PDEA Director General Wilkins Villanueva during a hearing at the Senate in 2017. —File photo by Marianne Bermudez | Philippine Daily Inquirer
Updated @ 8:09 p.m., Dec. 12, 2024
MANILA, Philippines — Former Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) chief Wilkins Villanueva was cited for contempt on Thursday and ordered detained by the House of Representatives quad committee for refusal to answer relevant questions during a hearing on the drug war of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
However, the panel decided to implement the contempt order when the session resumes on January 13 next year.
It was Abang Lingkod Party-list Rep. Stephen Paduano who made the motion during her quad comm’s 13th hearing, which was approved after no members of the panel objected.
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“Wilkins, this is my last warning to you. You are lying. Do you want me to cite you [for contempt]? You are also making faces and disrespecting this committee. I warn you: This will be the last. Earlier when I asked you, you thought I would not return to you. Admit that it’s all about your command responsibility,” Paduano said in Filipino.
The lawmaker was referring to claims of Jed Palapil Sy that Villanueva interrogated her.
Jed is the wife of Allan Sy, who reportedly led a syndicate operating a crystal meth, or shabu, lab that yielded over P300 million worth of high-grade shabu and other equipment used to make the narcotics in 2004.
Before Paduano’s motion, Rep. Romeo Acop grilled Villanueva about command responsibility after the latter claimed that it was his personnel who interrogated Jed.
“You should accept responsibility for the things your people did outside the bounds of law. That is what they taught us, and now I’m hearing you say that you don’t know anything about it,” Acop scolded the former PDEA chief.
“You are abandoning your people and that’s not supposed to be the case since you are a commander, right?” he asked.
“You are the overall commander of the overall operation, any mistake they commit you should answer for it because you are the commander so answer the questions of SDS [House Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio Gonzales Jr.] properly,” the lawmaker further stressed in Filipino.