SEN. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa yesterday challenged critics and alleged victims of the previous administration’s drug war to go to court if they believe that the admissions made by former President Rodrigo Duterte under oath during the Senate sub-committee hearing were “worthy.”
In a Zoom interview with reporters, Dela Rosa conceded that Duterte’s statements during the hearing last Monday were “Incriminating” and could be used against him by his accusers.
“Incriminating ang admissions niya, pwedeng magamit ‘yan against him lalo na under oath sya (His admissions were incriminating, they can be used against him especially since he said them under oath),” said Dela Rosa, an avid supporter of the former president.
He believes, though, that Duterte can defend himself if charges are filed against him.
“Hinamon pa nga niya (ang critics niya) to file a case against him. Depende na lang sa kanya how he is going to defend himself (He even dared [the victims and interested parties] to file a case against him. So, it’s really up to him now how he will defend himself,” he added.
Dela Rosa said that if so-called victims of the drug war and other concerned parties believe that they have a case against the former president, they should heed his challenge and sue him in court.
“Walang problema under oath siya. If you find it worthy, kasuhan siya. See you in court (They will not have any problems because he was under oath. If they find [his admissions] worthy, then file cases against him. See you in court),” he said.
During last Monday’s hearing, Duterte claimed “full, legal and moral responsibility” for the drug war and its shortcomings, saying he should be held liable and not the police officers who only followed his orders.
He told senators that he encouraged cops to provoke criminals to fight so they would have a reason to summarily kill them.
He also owned up that he organized a death squad composed of seven “gangsters” who allegedly came from rich families and whom he tapped to kill certain individuals, especially those involved in the illegal drugs trade.
He added that that the former chiefs of police in Davao, who later became PNP chiefs, were also part of his death squad.
Duterte also said that he has long been killing people and has been wondering why no cases have been filed against him until now.
Dela Rosa said Duterte is a lawyer who knows the consequences of his testimonies made under oath.
“President Duterte has been president for six years. You get what you see. It’s up to you to decipher lahat ng sinasabi niyang superlatives. Lahat ‘yan puro panakot sa criminal at very effective siya sa kanyang ginagawang pananakot (Everything he says are superlatives. All of them were meant to scare criminals and he has been very effective with that),” he said, adding that when he was the chief of police of Davao City, Duterte never ordered him to kill someone.
But while Dela Rosa conceded that Duterte’s statements before the blue ribbon sub-committee were incriminating, some of his revelations should be taken as a “joke.”
He said it is up to the committee to assess his testimony.
“It is up to the committee to decide on those joke niya na sinasabi. As far as I am concerned, I know 100 percent na ang sinabi niya na ang chief PNP dati mga miyembro ng DDS, alam ko nagbibiro lang siya, binawi naman niya later on na hindi pulis ang DDS kundi mga taong mayaman sa Davao na gustong tumulong sa kanya. Sinabi rin ni Gen. Danao na the president is joking (It is up to the committee to decide on those jokes that he said. As far as I am concerned, I know 100 percent that he was only joking when he said that the former PNP chiefs were part of the DDS [Davao Death Squad]. I know that he is just joking because he later took it back, saying the police is not part of the DDS but the rich people from Davao who wanted to help him. [Former PNP officer-in-charge] Gen. [Vicente] Danao also said that the former president was just joking),” he added.
ICC CASE
With regards the ongoing probe of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the extrajudicial killings related to Duterte’s war on drugs, Dela Rosa said the ICC can monitor the developments in the ongoing investigations being conducted by the Senate and the House of Representatives.
However, he maintained that the ICC cannot use the congressional probe findings against Duterte, himself and the other accused since the Philippines is no longer is no longer a party to the Rome Statute.
“The ICC has no jurisdiction over the Philippines,” he stressed.
He said he is not worried that the ICC would use Duterte’s testimony during the Senate hearing to pin them down in the crimes against humanity cases filed against them before the international body.
“Wala na ‘yang worry worry na ‘yan. Sige kung nandiyan kayo. Sige, go ahead, Magwo-worry ka ikaw din ang talo (I am not worried a bit. If they are there, okay, go ahead. I will be at the losing end if I will worry),” he said.
WON’T INHIBIT
Also during the interview, Dela Rosa said neither he nor Sen. Christopher “Bong” Go will inhibit from participating in the Senate probe.
“No, because mawawalan ako ng delicadeza kung hahayaan ko ang kasinungalingan ang mangibabaw. Kailangan lumabas ang katotohanan (No [I will not inhibit] because I will lose my sense of honor if I allow lies to continue. The truth needs to come out),” he said.
“I don’t want to sacrifice the truth. The truth shall come out kaya dadalo at dadalo ako (that’s why I will attend the hearings no matter what),” he added.
He said those who are pressing him and Go to inhibit supposedly want to suppress the truth.
Lawmakers from the House of Representatives have called on the two Duterte allies to inhibit from the Senate hearings out of delicadeza, saying they is a conflict of interest in their continued participation since they have also been accused of crimes related to the drug war.
SCRIPTED
Dela Rosa also took a swipe at Sta. Rosa Rep. Dan Fernandez for saying that the affidavit that Police Col. Hector Grijaldo read during the Senate hearing was “scripted” and made to put him and Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante in a bad light for supposedly forcing the police official to corroborate the existence of the alleged reward system cor cops who killed drug suspects.
“It takes a thief to know a thief. Nakapag conclude siya na scripted dahil ginagawa siguro nila sa quad comm nila kaya ang bilis niya makapag-conclude (It takes a thief to know a thief. He concluded that it was scripted because maybe they are doing that in the quad comm),” Dela Rosa said.
He said that he and Go pursued the Senate hearing since there are many lies peddled by the resource persons who appeared during the hearings of the quad committee.
“Sobra na ang ginagawa ng quad comm. Ang dami nang kasinungalingan doon kaya nag-request kami na gumawa ng parallel investigation. We don’t feel the importance kasi dati nang ini-imbestigahan, directed ‘yan towards President Duterte. Nakita ko na kailangan na magkaroon ng parallel investigation para lumabas ang katotohanan at yun na nga, lumabas na (We are fed up with what the quad comm is doing. There are a lot of lies being peddled there so we requested for a parallel investigation. We don’t feel the importance [of the quad comm hearings] because they have been investigating [the war on drugs] for quite some time now, and the investigation is directed towards former President Duterte. That’s why we saw the need for a parallel investigation so that the truth will come out, and I can say that it is already coming out),” he said.
PALACE AIDE
At the House of Representatives, Fernandez said the quad committee is expecting to hear next week the testimony of former Palace aide Irmina “Muking” Espino on her role in the drug war reward scheme after she was identified by former police Lt. Col. Royina Garma as the one who handled the funds in Malacañang.
Fernandez, one of the quad committee chairmen, said the joint panel will press for answers following Espino’s appearance before a subcommittee of the Senate blue ribbon committee where she denied involvement in the alleged cash reward scheme, which bankrolled the Duterte administration’s bloody drug war.
The lawmaker, who chairs the House Committee on Public Order and Safety, warned Espino that she could face a contempt citation and arrest if she fails to appear at the joint panel’s hearing on November 6.
“Most likely, darating ‘yan kasi alam nya may procedure – una ay invitation, tapos show-cause order and then afterwards isa-cite in contempt (Most likely, she’ll attend because she knows that there’s a procedure – first, an invitation, then a show-cause order and then afterwards, contempt citation),” Fernandez said.
The quad committee has already issued a show cause order to Espino and five others, asking them to explain why they should not be cited for contempt after they failed to attend the committee’s October 22 hearing.
Garma, who is a former Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) general manager under the Duterte administration, earlier told the joint panel that Espino, who was a staff member of Go, managed the cash rewards distributed to police officers for killing drug suspects.
Espino was previously reported to have worked for Go at the Davao city hall during Duterte’s tenure as mayor and later at Malacañang as an assistant secretary when Go became special assistant to the president. She later served as undersecretary until Duterte’s term ended in 2022.
In her supplemental affidavit, Garma outlined how police commanders were allegedly required to submit reports on successful operations at the end of each month, including requests for reimbursements for operational expenses, such as buy-bust money and gasoline.
“At the end of each month, all station commanders were required to submit reports documenting successful police operations to the LGU of Davao,” Garma said. “These reports included details of cases filed in the Office of the Prosecutor and other relevant information concerning the operations.”
For each case, Garma said commanders were reimbursed P5,000, which was handled through Espino.
“The disbursement of these funds occurred monthly through Irma Espino, a.k.a. ‘Muking,’ and we were required to sign documents acknowledging receipt of payment,” she said.
Garma, who was known to be close to Duterte, has already revealed details about the roles of the former president and Go in overseeing the anti-drug operations, confirming the creation of a national task force patterned after the “Davao Model,” which provided police with financial rewards for killing drug suspects, funding for planned operations, and reimbursement for operational expenses.
Dela Rosa was the PNP chief who implemented the drug war during the early years of the Duterte administration, while Go was still special assistant to the president then.
Garma had also revealed how she was supposedly instructed by Duterte to help find a police officer who could replicate the deadly Davao Model nationwide, after which she recommended Police Col. Edilberto Leonardo, who later led a task force.
Leonardo, who has resigned as commissioner of the National Police Commission (Napolcom), has corroborated Garma’s testimonies that a rewards system for cops who killed drugs suspects was adopted under Duterte’s war on drugs.
‘ANOTHER BUDOL’
Fernandez also refuted Duterte’s claim in the Senate hearing that crime is again on the rise, saying the extrajudicial killings during the previous administration was what increased the number of crimes in the country.
“Nabudol na naman tayo. Malinaw na mas mababa ang krimen ngayon kumpara noong panahon ng dating administrasyon (We were scammed again. It’s clear that the crime rate now is lower than the one recorded under the previous administration,” Fernandez said, citing a PNP report that index crimes from July 1, 2022 to July 28, 2024 dropped to 83,059 from 217,830 during the same period in the first two years of Duterte’s term from 2016 to 2018, or a decrease of 61.87 percent.
Cases of murder, homicide, physical injuries and rape decreased by 55.69 percent, while the number of cases of robbery, theft, car theft and other crimes against property fell by 66.81 to 41,420 from 124,799 during the same comparative periods, he said.
Crime clearance efficiency increased by 27.13 percent while the crime solution efficiency rate rose by 10.28 percent, he added, quoting the PNP report.
For his part, Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, chair of the House Committee on Dangerous Drugs and overall quad committee chairman, said the PNP also reported drug seizures worth P35.6 billion and the arrest of 122,309 drug suspects.
Unlike Duterte’s administration, Barbers said the present national leadership under the Marcos Jr. administration “values and respects the sanctity of life.”
Fernandez said the Marcos administration’s anti-drug drive “is not likely to elicit anger, resentment and a desire for revenge on the part of our people.”
“It focuses on apprehending suspects and rehabilitating them, instead of ‘neutralizing’ them,” he said, referring to the language used by the PNP in going after drug suspects.
ELIMINATING COMPETITION?
Fernandez alleged the Duterte administration’s war on drugs targeted mostly low-level drug users and peddlers and only a few high-value suspects.
He said the rumors and speculations then “were that some high-value suspects were targeted to eliminate competition.”
He pointed out that the Dutertes themselves were allegedly linked to a huge drug shipment in 2018, referring to the testimony given to the quad committee by former Bureau of Customs agent Jimmy Guban, who claimed that Duterte’s son Paolo, a Davao City congressman, his son-in-law Manases Carpio, husband of Vice President Sara Duterte, and his economic adviser Michael Yang, a Chinese, were al legedly behind the smuggling of the P11 billion drug contraband seized in Cavite.
Barbers said drug-related activities the authorities have been exposing under the Marcos administration are tied to a criminal syndicate that flourished during the Duterte watch.
He cited the P6.3 billion shabu haul in a warehouse in Mexico town in Pampanga in September 2023 that was linked to several Chinese nationals associated with Yang.
“Aside from smuggling drugs, they faked documents to obtain Filipino passports and assume Filipino identity, which they used in illegally forming corporations as fronts for offshore gambling and buying large tracts of land and other assets to launder funds,” Barbers said. “This crime gang that saw its heydays in the past is still casting a shadow over efforts of the Marcos leadership to stop criminal activities,” he said.
Manila Rep. Rolando Valeriano, a member of the House’s good government panel, said Duterte does not have the power to exonerate rouge policemen and hired guns who committed extrajudicial killings “in the name of his bloody war on drugs.”
“He is not a hero. He is not God. He is not the law. He is not above the law. He is a plague. It is not up to former president Rodrigo Roa Duterte to determine who are criminally, civilly, and administratively liable for crimes committed during his brutal war on drugs. His acceptance of legal responsibility for the criminal and inhumane war on drugs does not absolve others of liability,” he said. – With Wendell Vigilia
