Former President Rodrigo Duterte — PDP-LABAN PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — For the first time on Monday, former President Rodrigo Duterte appeared in a congressional inquiry into his administration’s bloody drug war dubbed as Oplan Tokhang.
Duterte was among the resource persons invited to the motu proprio investigation of the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee chaired by Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel II.
This is not the first time that a former chief executive faced a Senate probe.
In 2017, ex-President Benigno Aquino III appeared before the chamber’s investigation on the anti-dengue immunization program, which commenced during his term.
There is already an ongoing investigation in the House of Representatives on the previous administration’s brutal anti-drug campaign but Duterte has yet to personally appear before it to address the allegations leveled against him.
Even before he became president, Duterte already vowed numerous times, in his cuss-filled promises during his presidential campaign, to “butcher criminals.”
“If I make it to the presidential palace, I will do just what I did as mayor. You drug pushers, hold-up men and do-nothings, you better go out. Because as the mayor, I’d kill you,” Duterte said then.
The anti-drug campaign itself made the former president a central figure in the International Court’s investigation on crimes against humanity complaints filed by families of drug war victims.
The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency listed 6,252 dead in anti-drug police operations from July 1, 2016 to May 31, 2022.
But a 2017 year end report attributed to the Office of the President listed more than 20,000 dead in the first 17 months alone of the Duterte administration.