How Senate can exceed quad comm probe of EJKs
“Huwad comm versus Quad comm.” That went viral when Sen. Bato dela Rosa announced he wants to investigate extrajudicial killings under Rody Duterte’s presidency.
Senate President Chiz Escudero at once nixed Dela Rosa. Reasons:
• Dela Rosa cannot investigate himself. As PNP chief in 2016-2018 when 36,000 druggies allegedly were killed by cops, he’s a prime suspect like Duterte.
• Dela Rosa wants motu proprio hearings, by himself with no referral from the adjourned Senate. But his committee on public order and dangerous drugs has no such authority.
• Dela Rosa’s probe will be a cheap imitation of the one by the House quad comm. Congressmen craft questions that leave killer cops tongue-tied then confessing. Movie star senators can’t match them.
Escudero assigned the inquiry to the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, which has motu proprio power. Minority leader Koko Pimentel is to be temporary BRC chairman.
Pimentel may resent Duterte and Dela Rosa’s hijack of his PDP-Laban party. But the Bar exam topnotch is a stickler for fairness.
The House quad comm couldn’t coax Duterte and Dela Rosa to attend its hearings. The two suspect congressmen of bias.
Duterte won’t go even if accompanied by son Rep. Paolo Duterte. Invoking inter-chamber courtesy, Dela Rosa replies to accusations via the media.
But Duterte will attend the BRC on Monday, Oct. 28, Dela Rosa assures. “Dela Rosa can use the hearing as an opportunity to question resource persons or air his side,” Pimentel adds.
But only one scene can make Pimentel’s hearings surpass the nine ones by quad comm:
Give ex-senator Leila de Lima the chance to confront her accusers Duterte and Dela Rosa.
De Lima suffered seven years in jail fighting unbailable charges of narcotrafficking. Duterte and Dela Rosa accused her in official statements in their first weeks in office. That was after De Lima held three Senate hearings on the emerging EJKs.
Two witnesses had surfaced then, attesting to EJKs when Duterte was Davao mayor and Dela Rosa city police chief. Police Sgt. Arturo Lascañas confessed to once heading the Davao Death Squad with Edgar Matobato as hitman.
After De Lima’s arrest in February 2017, the two fled the country. The International Criminal Court has since tapped them as main witnesses to crimes against humanity by Duterte and Dela Rosa.
A court subsequently acquitted De Lima of one indictment. Two courts dismissed raps on demurrer, finding prosecution evidence too weak to necessitate defense.
The Senate BRC must afford De Lima full vindication. Duterte claims to once being a seasoned state prosecutor. Dela Rosa professes innocence of summary executions. Give De Lima a chance to belie them.
Give a chance too to families of the slain drug suspects to question the duo. That’s their constitutional right, in behalf of their dearly departed.
The Bill of Rights, Article III, Section 14(2) states: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall … enjoy the right … to meet witnesses face to face, and to have compulsory process to secure the attendance of witnesses and the production of evidence in his behalf.”
The US Constitution too guarantees confronting the witness, Sixth Amendment, 1791. It was incorporated due to Britain’s habit in the 1600s to take depositions from secret accusers. That in turn arose from 13th century Inquisition against heretics and in the 16th century against Protestants.
Jose Rizal too was convicted to death by musketry without chance to confront detractors.
As Commission on Human Rights head in 2008, De Lima had investigated the Davao killings. Duterte and Dela Rosa declined her invitations to present their side.
She gave them the same chance during her 2016 Senate hearings on rising EJKs. They put her behind bars.
De Lima displayed eagerness to confront them when she attended quad comm’s ninth session Tuesday, Oct. 22. Also there were Duterte and Dela Rosa’s confessed henchmen: PNP Cols. Royina Garma, Edilberto Leonardo, Santie Mendoza, Jovie Espenido and Davao prison warden Gerardo Padilla. Pimentel has invited them too for Monday.
Pimentel might as well make the duo explain:
• Their seizure of only one-and-a-half weeks’ supply of shabu to three million users, after 156 weeks of drug war;
• PNP Internal Affairs Service’s inability to investigate the 5,526 official killings during police operations;
• Where are the thousands of “kalawangin” .38-caliber pistols supposedly taken from the 5,526 “nanlaban?”
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First, the good news: as of Wednesday night, Cebu Pacific says, passengers have recovered 90 percent of luggage left behind due to breakdown of NAIA Terminal 3’s baggage handling system (BHS). Added manpower by the airline and the private operator New NAIA Infra Corp. would’ve normalized departures by yesterday.
Now the bad: NNIC, which took over only last month, discovered an alarming issue. Of five BHS conveyor belts, only one built-in online explosives detector is working. The four others have been busted for four years.
At the risk of scaring the public, NNIC chairman Ramon S. Ang announced the finding. Best to come clean and do emergency repairs, while awaiting complete replacement of the five systems by July 2025. That can avert security downgrade by the US Federal Aviation Administration and the UN International Civil Aviation Organization.
On Aug. 7, 2020, I exposed that Manila International Airport Authority had wasted P700 million to “refurbish” Terminal 1’s BHS that was newly purchased in 2015. It threw away another P620 million on facelift of external and inner walls of Terminal 2. No budget for Terminal 3’s BHS ever since its dry-runs in 2004.
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