Dela Rosa on leading drug war: No regrets, I’ll do it again

FILE PHOTO: Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa. (Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau)

Reelectionist Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa on Thursday said he has no regrets over the deadly war on drugs he implemented as Philippine National Police chief, adding that he would do it again.

“No, no regrets,” Dela Rosa told reporters in a phone interview. “If you are going to give me the chance to do it again, I will do it again … the same approach.”

In June 2022, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency officially acknowledged that a total of 6,252 drug suspects were killed in former President Rodrigo Duterte’s war against illegal drugs as of May 31 that year.

Various human rights groups and advocates, however, claimed the actual number may be 20,000, although there has been no factual corroboration of that figure.

“You can’t fight a war, especially against the drug personalities, by being decent,” Dela Rosa said.

The drug war killings have been used as a basis for the crimes against humanity case filed by families of the victims before the International Criminal Court.

‘Davao model’

During one of the hearings conducted by the House of Representatives quad committee on the drug war, retired Police Col. Royina Garma alleged that Duterte and other high-ranking government officials sanctioned operations replicating the “Davao model” of extrajudicial killings on a national scale.

In the same hearing, former drug suspect Kerwin Espinosa said it was Dela Rosa who ordered him to implicate former Sen. Leila de Lima and businessman Peter Lim in the illegal drug trade.

His claim about Dela Rosa applying pressure on him to destroy De Lima’s reputation was also corroborated by Police Col. Jovie Espenido.

Dela Rosa has since denied the allegations against him and said he could defend the legality of the drug war at the Senate inquiry that starts on Monday.

Despite a standing invitation from the quad committee, Duterte has not appeared before it. He skipped the Oct. 22 hearing because his lawyer, Martin Delgra III, said he was ill although he was open to attending future inquiries, preferably after Nov. 1.

Dela Rosa, however, said the former president would appear before the Senate.

Second thoughts

But Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel, who was tasked with preside over the Blue Ribbon probe, said Duterte appeared to have had second thoughts.

The quad committee uncovered even more anomalies in a marathon hearing on Tuesday when retired Police Col. Edilberto Leonardo corroborated the testimony of Garma about a rewards system for Duterte’s drug war.

Laguna Rep. Dan Fernandez surmised that Leonardo’s initial reluctance to verify Garma’s testimony may be due to fear of retribution.

“Remember, his family is in Davao City and even us in the quad comm, all of us investigating this, there is a fear factor (in our) system,” said Fernandez, who chairs the committee on public order that forms part of the quad committee now.

Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, the lead chair of the quad committee, did not think much about Leonardo’s sudden reversal after earlier denying Garma’s allegations.

If anything, that Leonardo changed his stance during the same hearing “indicates that he was not under any pressure,” he noted.

“It was his own decision to answer and reply to the question being asked. So for us, although it may appear that he was surprised, confused … It was also already late at night, and there may be a pressure that he is probably experiencing that may have added to his demeanor last night,” Barbers said.