DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 22 October) – Former President Rodrigo R. Duterte has declined to attend the joint public hearing of the Committees on Dangerous Drugs, Public Order & Safety, Human Rights and Public Accounts of the House of Representatives (Quad Comm) scheduled on Tuesday, October 22, but has “assured the House of his attendance at the hearing on any date after November 1.”
In a letter dated October 21, lawyer Martin B. Delgra III, Duterte’s counsel, informed the Quad Comm that the former President could not attend the inquiry being conducted in aid of legislation because “he is not feeling well and needs rest after returning to the city last October 17, following several engagements in Metro Manila the previous week.”
Delgra, whom Duterte appointed chairman of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB), said the former President received the invitation letter from the Quad Comm only last Sunday, October 18.
The Quad Comm sought Duterte’s attendance at the hearing “to provide insights and shed light on some issues under discussion,” particularly on the bloody war on drugs allegedly perpetrated by the previous Duterte administration.
“Aside from the short notice given to him, my client just arrived in Davao from Metro Manila on 17 October 2024. Considering his advanced age and the several engagements he had to attend, he is currently not feeling well and is in need of much rest,” Delgra said.
In an interview with SMNI News on October 17, Duterte said he would appear in the House probe if invited and vowed to give Quad Comm members the “answers they want” to hear.
Duterte also denied claims made by retired police officer Royina Garma, whom he appointed as general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office in 2019, that the police were tapped to replicate the “Davao model” to implement a nationwide “war on drugs.”
According to Garma’s affidavit submitted to the Quad Comm, the “Davao model” involved three levels of payments or rewards: reward if the suspect is killed, funding of planned operations or COPLANS, and refund of operational expenses.
Garma said the then President-elect Duterte called him to an early morning meeting in his house in May 2016 to seek her help in looking for someone in the police who could bring the “Davao model” on a national scale.
She said Duterte was looking for a police officer or operative who was a member of Iglesia ni Cristo (INC).
Garma said she informed the President that she did not know anyone who met the qualifications, as she had never been assigned outside this city or served at the national headquarters of the Philippine National Police.
But she added that she remembered her upperclassman Edilberto Leonardo, an INC member and officer assigned to the CIDG in Manila.
Garma said Duterte summoned Leonardo at the Royal Mandaya Hotel in Davao for a meeting and instructed him to “organize a task force” similar to the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force or PAOCTF.
Before the Quad Comm hearings, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has initiated an investigation into extrajudicial killings during Duterte’s administration. Duterte has repeatedly said that he does not recognize the international court “as it has no jurisdiction over the Philippines.”
In 2019, the Philippines withdrew from the ICC after the international court launched a preliminary examination of the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.
Government records say some 6,000 were killed in anti-drug operations from June 2016 until May 31, 2022, but human rights groups estimate that the death toll may be as high as 30,000.
Then-ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced that the ICC will conduct a preliminary examination of these deaths in February 2018. The pre-trial investigation began five years later on Sept. 15, 2021—covering crimes allegedly committed in the country between Nov. 1, 2011 and March 16, 2019, when the Philippines was a state party to the Rome Statute.
This expands the scope of the investigation beyond the Duterte presidency’s “war on drugs” to also include killings during Duterte’s time as Davao City mayor.
On 17 March 2018, then-President Duterte formally notified the UN Secretary-General that the Philippines was withdrawing from the Rome Statute. The withdrawal became effective on 16 March 2019, a year after its receipt by the UN Secretary General. (Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)
