POLICE Col. Hector Grijaldo is expected to spend Christmas and New Year at the Batasang Pambansa after he was cited in contempt and ordered detained by the House quad committee last Thursday for telling senators that he was forced to confirm the testimonies of former senior police officers that there was a reward system for cops who killed drug suspects during the Duterte administration’s bloody war on drugs.
Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, overall chairman of the quad committee, said Grijaldo, who did not attend the joint panel’s hearing after four invitations, has been detained at the Batasan since Saturday.
“Si Col. Grijaldo ay naka-detain ngayon sa detention facility ng House of Representatives simula noong December 14 (Col. Grijaldo detained at the facility of the House of Representatives since December 14),” he told reporters. “Dito na siya magpapa-Pasko at magba-Bagong Taon (He’ll spend Christmas and New Year here).”
Barbers said Grijaldo wanted to be under hospital arrest “but of course we did not allow that, because his doctors said he’s ambulatory, he can walk.”
“There’s no reason for him to stay in the hospital,” he said.
In a letter to the panel last month, Grijado explained that he was not available to attend the hearings because he has been in the hospital undergoing treatment for “rotator cuff syndrome.”
Grijaldo, a member of the PNP Drug Enforcement Group, told senators last October 28 that Sta. Rosa Rep. Dan Fernandez, a quad committee co-chair, allegedly ordered him to confirm the drug war reward system during a private meeting before one of the hearings of the joint panel.
Fernandez, who earlier said the allegations could be a demolition job aimed at attacking him and Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante, also another committee co-chair, to discredit the whole committee and its proceedings, said the police colonel’s excuses were “not acceptable.”
The lawmaker has already explained that the meeting was called upon the request of former police Lt. Col. Royina Garma, who was the first to confirm the reward system along with former police Col. Edilberto Leonardo.
Garma’s two lawyers who were present in the meeting attended by Fernandez, Grijaldo and Abante, have already denied the police official’s allegations, which Fernandez said happened after he mentioned the name of Sen. Ronald Dela Rosa’s son during the October 22 committee hearing.
Fernandez said that in that hearing, he quizzed police Lt. Col. Bryan Andulan about his alleged involvement in the assassination of Los Baños, Laguna mayor Caesar Perez.
The lawmaker asked Andulan what his relationship with Dela Rosa was and when the police officer told him that he was assigned to the Philippine National Police Academy, Fernandez surmised that it connects Andulan to Dela Rosa because the senator’s son was a plebe at the PNPA at the time.
