De Lima wants more hearings on drug slays; Gordon says no

LOOK: Sen. De Lima seeks further hearings on Senate EJK probe pic.twitter.com/y2mpttpTFM

— Tarra Quismundo (@TarraINQ) October 18, 2016

MANILA, Philippines— Sen. Leila de Lima underscored, on Tuesday, the imperative for further hearings into the spate of killings of drug suspects under President Duterte’s bloody war on drugs, saying several
witnesses have not yet testified and new developments have not been taken into account.

This as she reiterated that it was premature for Sen. Richard Gordon to terminate the proceedings and declare that President Duterte’s links to the deaths was not established, and that the existence of the notorious Davao Death Squad was not established.

“If it were up to me, I would seek a few more hearings,” she told reporters.

“It was premature to terminate the proceedings, and it is even more premature to say there’s no evidence that the killings are state-sponsored, because several aspects could still be looked into,” she said.

Gordon, meanwhile, readily shut the door, responding to reporters: “No! Do they have another platform?”

De Lima said several witnesses supposed to have been presented during the inquiry — those who had filed complaints against authorities before the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) for the killing of their loved ones — were not heard during the six-session proceedings.

She also cited the recent case of police officers tagged in the killing of a regional chair of a crime watch group in Oriental Mindoro, and media reports on “alleged secret death squads.”

“How many more of such incidents in the entire country? There might be other similar (incidents),” she said.

“Have we really evaluated and thoroughly scrutinized the written submissions from the PNP like the spot reports, Soco (Scene of the Crime Operatives) reports? We haven’t, right? So how can we have such a conclusion at this point that these killings are not state sponsored?,” she said.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson, chair of the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs that co-chaired the inquiry, said he was “open to reopen” the proceedings if there were corroborative testimony to that of confessed killer Edgar Matobato.

Both Gordon and Lacson doubt Matobato’s credibility. SFM