinese businessman Tony Yang, brother of Duterte’s former economic adviser Michael Yang. Tony not only faces deportation but has also been linked to the same criminal syndicate involving Guo.
Apart from these four big arrests, the government in September also apprehended former Palawan governor Joel Reyes, who allegedly masterminded the 2011 killing of journalist Gerry Ortega. Also detained were dismissed police officer Allan de Castro and his bodyguard-driver as suspects in the kidnapping of beauty pageant contestant Catherine Camilon, who has been missing since October 2023.
While it is expected for any government to go after fugitives, Isead – Yusof Ishak Institute visiting senior fellow Aries Arugay said the Marcos government initially did not seem keen on clamping down on the Duterte-linked suspects until after their political alliance crumbled.
“The invincibility, leverage and impunity that the Dutertes enjoyed will not last. They are no longer in the driver’s seat.” — The Straits Times/ANN
