A warehouse along MacArthur highway in Barangay Dumoy, Davao City, appears to be a normal facility from the outside. But the walls, it turns out, shielded a shabu laboratory that authorities raided on December 31, 2004, through a search warrant. 

Former president Rodrigo Duterte was the mayor then. 

This operation became known as the Dumoy raid, led by then-Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Davao Region chief Wilkins Villanueva (who eventually became Duterte’s PDEA chief) and veteran anti-drug cop Eduardo Acierto. 

Chinese Allan Sy and Filipina wife Jed Pilapil Sy were among the subjects of the warrants, but they were not present in the warehouse when the operation happened, at least according to PDEA’s report. The operation led to a shootout, killing six foreigners. PDEA and cops seized at least 76 kilograms of shabu (methamphetamine) and illegal drug equipment.

The raid triggered a follow-up operation in Sy’s residence in Arlene Apartment located in Obrero, still in Davao City, where the couple lived along with their Chinese neighbors. PDEA said 13 people, including Jed, were brought in for questioning. After the interview, Jed and her one neighbor were released from PDEA’s custody, while the 11 Chinese were said to be endorsed to the Bureau of Immigration (BI), since they were foreigners.

Jed was allegedly arrested in another operation in Agdao on January 4, while her husband was labeled as “at-large” by authorities after the successive Davao operations. Apart from Allan Sy, no one also knew what supposedly happened to the 11 Chinese who were turned over to the BI. 

The missing 11

Speaking during the House of Representatives quad committee’s probe in November 2024, Villanueva said they did not follow up on the foreigners’ status after they supposedly turned them over to BI because their primary task was to conduct follow-up operations on other laboratories.

During the same hearing, quad committee co-chairperson and Antipolo City 2nd District Representative Romeo Acop read an entry in the PDEA logbook that said police officer Winnie Quidato, then a detailed officer with the BI, went to Arlene Apartment with PDEA personnel led by Baltazar Carillo.

But when asked to verify the logbook entry, Quidato said he never set foot in the said property, but instead he headed directly to Barangay Dumoy where the shabu laboratory raid happened.

There was a briefing about the successive operations, Quidato added, but the focus according to him, was the slain foreigners. He only knew about the interrogated 11 Chinese later on.

Acierto, who later became a whistleblower against Duterte and allies, is a recurring witness for the quad committee. When asked about the Dumoy and Arlene Apartment operations, he confirmed that the Chinese from the apartment were invited for questioning due to alleged violation of the immigration law.

“If my memory serves me right, I cannot recall foreigners being transferred to BID (BI’s former name),” Acierto told lawmakers in a mix of Filipino and English. “They were released because there was no immigration violation found. But I cannot remember how many days or weeks it took before they were released.”

To determine whatever happened to the foreigners, Batangas 2nd District Representative Gerville Luistro moved to invite Carillo to answer questions from lawmakers regarding the missing foreigners, as well as to request the foreigners’ travel records from BI to track their last movements.

Duterte’s kill orders

Both Acierto and self-confessed DDS member Arturo Lascañas alleged that the missing Chinese were already dead after they were ordered killed by no less than Duterte.

In his 186-page affidavit submitted to the International Criminal Court that is probing into alleged killings under Duterte, Lascañas confirmed that the former Davao City mayor ordered the massacre of the foreigners. This had been reported on by Rappler as early as 2021. (READ: Davao shabu lab raid: ‘Eliminate them all’)

Acierto also confirmed in 2021 that Duterte ordered the burning of the Davao City shabu lab, including the killing of the lab staff. 

According to Lascañas, he and Duterte’s trusted man, Sonny Buenaventura met on December 31, 2004, when Buenaventura told him about the shabu laboratory operation. Lascañas said Buenaventura told him that per Duterte’s instructions, they have to “eliminate them all (the 11 Chinese), and dispose of them in a very clean manner, and that no remains or traces of their bodies could be recovered.”

Allan was allegedly included among the 11 Chinese victims, said the self-confessed DDS member. Although Lascañas’ accounts jibe with some of the details about the raid, his affidavit contradicts some of the information relayed during the hearings.

For one, Lascañas said the 11 Chinese were apprehended in a raid, but the PDEA said they were questioned in the Arlene Apartment, and not in the Dumoy raid. In addition, Allan was not part of the PDEA’s list of Chinese they had questioned in the apartment.

Nevertheless, Lascañas claimed in his affidavit that Carillo, the same officer mentioned in the PDEA logbook, called him at past 10 pm to tell him that the Chinese will be turned over to him. Lascañas and his companions picked up the foreigners and transported them to the Laud quarry while they were “hogtied from foot to their hands at the back and blindfolded with masking tape.”

While in Laud, Lascañas said he talked to the foreigners and one Chinese man, who identified himself as Allan, stood up and they started talking in a nearby shed. This was when the self-confessed DDS member knew that foreigners were allegedly connected to Michael Yang, Duterte’s friend, because Allan claimed Yang was their employer. 

Lascañas said Allan made a bargain and offered them money in exchange for allowing him to contact his wife, Jed, and to free two of the Chinese, who were chemists.

“RRD (Rodrigo Roa Duterte) told me to call up Sonny the moment we would finish the clean-up and disposal of the eleven Chinese nationals. I responded ‘Yes, Sir,’ and it ended our conversation,” Lascañas’ affidavit read. 

At 2 am, Lascañas said the 11 Chinese were brought to the quarry’s mountainous area where an eight-foot deep common grave awaited the victims. The DDS member said he shot Allan twice in the head using a .22 caliber pistol with a silencer. After tossing Allan Sy’s body to the grave, Lascañas said he killed the eight others one by one by shooting them twice in their heads. He let his companion kill the two other Chinese, he said. 

“In my case, my monthly “pakurat” (allowance) increased from P35,000 to P50,000 after I killed a certain Allan Sy and his group in 2004. It was later increased to P120,000,” Lascañas added. 

Villanueva was quick to counter Lascañas’ allegations when asked about the affidavit. “He [Lascañas] was not part of the operation. So I don’t know where his information came from,” the former PDEA chief said during the mega-panel’s hearing on January 21. Lascañas was indeed not part of the Dumoy raid, but was involved in the post-raid clean-up operations.

To haunt Duterte

In her affidavit seen by Rappler, Jed said the last time she talked to her husband was on the day of the Dumoy raid. On the same night, she said Duterte visited her in their house and told her, “Basta, galit na galit ako sa kanya (I am really angry at him).”

This was not the most striking part of Jed’s testimony, but her confirmation that her husband and Yang knew each other. Jed said Yang and Allan were friends, and that they even had a foam display area in Yang’s DCLA mall. 

The revelations added to the long list of killing allegations against Duterte and how he mobilized his death squad and rewarded them for following kill orders. They also revealed ties of Yang and Duterte himself.

The details about the operations showed how Yang was allegedly connected to drugs, this time, based on PDEA’s own report about Allan Sy. This also corroborated Acierto’s earlier report about Yang which claimed that the shabu lab raid was key to proving the businessman’s connection to the illegal drug trade. 

A combination of tough questioning and pressure by probing lawmakers appeared to have worked in the cases of retired police colonels Royina Garma and Edilberto Leonardo, who both ended up testifying against Duterte. 

With Yang nowhere to be found — he has eluded arrest — the quad comm’s other viable resource person against Duterte is Villanueva, due to their deep personal and professional relationship. Will Villanueva be the next one to give in?

The quad committee has yet to wind up efforts to gather more evidence to pin Duterte to illegal drugs and killings. It has already recommended suing Duterte for alleged crimes against humanity. – Rappler.com