By Leonardo Micua

 

THE oral testimony of no less than former President Rodrigo Duterte before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee a few days ago was watched by millions of people all over the country on YouTube with bated breath.

They wanted to hear directly from the horse’s mouth how he would respond to the very serious charges that came out during an earlier Quad Com investigation in the House of Representatives that the killings in the course of the drug war during his administration were ordered by him through then PNP chief and now Senator Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa.

It was a leaner 79-year old Duterte, holding a walking cane, who appeared in that hearing, unrepentant of what his drug war may have caused to some people. He made it firm and clear to his audience that the war on drugs was the call of the President and he did it to save his country.

He never lost his fighting mood but tempered somehow his penchant for cursing his enemies. He said it is he who should be punished, not his policemen who merely executed his order to crack down on illegal drugs that then proliferated throughout the country and arrest the perpetrators.

However, many were frustrated that only one senator had the gall to ask Duterte the most telling questions pertaining to the controversial war on drugs.

That was Senator Risa Hontiveros, who riled Duterte with questions that prompted him to raise his voice at one point, prompting committee chair Coco Pimentel to declare a recess just to cool things down.

While her male counterparts may have tempered their questions out of respect or fear of the former head of state, Hontiveros was unshackled.

Answering some of these questions, Duterte somewhat implicated former PNP chiefs when he bared the existence of death squads when they were police chiefs of Davao City when he was still mayor.

But this was quickly qualified by Duterte himself who simply regarded it as a simple joke, the same way he conducted himself when he was still President, often regaling his audience with jokes to make them laugh.

Duterte never admitted that killing was part of his program in the war on drugs, nor was it state-sponsored, and reiterated his previous statement absolving all the faults of policemen who just followed his orders.

Asked if there was booty given to policemen for killing drug suspects as admitted by retired Colonel Royita Garma in one of the Quad Com hearings, Duterte barked: “Why would I give them reward. That’s their job.”

But he admitted telling policemen to encourage the notorious drug suspects being arrested to fight so that they (policemen) would have a reason to kill them.

We surmise that this could be the reason why most of those killed in the anti-drug operations were branded by the police as “nanlaban”. Did they, really?

As if Duterte was like fish caught by its own mouth, human rights lawyers immediately jumped the gun on the former President.

They consider such a statement as a most damning admission that extra-judicial killings did exist during Duterte’s time and could implicate then PNP chief De la Rosa.

The International Criminal Court, whose representatives in the Philippines also monitored the Senate hearing, believes that there was much said in that hearing that could be used to bolster its case against FPPRD and other officials of the past administration.

Was Senator Bato de la Rosa already satisfied with the responses of Duterte in that hearing? Recall that it was Bato and Senator Bong Go who asked for the hearing by their respective committees, the committee on illegal drugs and the health committee.

However, Senate President Chiz Escudero prevailed upon the two to let another committee handle the hearing for delicadeza’s sake.

Let’s wait for FPRRD to attend the QuadCom to undergo another grilling exercise.

I doubt if he is bold enough to face the congressmen, many of them unfriendly to him, who are also probing the EJKs that happened during his war on drugs.

Let’s wait and see.

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