Former President Rodrigo Duterte testifies at the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing on extrajudicial killings, addressing alleged human rights violations from his administration’s war on drugs on October 28, 2024. Maria Tan, ABS-CBN News

MANILA — Congressmen on Wednesday took exception to the doubts raised by former President Rodrigo Duterte on the integrity of the House Quad Committee, which was investigating the killings in his anti-drug crackdown.  

Duterte’s lawyer Martin Delgra III told the quad comm in a letter that his client expressed “grave concern” over the manner by which the quad comm allegedly “persuades” persons to admit matters under oath. He said Duterte offered an opinion that it was a case of subornation.  

These doubts supposedly prompted Duterte to skip the Thursday hearing of the House Quad Comm, despite a previous assurance from his lawyer that he would attend the hearing on some other available date “preferably after November 1”.

Former President Duterte to skip November 7 Quad Comm hearing: counsel

Quad comm lead co-chairperson Rep. Robert Ace Barbers asserted that they never “forced” admissions from resource persons. 

“Forced admissions, in any way, were never part of quad comm. We may not have extracted yet the information fully from them, but we never put words in their mouths. Whatever testimonies and affidavits they presented before the quad comm were given by them freely and voluntarily,” Barbers said. 

“We may be accused of providing entertainment and likened to a gag show, but who is laughing? On the contrary, the one who said that, must be so full of himself that he didn’t notice that the joke was on him,” he added. 

His co-chairperson Rep. Joseph Stephen Paduano asked whether Duterte was afraid of facing the quad comm or was his lawyer “fooling” lawmaker when he committed that the former President would appear before the mega-panel.

“Ano ito? Naglolokohan tayo rito? The first letter he promised us that he will be present after November 1. Kung hindi tayo naglolokohan dito, ano? Natatakot siya na pumunta rito? We should invite again the former President to be present in the next hearing,” Paduano said.

For Rep. Zia Adiong, the absence of Duterte and his lawyer in Thursday’s hearing was a “clear act of evasion”.

The quad comm invited Delgra to attend the next hearing to explain the contents of his letter on behalf of Duterte.

In his letter, Delgra said his client suggested that the transcript of the Senate hearing attended by Duterte be made available to the quad comm “to save the government time and taxpayer’s money”.

But Adiong said the quad comm could not rely on the transcript because they did not know which parts were supposedly jokes. 

Duterte’s allies claimed that some statements issued by the former President were mere jokes. 

In the Senate, Duterte had talked at length about instructing police officers to goad drug suspects into fighting back to justify killing them, and said that some of his chiefs of police were part of the Davao Death Squads.

But for Abante, these statements were made under oath and that the lives lost in the drug war were not a laughing matter.

READ: Time for agencies to build case vs Duterte, former IBP president says

“Who makes jokes under oath? Who laughs while mothers bury their sons? Who finds humor in this horror? This is no laughing matter. The lives lost, the grief that lingers, the blood spilled in our streets—these are not punchlines in a cruel joke. These are lives, young innocent lives, taken from us,” he said.

“We have the statement of the former president. We also have testimony and evidence that corroborates what he said under oath. Now we must hold to account those who have perpetrated these heinous crimes,” Abante added.

WILLING TO INHIBIT

Rep. Dan Fernandez said he was willing to inhibit as co-chairperson from the mega panel’s discussion on PCol. Hector Grijaldo's claim before the Senate that he was told by Fernandez and Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr. to confirm the alleged reward system in the Duterte administration’s drug war. 

Fernandez and Abante denied this claim.

“If you want to speak something about what really transpired during the conversation with Grijlado, maybe we will ask you to vacate your position as co-chair and be a resource person,” Paduano told Fernandez.

Fernandez replied, “Yes, Mr. Chairman. As a matter of fact, that’s what I intend to do, to inhibit myself in the discussion about this issue and together maybe with Chairman Abante, we will be trying to relieve temporarily our chairmanship in order to discuss this in a transparent and impartial and honest investigation on this matter."

"This pertains to the integrity of this quad comm and we don’t want this Quad Comm to be deluged with so many bad comments about what Chairman Abante and this representation have done in order to ferret out the truth,” he added. 

Grijaldo was absent in Thursday’s Quad Comm hearing. His camp submitted a prescription letter saying he was suffering from shoulder pains, but House Deputy Speaker Rep. David Suarez said the document had no date. The mega-panel ordered the issuance of a show cause order for Grijaldo to explain why he should not be cited in contempt for skipping the Thursday hearing. 

The House quad comm also ordered the issuance of subpoena for “Muking” Espino, who was implicated in the alleged reward system in the Duterte administration’s drug war.

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