VP Sara: Rodrigo Duterte calls 'link' to sabungeros 'preposterous'

Vice President Sara Duterte said her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, has called his supposed link to the case of the missing sabungeros or cockfighting enthusiasts "preposterous."

This developed after Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said Monday some people who have been involved in the "death squads" during the Duterte administration's drug war may also be involved in deaths related to e-sabong or online cockfights during the pandemic.

"Binalitaan ko siya about sa mga missing sabungeros case. And then… sinabihan ko siya na there is an attempt to link him to the missing sabungeros case. So, sabi niya that it is preposterous," Sara Duterte said in an interview in The Hague, Netherlands.

(I informed him about the missing sabungeros case. And then... I told him that there is an attempt to link him to the case. He said it is preposterous.) 

In a press conference on Monday, Remulla said the death squads "may intersect somehow" with the drug war under the Duterte administration and e-sabong.

The Justice secretary cited an arrest in Meycauayan where the drug suspects arrested were allegedly intertwined in e-sabong operations.

The Vice President is currently in the Netherlands to visit her father, who has been detained in The Hague since March for charges of crimes against humanity over alleged extrajudicial killings during the drug war.

One of the accused in the abduction of some of the cockfighters, Julie "Dondon" Patidongan, said the victims were killed on the days they were taken. 

Remulla said it appeared that Taal Lake has become a place to dispose of human remains.

Last week, authorities retrieved a sack containing what appeared to be burnt human bones. The day after, authorities recovered more sacks from the lake bed.

Some of the recovered bones from Taal Lake during the search for missing sabungeros were human remains, according to Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Police General Nicolas Torre III. — VDV, GMA Integrated News