Rody holds court

The stories emerging from the congressional probes on the drug war are more terrifying than Halloween ghost stories.

Now, is the nation horrified enough to act so that the atrocities won’t happen again?

There’s no guarantee that there won’t be a repeat, even if the alleged perpetrators are put behind bars. Unless one point that Rodrigo Duterte raised in his much-awaited appearance at the Senate is addressed: slow justice.

This slow pace, and the overall weakness of the criminal justice system, make people feel unsafe and so frustrated with lawlessness that they are willing to accept short cuts to justice.

Election results and surveys consistently show a level of public support for anti-crime hardliners that would frustrate human rights advocates.

The maiden hearing of the Senate Blue Ribbon subcommittee produced several bombshells – some volunteered by an unapologetic Duterte himself – that could bolster efforts to indict him and his minions for crimes against humanity.

But he also used the hearing to remind the nation of his life’s advocacy, for which Filipinos gave him a landslide victory in 2016: the justice system is broken, so he will just go around it and get rid of criminal elements. There’s a segment of the population that agrees with him when he argues that you can’t play nice with the lowlifes; you just have to exterminate them.

There are cops who genuinely support such short cuts to justice. In police offices, you hear personnel grumbling about the hassle of having to spend half a day to attend a court hearing as a prosecution witness. For a single case, they grouse, their presence in court could be required over 20 years, and this is no exaggeration. So why not just get rid of the offender for good, ASAP?

The world will then be a safer place – this hardliner’s message resonates. It appeals to the basic human need for personal safety, which is ranked in importance next to the basic physiological needs for food, water and shelter.

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Have you missed Duterte’s profanity-laden diatribes?

If you haven’t, it looks like he did. Arriving at around 10 a.m. on Monday at the Senate, the former president fielded questions from the Blue Ribbon subcommittee for hours.

By past 6 p.m., he still wasn’t done, saying there were many points he had not yet explained. Surely he knew the comical impact of his refusing to leave the Blue Ribbon stage. When his supporters in the chamber finally managed to drag him away, he held a press conference.

Duterte was holding court again, before a national audience, and clearly enjoying himself, ignoring Sen. Risa Hontiveros’ request for him to refrain from filling the Senate with the PI that peppered his statements.

In vintage Digong, he apologized while saying it was in his nature to be “bastos” and “walanghiya” – and then proceeded to continue using his favorite profanity throughout the rest of his testimony. Maybe he wouldn’t have been president, he said, if he weren’t rude and shameless, and he was just showing his rage toward criminals.

Hontiveros was not the only one who was reminded of Duterte’s meandering late-night briefings at the height of the COVID lockdowns; she told him that his Senate appearance was not such a briefing. Still, Duterte would have none of it.

You can see why he preferred to face the Senate while snubbing the quad comm hearings at the House of Representatives. With help from his supporters in the chamber – and they weren’t just Ronald dela Rosa and Bong Go – Duterte turned the Blue Ribbon hearing into a bully pulpit.

His appearance at the Senate should make his political foes at the House think twice about impeaching his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, and handing her over to the Senate for trial.

The Blue Ribbon did obtain some gems: Duterte admitted that he organized a death squad in Davao City. But the details of several of his statements were inconsistent with those provided by persons who have given statements to the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the bombshells dropped by several of his former officials who have faced the quad comm.

Sen. Koko Pimentel, who chairs the Blue Ribbon subcommittee, said the transcripts of the proceedings would be made available to the public and can be accessed by anyone. Those who need the transcripts in any court proceedings can get these certified by the Senate, he said.

Facing “Storycon” on One News yesterday, Pimentel expressed hope that foreign probers – referring to the ICC – won’t beat Philippine prosecutors in using the transcripts.

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Duterte’s defense of his brutal approach to the illegal drug problem was not new. We heard it throughout his six years in office, and he won the presidency by a landslide on such a platform.

In his early days as president, he sat down with The STAR at Malacañang for a long chat, during which he explained his approach to the drug problem. It was much like what he said at the Senate last Monday.

He told us what I’ve also learned from covering the crime and judiciary beats. Having worked for years as a prosecutor, local chief executive and congressman, he said he found it tough to pin down people for drug trafficking. They have to be caught in the act – meaning they have the drugs in their possession and they are selling it. Or else there is material evidence such as surveillance camera recordings of the act of trafficking, with witnesses providing testimony against the drug kingpin.

Even when there are sufficient witnesses and material evidence, the case could languish for years in the courts, during which witnesses could be murdered and corrupt judges paid to dismiss the case.

“If you file a case, it will take years,” Duterte told the Senate subcommittee, while stressing that he is not denigrating democratic institutions.

There are Filipinos who will agree with him.

Such arguments cannot justify the execution of thousands whose guilt has not yet been established. Keeping people safe cannot come at such a steep cost.

But these are issues that must be sufficiently addressed, if we don’t want a repeat of the mass killings carried out in the name of law enforcement.

Unless this is done, even if Duterte and the enforcers of his drug war are put away for life, we are likely to see another politician promising his brand of justice rising to high office.