• Digong in a showdown with Risa
DAVAO CITY – Former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte said during the first hearing on the war on drugs of the Senate Committee on Accountability of Public Officers and Investigations that he offered no apologies during the drug war under his administration.
“My mandate as president of the republic was to protect the country and the Filipino people. Do not question my policies because I offer no apologies and no excuses. I did what I had to do,” he said.
He also said that he takes “full responsibility” for the bloody anti-narcotics campaign but, denied that killing was part of his policy.
“I alone take full legal responsibility for want the police have done. They’re just doing their jobs and I am the one to be held accountable and be imprisoned,” Duterte added.
He denied authorizing the authorities to kill suspects and has never ordered the national police heads to carry out extrajudicial killings.
However, he admitted that he had a “death squad of seven”, pointing at former officers who dealt with members of drug and crime syndicates who refused to surrender but opted to fight it out with the law enforcers.
(The Davao Death Squad is a phantom force created by former Integrated National Police Regional Commander Col. Dionisio Tan-gatue Jr. to scare the vicious liquidation squad of the New Peoples Army at the height of communist insurgency in Davao City in mid-1980. Editor)
When asked by senators for further details of the death squad, he said he would give more information at the next hearing.
During the hearing, Duterte had a heated exchange of words with Senator Risa Hontiveros who had been rating against him.
While Duterte spiced his repartee with jokes to set the mood at the senate, the lady senator chided him and others for making the inquiry a funny event.
In a warning that had been the character of senators against their invited witnesses and resource persons, Hontiveros warned the former president that she will file contempt in the next hearing if he continues to use foul language.
Lawyer Salvador Panelo, in an interview over Bilyonaryo News Channel’s “At the Forefront” said Duterte was “toying” with Hontiveros, who supposedly could not understand him since she is not a lawyer.
“Senator Risa Hontiveros may have thought she backed former President Rodrigo Duterte into a corner during the Senate hearing on the drug war, but she was actually way off the mark,” Panelo said.
During the senate probe, Hontiveros said that the strategy of Duterte in encouraging the drug suspects to fight the police is “incorrect.”
“That’s your point of view Ma’am. You haven’t tried to be a mayor, a prosecutor. I know my job; you haven’t tried to manage a city. You never had the chance to solve the problem of the community,” he told Hontiveros.
“Kung pabalikin ako, gagawin ko uli yan, doblado,” he added which earned him an applause from the crowd.
Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go, a long time confidant of Duterte, dismisses allegations of human rights abuses during the Duterte administration.
Go dismissed as baseless the allegations of a reward system during President Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs.
“Former President Duterte’s only desire is to clean up our country and fight those who sow terror, especially when it comes to illegal drugs. As far as I know, he has never implemented any system in exchange for anyone’s life. We don’t want law enforcement officers themselves to violate human rights and we also don’t want drug dealers to sow terror in every street we pass,” he said.
The senator added that 55 percent or almost six out of every 10 barangays nationwide became drug-free during Duterte’s tenure, resulting in the confiscation of more than PHP76 billion worth of drugs.
He said that 79 percent or almost eight out of every 10 Filipinos supported the former president’s campaign against illegal drugs.
“In President Duterte’s first five years in office, the crime rate in the entire country was decreased by more than 70 percent. Our countrymen will talk about how safe they are to go out on the streets even in the dead of night and why President Duterte’s approval and trust ratings remained high from the beginning to the end of his term. This is the proof that the people recognized the positive changes brought by his administration,” Go added.
