Senate hearing reaffirms Duterte as strong, charismatic leader
First of two parts
THE Marcos administration’s plot to demonize former president Rodrigo Duterte has collapsed with Monday’s daylong hearing by the Senate blue ribbon sub-committee investigating the past president’s war on illegal drugs waged six years ago.
The investigations by four joined committees (called the quad committee) at the House of Representatives, tightly controlled by President Marcos Jr.’s cousin, House Speaker Martin Romualdez, were intended to portray Duterte as a cold-blooded mass murderer to weaken his political support, which is necessary for his daughter Vice President Sara Duterte to be the shoo-in for the presidency in the 2028 elections, or even anytime in case the strongman’s son is incapacitated.
The quad committee, in nine days of hearing, however, has proven to be a kangaroo court, producing dubious witnesses. And its badgering of witnesses — several declared in contempt and incarcerated for not following the congressmen’s wishes — has exposed it as a mere Palace-directed propaganda campaign to demonize Duterte.
Indeed, a police colonel in the Senate hearing blew open the quad com’s conspiracy when he disclosed, under oath and even submitting an affidavit, that he was pressured by that committee’s most active interrogators — congressmen Dan Fernandez and Bienvenido Abante — to testify that there was a “reward system” in awarding money to police officials who had killed those involved in illegal drugs.
The Senate, however, has proven to be an institution more intelligent and independent of the Palace, as Congress was intended to be under the Constitution. After a day-long hearing the other day, in which Duterte proved to be so frank that his statements were easily twisted by the mainstream media, the former president — who has largely been quiet since Marcos assumed power — portrayed himself as the country’s strongest president, willing to take the risk of being painted as a bloody murderer in his war against illegal drugs, run by the most ruthless and richest organized crime in the nation’s history.
Convincing
Duterte’s testimony and honesty were so convincing that the audience at the Senate hearing broke into a spontaneous cheering in awe and support of the former president. Toward the end of the hearing, during a recess, all of the senators — except Risa Hontiveros — approached Duterte to congratulate him and express support for him. It took a while for Duterte to leave the hall as staffers of the Senate and of the senators took selfies with him.
Duterte’s vulnerability is the fact that the war on drugs resulted in about 6,000 deaths by 2021, according to police statistics, a figure inflated by his critics to 20,000 by including all other homicide deaths still under investigation. But even this figure, involving two years, pales in comparison to the 30,000 killed in Mexico’s war on drugs.
Another of Duterte’s vulnerability to black propaganda over his war on drugs is that there have been inarguably killings by the police of unarmed innocent civilians who were not involved in illegal drugs. But we have had for decades rogue policemen, cowardly policemen who shoot first to be sure they’re not shot first, and worse, policemen who distribute illegal drugs themselves, acting to save their own skin by killing their distributors in fear that they would rat on them. This, of course, has been the scourge even of developed countries such as the US, which has been racked by cases of brutal policemen killing innocent civilians, in some cases unmindful that they were being filmed as they undertook their killing.
Our justice system is too weak, though to enforce totally the rule of law. A resource person in the hearings disclosed that the Philippine National Police’s Internal Affairs Service, which is mandated by law, has been unable to fill the required IAS desks in the police force. Our justice department has less than 100 investigators and prosecutors to pursue cases of extrajudicial killings allegedly committed by the police,
Responsibility
Throughout his testimony, Duterte staunchly defended his policies, taking “full legal and moral responsibility” for the campaign and emphasizing that his actions were aimed at protecting innocent Filipinos from the drug menace.
In his statements, Duterte reiterated that he saw his duty as one to safeguard the Filipino people, presenting the drug war as a necessary step to eradicate the damage caused by illegal drugs. Duterte narrated three times the case of an OFW who, after four years, returned to the country only to discover that the earnings she had been sending for her children’s education were used only to buy shabu and that they had become such drug addicts that they stopped going to school. Duterte also repeated cases in which drug addicts even mercilessly raped and killed girls as they were deep into their depraved mental state.
Duterte explained that while he instructed law enforcement personnel to act decisively, he did not condone indiscriminate killing. He encouraged police officers to act in self-defense, directing them to “shoot suspects in the head” if their lives were threatened. The former president argued that such actions were meant to protect the community from criminal threats, an approach he had previously imparted to law enforcement trainees during his time as a professor at the police academy.
Despite this explanation, his critics argue that his language provided a veil for extrajudicial killings, giving officers implicit permission to use lethal force. Duterte argued that a police officer should not be a policeman if he has not taken to heart his education at the police academy where Duterte said he taught for many years and, more importantly, his oath of office, which requires him to have the utmost respect for human rights.
Duterte pointed out that police officials are very well aware of the principle that they are bound to reject unlawful orders such as to liquidate even a known criminal.
To be continued on Nov. 1, 2024: Death Squads?
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Senate hearing reaffirms Duterte as strong, charismatic leader
Source: Breaking News PH
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