Accused turned the tables

“Turn the tables” is an idiomatic expression that means to make something happen that is the opposite of what is supposed to happen. That was what happened in the Senate inquiry into the War on Illegal Drugs. The tables were turned. The accused grilled the accusers and dressed them down.

BACKGROUND
During the Quad committee* hearings in the House of Representatives, resource persons implicated former president Rodrigo Duterte, Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, and Senator Christoher “Bong” Go in the alleged extra-judicial killings that happened during the war on drug. Resource persons Police Col. Jovie Espenido and retired Lt. Col. Royina Garma alleged that Duterte, when he was mayor of Davao City and subsequently when he was president, ordered police to gun down drug pushers and users. Ms. Garma also said Duterte created a reward system for police officers who killed drug lords and drug addicts, the amounts ranging from P10,000 to P1 million. The money was supposed to have flowed from Go.

Another Quad committee resource person, self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa, said Dela Rosa ordered him to implicate former senator Leila de Lima in the illegal drug trade, warning that he and members of his family would suffer the same fate as his father, Rolando Espinosa, who was killed by a Criminal Investigation and Detection Group team in his jail cell.

Dela Rosa was the Philippine National Police chief at the height of Duterte’s war on drugs, while Go was his special assistant. They denied the claims made before the Quad committee. In reaction, Dela Rosa proposed that the Senate Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs, which he chairs, conduct its own investigation on the drug war.

But Senate President Francis Escudero rejected Dela Rosa’s proposal and designated the Committee on Accountability of Public Officers and Investigations (the Blue Ribbon committee) to conduct the inquiry. He appointed Senate Minority Leader Koko Pimentel as chairman of the subcommittee as the Blue Ribbon committee chairperson, Senator Pia Cayetano, is supposed to be busy with her reelection bid. The campaign period for senator does not start until Feb. 11, 2025. It should be noted that Duterte ran for president in 2016 as the nominee of PDP-Laban, of which Koko Pimentel was national president.

Dela Rosa dismissed calls for him and Go to go on leave to avoid a “conflict of interest,” insisting that he needs to attend the hearings. He assured his fellow senators that he would entertain questions from them to clarify the accusations made against him and to share what he knows about the drug campaign. Go also made known his intention to attend the hearing, both as a member of the Blue Ribbon sub-committee and as a resource person.

The sub-committee opened its probe last Monday, with Blue Ribbon committee members Dela Rosa, Go, Mark Villar, Robin Padilla, Risa Hontiveros, ex officio members Senate President pro tempore Jinggoy Estrada and Majority Floor Leader Francis Tolentino in attendance. Senator Joel Villanueva, who is not a member of the Blue Ribbon committee but who claimed to have been asked to sit as the vice-chair of the subcommittee, was also there.

Among the resource persons in attendance were former president Duterte, former Human Rights Commission (HRC) chairperson/secretary of Justice/senator De Lima, Human Rights lawyer Chel Diokno, drug war victim Kian’s uncle Randy de los Santos, the spiritual adviser of families of drug war victims SVD priest Flavie Villanueva, and several retired police generals who were prominently involved in the war against illegal drugs.

THE CHARADE
In his 13-minute opening statement, Duterte said, “My mandate as president of the republic was to protect the country and the Filipino people. Do not question my policies, because I offer no apologies, no excuses. I did what I had to do, and whether you believe it or not, I did it for my country.” He told the police when confronting criminals, “Repel the aggression only in self-defense. Do not make orphans of your children and widows of your wives.”
He added that drug-related crimes are on the rise again. “Every day, you can read about children being raped, people getting killed and robbed. And just recently, a drug den was raided within the Malacañang complex. This clearly manifests that the purveyors of this menace are back in business.”

He then pontificated:

“The war on illegal drugs is not about killing people. It is about protecting the innocent and the defenseless.

“I have always viewed people addicted to illegal drugs as victims and patients requiring medical help and not as criminals. That is why… I had a drug rehabilitation facility constructed in Davao City manned by Davao City government doctors, psychiatrists, nurses and health workers, among others, to look after the complete rehabilitation of those addicted to illegal drugs.

“I believe then and I still believe now that rehabilitation and not fear of death or incarceration to be the key to the return of the addicted individuals back to the mainstream of a just and forgiving society.”

Pimentel then asked Randy de los Santos to give his statement. He denied that his nephew Kian and Kian’s father were involved in the drug trade. Instead of allowing all resource persons to deliver their opening statements one after another, Pimentel, on the insistence of Dela Rosa, opened the floor to comments and questions from senators. Dela Rosa justified Kian and his father being suspected as sources of illegal drugs because a pusher said the De los Santos store was a drop-off/pick-up point for drugs and because Kian’s father looked like a drug addict, what with his teeth all gone.

And that is how the inquiry proceeded — resource person delivering his or her statement, the senators questioning him or her right after the statement. Dela Rosa faulted drug war widow Christina Gonzales for not reporting the involvement of policemen in the drug trade, He castigated Fr. Villanueva for “propagandizing” the death toll of police anti-illegal drug operations instead of filing cases against policemen accused of killing drug suspects. He disputed Diokno’s claim that to lower rank police officers “neutralize” means “kill.”

Pimentel then asked De Lima to make her presentation. She said the drug menace can be destroyed without destroying lives. Estrada, with an inquisitorial tone, a magisterial glare, and an admonishing index finger, grilled her, asking why when she was CHR chairperson and subsequently as Secretary of Justice she didn’t file cases against Duterte, why she focused on Davao when during the Noynoy Aquino administration there were also extra-judicial killings. Before yielding the floor, Estrada said, “I may be mistaken for defending the former president. I am not defending him.”

For him to make that disclaimer, he must have realized that he appeared and sounded like Duterte’s defender. Yes, he was unmistakably defending Duterte.

Then Pimentel allowed the senators to question Duterte. First to do so was Estrada. With a naughty smile, he asked Duterte an irrelevant and puerile question, drawing from Hontiveros a rebuke. He turned serious, asking questions that enabled Duterte to belie the damning revelations given before the Lower House’s Quad committee. But Estrada could not help being juvenile.  He asked Duterte if he courted Garma.

In the hearing of the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality, he asked resource person Sual Mayor Liseldo Calugay if he had a romantic relationship with Bamban Mayor Alice Guo. Estrada should be called “The Senate Inquirer into the Private Affairs of Public Officials.”

The denial segment of the charade having been completed, Duterte went into a long monologue on the necessity and benefits of his war on drugs, the senators in rapt attention, except for the only lady among them. Hontiveros kept on interrupting Duterte’s ramblings, taking exception to his assertions and objecting to his vulgar language.

Not even Joel Villanueva, son of an evangelist, was scandalized by the expletives gushing profusely out of the mouth of the former president. In fact, he was so humbled by the presence of Duterte that he had to ask Pimentel if he could ask the former president a question. In the case of the Alice Guo inquiry, where he was also not a committee member, he just interjected at will, to the annoyance of committee chairperson Hontiveros.

Energized by the reverence and indulgence displayed by the male senators and by the cheers from the gallery, Duterte continued his narration of his principles, beliefs, the circumstances that led to his declaring war against illegal drugs, and what he had done to rid his country of the drug menace. He served notice to the committee that he was good up to 4 o’clock the following morning because he had a lot more to say.

But when his recitation of his past actions included self-incriminating admissions, his loyal supporters in the committee decided to suspend the hearing. They had to prevail upon their patron to call it a day. The tables had been turned, at least for that day.

There might not be another day, though, as Bato dela Rosa and Bong Go must have realized their scheme backfired.

*The Quad committee is composed of four committees in the House: the Committees on Dangerous Drugs, Public Order and Safety, Human Rights, and Public Accounts.

Oscar P. Lagman, Jr. has been a keen observer of Philippine politics since the 1950s.