Paolo Duterte questions need to testify on alleged cash deliveries

MANILA, Philippines – Davao City Rep. Paolo “Pulong” Duterte on Saturday questioned the necessity of his testimony to “shed light” on the claims by a dismissed policeman that suitcases were delivered to him and his relatives.

If Rodulfo Gracioso, Jr. passed a lie detector test regarding his cash delivery claims, then there should be no need to summon him, Duterte said in a Facebook post, noting that investigators already consider the accuser’s polygraph results as truthful.

“So Gracioso is 99.9 percent legit based on the NBI’s (National Bureau of Investigation) lie detector test, right? Well if you’re that confident in him, why do you still need my insights?” he said in Filipino.

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He challenged the credibility of the investigation, asking whether law enforcement officials were summoning him just because “the evidence is still incomplete, or does the NBI just lack confidence in their own assessment?”

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READ: Sara Duterte camp studies filing perjury case vs Gracioso

The NBI issued an invitation to Duterte on Saturday, asking him to appear on Monday, Oct. 12, to “shed light” on Gracioso’s cash claims.

Gracioso claimed to have delivered more than P2 billion to the vice president, as well as P1 billion to former President Rodrigo Duterte and P100 million to the Davao City representative in tranches starting in 2018 upon the instructions of his former boss, former House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco. 

Gracioso took a polygraph test on Sept. 30 at the NBI as part of the process of verifying the truthfulness of his Sept. 14 affidavit about cash deliveries to Duterte and other personalities.

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“If his affidavit is 99.9 percent legit, your case should be able to stand on its own evidence, not on my opinion,” said Duterte. “I wasn’t the one who said 99.9 percent. You were the ones who said that.”

“So, put your money where your mouth is. Otherwise, don’t use me to boost your confidence,” he added. /das