DAVAO CITY—The Presidential Security Group (PSG) has tightened security around President Duterte and his family as the Chief Executive expands the list of drug personalities that includes a number of local officials and higher-ranking police officers.
The threat to the President’s life is also expected to notch a higher rung as the antinarcotics operations have also uncovered more shabu laboratories and strengthened the suspected connection and involvement among government officials in the illicit-drugs trade.
The Duterte camp here said it was this city’s vice mayor, Paolo Duterte, who confirmed the doubling of PSG personnel that ring around Mr. Duterte and the rest of the family members here.
The younger Duterte also disclosed that it was he who requested the PSG to tighten the security of their children.
He clarified, however, that the Duterte family is not new to threats in the course of the political work of his father, who left his prosecutorial job beginning in 1988 to accept the appointment by then-President Corazon C. Aquino to be the vice mayor of the city. The older Duterte vied for the mayoralty post in the next election and the post became uncontested since then, except in 1998, when he ran for Congress after the regulatory term limit of nine years for each elected position.