CRYING whitewash, Senator Leila de Lima filed a 150-page dissenting report with 250 pages of annexes to counter the findings of the Senate committee on justice that said there was no evidence of state-sanctioned summary executions in President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on illegal drugs.
Due to the premature and abrupt termination of the Senate investigation, De Lima said, no comprehensive, in-depth gathering and assessment of the evidence was done by the committee on justice and human rights chaired by Senator Richard Gordon.
“The unreasonable exclusion of important witnesses had precluded a thorough and intensive treatment of the subject of EJKs,” she added, insisting that the testimony of self-confessed assassin Edgar Matobato laid the foundation for explaining the national phenomenon of state-sponsored extrajudicial killings.
In one hearing when De Lima was still chairman of the committee on justice, Matobato said Duterte was the brains behind vigilante killings when he was still mayor of Davao City.
But De Lima said Gordon, who replaced her as chairman, wasted “a golden opportunity” because his ultimate goal was to exonerate the President and the administration of any liability for the deaths of thousands in the bloody war on drugs.
De Lima’s assertions were contrary to the results of Gordon’s probe that the summary executions were not government sanctioned and that the President has nothing to do with the killings.
De Lima filed her dissenting report to the Joint Committee Report No. 18 of the Senate committees on justice and human rights and on public order and dangerous drugs chaired by Gordon and Senator Panfilo Lacson, respectively.
She said the dissenting report aims to provide an alternative analysis of the facts presented and the conclusions deduced from them, based on applicable laws and rules.
On July 13, De Lima filed a resolution to initiate an investigation into the spate of summary executions carried out in the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.
De Lima said the Senate probe failed on several grounds, notably on its refusal to hear the testimonies of EJK witnesses of the Commission on Human Rights, its premature termination, its failure to weigh in the testimony of Matobato, among others.
De Lima also lashed out at the Gordon report for taking issue with her alleged unparliamentary behavior during a public hearing.
“The Gordon Report was not about finding the source behind all this public bloodbath drowning the poor and shirtless in this country, but about libeling, attacking, and pillorying the two senators who dared come out with guns blazing against the President as the inducer of these killings,” she said, referring to herself and Senator Antonio Trillanes IV.
De Lima submitted 10 recommendations to the Senate.
1. To look into the alleged irregularities in the preparation, routing and filing of the Gordon report and study the propriety of enforcing the standing Senate rules on all the committees;
2. To strengthen the investigative and forensic capacities of our law enforcement agencies to align with internationally accepted standards of law enforcement;
3. To urge the Department of Justice, Philippine National Police, National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Authority to follow the International Drug Control Conventions;
4. To ensure the conduct of the visit, and effective and unhampered discharge of the duties of the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on Summary Executions;
5. To enact into law of Senate Bill 1197, also known as the Anti-Extrajudicial Killings, which seeks to address institutional barriers to efficient, independent and impartial investigation of EJKs among concerned government agencies;
6. To enact into law the Charter of the Commission on Human Rights, logged as Senate Bill 1230, granting it its status as the country’s premier human rights body with powers to respond in real-time to human rights violations against Filipinos here and abroad;
7. To create a separate, dedicated office within DOJ or Public Attorney Office that would provide legal assistance and representation to law enforcement officials facing charges;
8. To establish a program in the Department of Social Welfare and Development to assist the surviving families of those killed during police operations;
9. To investigate not only the possible criminal acts of policemen but also the liabilities of their superiors under the Philippine Act on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide, and Other Crimes Against Humanity;
10. To direct an independent investigation by a commission on the President’s war on drugs and the concomitant EJKs that have gone with it.
