THOSE who follow congressional inquiries are by now aware that the more lurid, juicy and devastating revelations about the previous administration’s war on drugs and its concomitant alleged EJK (extrajudicial killings) are coming out from the House of Representatives and not the Senate.
Recent hearings of the powerful four committees of the House, otherwise known as the quad comm, have elicited explosive information and confessions from certain personalities involved in former President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, both from the camps of victims and implementors.
First to open the can of worms was former mayor Jed Mabilog of Iloilo City, who said that he felt compelled to leave the country for several years because Duterte had included him in the list of big drug lords who were targeted for assassination. Mabilog denied involvement in drugs and proffered the counter-charge that he was being harassed by the ex-president because of political reasons.
‘Without closure to this pesky issue of extrajudicial killings, the nation will also be divided and dragged into the quagmire of underdevelopment…’
Mabilog’s testimony was followed by two more resource persons– retired police Col. Royina Garma and confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa detailed cases of drug-related extrajudicial killings. Kerwin, who is now running for office in his hometown of Albuera, Leyte, is the son of the late Mayor Rolando Espinosa, who was killed inside a jail in an alleged shootout with policemen during the controversial anti-drug campaign.
When the committee headed by Rep. Robert Ace Barbers asked Kerwin if he believed that Duterte ordered the killing of his father in 2016, Espinosa confirmed that he did.
“We saw on TV that the former president was saying he would kill all those on the narco list. So, as I understand it, he really ordered the killing of my father,” Espinosa said.
Garma, who was appointed by Duterte as the chief of police of Cebu City, accused the former President and Sen. Christopher Go of ordering her to help in implementing the “Davao Model” nationwide, or the reward system that compensated police officers for every drug suspect they killed.
According to the lady whistleblower, the execution of the Davao Model was led by then police Col. Edilberto Leonardo. In her affidavit, she said that Leonardo reported to Go on the summary killings and the names of individuals added to the narco list. This was also for the alleged reimbursement of operational expenses in the drug war.
The cash rewards, she explained, could range from as low as P20,000 to as high as P1 million, based on a “bracketing system” categorizing individuals involved in the illegal drug trade, such as financiers, traffickers, distributors, pushers, and chemists.
These are serious allegations and the House committees’ expected response, aside from proposed legislation, is to recommend the filing of charges in court against the suspects, however high in the political landscape they may be.
There is even a suggestion from left-wing leaders for President Bongbong Marcos to turn over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) the testimonies of Garma and Espinosa on EJK, saying the ICC is “in the best position” to prosecute former President Rodrigo Duterte and his subordinates, including former PNP chief and now Sen. Ronald Dela Rosa, for the bloody war on drugs which resulted in the deaths of around 30,000 Filipinos as recorded by human rights groups.
Without closure to this pesky issue of extrajudicial killings, the nation will also be divided and dragged into the quagmire of underdevelopment as contending political forces, which unfortunately are our leaders, busied themselves in fighting each other.