Senator Hontiveros gave a startling revelation, that to many who have observed the behavior of the Duterte Administration right from the start, is just a validation of the long-held view about Duterte and his minions since the beginning of the president’s term. These personalities mentioned by the good senator, had been exposed early on by no less than Acierto, a police officer who served as an anti-drugs operative see link. The fact is– I am in the opinion that our country’s intelligence services had known about this for a long time already. The only question is–why is it that these groups who are now exposing these things only did it several months prior to the elections?

Michael Yang’s name and all the other Chinese associates of this administration had been getting a lot of deals for themselves and for their close friends since the beginning of this administration. What is so startling is the fact that the President himself exposed Yang who happens to be a friend of former Chinese ambassador to the Philippines Zhao, whom Duterte himself said is a colonel of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)! Curiously, the President did not even flinched when Yang’s name was involved.

What is so disappointing is the fact that Duterte himself told Inquirer that he is frequently consulting with Chinese intelligence officers who cleared Yang and his associates from any wrongdoing. Of course, these Chinese will, because Yang etal. had been exposed not in the mainland, but in Taiwan undertaking several illicit economic activities.

The fact is that Duterte admitted that he consults the Chinese intelligence guys based here in Davao—a very dangerous act since there is a possibility that several state secrets had now been exposed to the Chinese unwittingly thru the very head of the Philippine state! see link.

How many state secrets did these Chinese intelligence guys fleeced from Duterte? How open do these guys access highly sensitive Philippine files? How much leeway did our Philippine military officials give to these Chinese at the behest of Mr. Duterte?

Likewise, how many government agencies are now under the control of Yang and if Hontiveros is to be believed, by the group and associates of her colleague, Mr. Bong Go?

Duterte defends himself by saying that Yang had been here operating in the Philippines since his days as a Mayor. So, Duterte admits that his ties with Chinese intelligence assets, even those from the PLA had been so deep that there is now an expectation of trust between him and these people?

We have very serious problems here and I think this country will find it extremely hard to cleanse the bureaucracy post-Duterte. This cannot be solved by the election of a new president–this calls for a reset of the Philippine bureaucracy and the identification of deeply entrenched intelligence assets by a foreign country whose interests are diametrically alligned with ours.

Duterte is so comfortable defending his position maybe because he is aware of the existence of sleeper cells of the PLA here or maybe the presence of Chinese militia ready for his beck and call in the event of an extra-constitutional action by Duterte’s political enemies.