Tri-media personality Leo Lastimosa, accompanied by his lawyer Christian Llido, appears before the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Central Visayas (CIDG-7) after he was asked to authenticate a recording of his radio interview with Senator Antonio Trillanes IV on Sept. 8, 2017. CDN PHOTO / ADOR MAYOL
Trillanes Interview
FOR the second time, Cebu tri-media personality Leo Lastimosa appeared before the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Central Visayas (CIDG-7) on Friday to reiterate his refusal to authenticate an audio recording supposedly of his radio interview with Senator Antonio Trillanes IV in 2017.
Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte is reportedly requesting for the audio recording which will form part of his evidence for a libel case he’s going to file against Trillanes over a statement linking the presidential son to the P6.4-billion “shabu” smuggling last year.
Lastimosa said technicians of radio dyAB, where he serves as station manager and anchor, have long deleted their own recording.
As instructed by the National Telecommunications Communications (NTC), he said all radio stations must keep an audio recording of their programs for 10 days.
If they receive a complaint within the 10-day period, Lastimosa said they can set aside a copy of the audio recording of that particular program.
In the case of his interview with Trillanes over his Arangkada program on September 8, 2017, he said he never received any complaint within the 10- day period which could have been used as a basis to keep a copy of the audio recording.
“We received a complaint only 10 months after the interview, and it has been a while now since the audio recording of my interview with Senator Trillanes was deleted,” he said in Cebuano on his Arangkada program on Friday.
“There’s really nothing I can present to the CIDG. Now, they are asking me to authenticate a recording which I don’t even know where they got it from. How sure am I that it was not spliced or edited? In all honesty, I could no longer recall what I and Senator Trillanes talked about in that interview,” he added.
In March 2018, President Rodrigo Duterte signed a new law giving the chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the CIDG the power to subpoena people and documents in criminal investigations.
Republic Act No. 10973 gives the PNP chief and the CIDG director and deputy director for administration the power to issue subpoenas compelling the attendance of persons of interest or the production of documents relevant to an investigation.
On Friday, Lastimosa, accompanied by the radio station’s lawyer Christian Llido, complied with the CIDG’s request for him to appear again before its office.
But, again, he insisted that he could not give what the police demanded from him.
Supt. Arturo Divino, chief investigator of CIDG-7, said they were instructed by their head office in Manila to let Lastimosa execute an affidavit to make formal his statements.
“I don’t have any background about this case. I was just asked by our superiors to talk to him (Lastimosa) and let him submit an affidavit,” he said.
Lastimosa submitted his affidavit past 12 noon on Friday.
It, however, remains to be seen as to how the CIDG central office in Manila will react to Lastimosa’s statement.
Last year, Trillanes accused Paolo Duterte of being a member of a drug triad which could be proven by a colored, dragon-like tattoo on his back.
The presidential son admitted he has a tattoo but invoked his right to privacy when asked what it looked like.
A fact-finding panel of the Office of the Ombudsman has cleared Paolo and his brother-in-law, Mans Carpio, of involvement in the P6.4-billion shabu shipment that was smuggled into the country from China .