BACOLOD City – Controversial former councilor Ricardo Tan announced he had acquired “complete freedom”.
According to Tan, he was “delisted” by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) from the Inter-Agency Drug Enforcement database.
This is pursuant to the recommendation of the review, evaluation committee and approved by President Rodrigo Duterte through a memorandum dated July 31, 2021, Tan said.
“Today marks my complete freedom from all the fake news against me and my family. Today I stand before you as a vindicated man,” Tan told journalists over the weekend.
In January 2019 during a private birthday party of an official of Vallacar Transit at a hotel in this city, Duterte linked Tan to illegal drugs.
Tan disappeared from public view and only surfaced in May this year after his name was cleared by the Police Regional Office-6 (PRO-6).
PRO-6 issued on Aug. 6, 2020 a clearance and/or certification clearing Tan and his family from any links or participation to the illegal drug trade.
The former councilor survived an ambush in December 2018; his elder brother Roberto was shot to death by riding-in-tandem gunmen in Barangay Estefania a year after.
Police earlier said the incidents maybe related. These remained unsolved./PN
