September 30, 2024
MANILA – The month of September was a whirlwind of activity as the authorities closed in on the Philippines’ 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 Mr Duterte’s 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 Mr 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, 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 Mr 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 Mr Duterte’s former economic adviser Michael Yang. Mr Tony Yang 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 of any government to go after fugitives, ISEAS – 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, the impunity that the Dutertes enjoyed will not last. They are no longer in the driver’s seat. Someone else is calling the shots, and they can no longer bank on their popularity nor the support of the political elite,” Dr Arugay told ST.
At the height of their power from 2016 to 2022, the Dutertes and their allies were criticised for promoting a culture of impunity that political pundits said allowed the previous administration to wage its bloody drug war and run questionable, if not outright illegal, operations without facing consequences.
That changed when Mr Marcos became president in 2022 and began reversing his predecessor’s controversial policies. Law enforcement agencies and the Marcos-controlled Congress also began clamping down on Duterte allies facing criminal cases.
By mid-2024, Vice-President Duterte had resigned from the Marcos Cabinet, the final nail in the coffin that broke up what was once the vaunted alliance of the Philippines’ two most powerful political clans.
However, General Rommel Marbil, head of the Philippine National Police, said the Marcos government’s recent crackdown on the high-profile fugitives was not politically driven.
“The President told us to just do our jobs,” General Marbil told ST.
“It wasn’t about politics. Remember, these suspects have warrants of arrest. We’re just doing the right thing,” he added.
The Marcos government, however, faced criticisms about the manner in which it had conducted some of these arrests.
Defence analysts had earlier told ST that Guo’s furtive escape to Indonesia exposed lapses in the Philippines’ security and intelligence capabilities.
Meanwhile, Quiboloy’s followers have accused the police of violating their rights during the tense two-week stand-off leading up to the arrest of their leader.
Interior and Local Government Secretary Benhur Abalos, whose office handles peace and security matters, told ST that a failure of intelligence led to Guo and Quiboloy evading arrest for so long.
He also said it was particularly difficult to go after the embattled preacher, given the Dutertes’ influence in the city where he was arrested.
Mr Abalos said the authorities are now reviewing protocols on law enforcement, maritime security and immigration to ensure that no other suspect will escape the authorities.
The government also plans to beef up defence cooperation with its South-east Asian neighbours to strengthen border patrol and surveillance.
Still, the successful arrests of half a dozen fugitives in the month of September alone can be considered a win for the Marcos government, said defence analyst Don McLain Gill from De La Salle University in Manila.
“Yes, there may have been initial lapses. But at the end of the day, there is no perfect system, and what matters is that it is a functional system and that the government has been able to show that it can arrest criminals within a specific time frame,” Mr Gill told ST.
Mr Marcos is now under pressure to ensure that the cases against the arrested fugitives will be pursued fully.
Dr Abao said the Marcos government must also reform policies that have allowed illegal activities to thrive.
“Bring these cases to a logical conclusion. Bring it to the courts. Actually push to improve our policies and norms,” she added.