Former President Rodrigo Duterte. | PHOTO: Official Facebook page of Rody Duterte
MANILA, Philippines — Moves to announce former President Rodrigo Duterte’s attendance in the House of Representatives quad panel’s hearing on the drug war after it was rescheduled was just a plot, Santa Rosa City Rep. Dan Fernandez said on Tuesday.
In a press briefing at the Batasang Pambansa complex, Fernandez was asked if he thought Duterte supporters announcing the former president’s alleged confirmed attendance in the hearing was intentional.
Fernandez said it was an effort to make lawmakers look bad, considering that the quad committee invited Duterte several times already.
“In my opinion? I think that was intentional. Because we have been talking about rescheduling the hearing, but this is their style, right? They want to make it appear that we backed out from these kinds of invitations,” he said.
“Whereas we’ve been inviting him for so many hearings already. If I’m not mistaken, even at the committee of human rights [hearing], which was held months, months ago, Chairman [Bienvenido] Abante invited him. And they declined,” he added.
According to Fernandez, it was bewildering why Duterte supporters announced that the former president would appear before the quad committee when he had been reluctant about it.
“And now we are conducting a hearing, now that we’ve convened the quad comm, we’re continually inviting the former president but still he has not attended. And now that there is a decision from the quad comm to cancel it, then suddenly they will appear,” he added.
Earlier, quad committee lead presiding officer and Surigao del Norte 2nd District Rep. Robert Ace Barbers confirmed that they have decided to reschedule the hearing scheduled on Wednesday, November 13, to November 21.
Barbers said this was because the quad committee has a lot of testimonies to verify before conducting its next hearing.
READ: Quad comm reschedules drug war probe to verify testimonies
However, Duterte’s supporters like vlogger Mocha Uson claimed that the lawmakers were afraid of facing the former president.
Barbers said had Duterte confirmed his attendance in the hearing before it was rescheduled, they would have pushed through with the inquiry.
According to Barbers, neither Duterte nor his official representative sent a letter to confirm his attendance before the hearing was rescheduled.
READ: Ex-president Duterte didn’t confirm quad comm probe attendance – Barbers
Duterte’s former spokesperson and ex-presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo said he and Duterte would troop to the House premises on Wednesday to confront quad committee members for canceling the hearing at the last minute.
Panelo also said Duterte would request the quad committee to conduct a marathon hearing of ten days.
The quad panel has investigated the Duterte administration’s drug war due to alleged irregularities in police operations.
Revelations from former police officials, like retired colonel Royina Garma’s claims about the existence of a rewards system in the drug war, only bolstered the lawmakers’ belief that there were irregularities.
According to Garma, Duterte called her in 2016 about the creation of a task force that would implement the “Davao template” on a nationwide scale. The Davao template, Garma said, involved providing cash grants worth P20,000 to P1 million to cops who killed drug suspects.
READ: Garma says Davao drug war template, rewards system applied in entire PH
Garma also claimed that the Davao Death Squad, a team that Duterte supposedly crafted, was common knowledge among police officers in Davao.
At a Senate hearing last October 28, Duterte said he created a seven-man hit squad made up of gangsters when he was Davao City mayor, but he retracted his statement when senators asked for a clarification.
READ: Duterte admits to having ‘death squad,’ later insists it’s not one