Senate may again summon Duterte after all

THERE GOES DECORUM The nation had a fresh dose of the expletive-laden rants of Rodrigo Duterte on Monday, as the former President appeared at the Senate and faced, for the first time since the end of his term, an official body revisiting his bloody war on drugs. —Grig C. Montegrande

MANILA, Philippines — Former President Rodrigo Duterte may be summoned to appear at the next Senate hearing on his administration’s ruthless crackdown on narcotics that resulted in the killing of thousands of suspected drug offenders, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III said on Saturday.

More witnesses needed

But Pimentel, who has been tapped to lead the investigation, said that this would depend on the next set of witnesses who were invited to attend the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee’s inquiry.

He said he would rather listen to other witnesses than grill Duterte anew on his bloody antidrug strategy, which the former leader’s critics claimed was patterned after the take-no-prisoners approach that he had employed as a longtime mayor of Davao City.

“Many are suggesting that Duterte must return for the second hearing. But I told them, ‘What kind of materials will we have if we only listen to one witness?’” Pimentel said in a radio interview.

“We need to do more in our investigation and listen to other people … We concentrated on only one witness in the first hearing because we don’t expect Duterte to come back,” he said.