Several lawmakers urged Vice President Sara Duterte and her father’s acolyte, Senator Ronald Dela Rosa, to stop imputing malice into the House of Representatives’ ongoing inquiry into alleged abuses of power during the previous administration, and instead, cooperate with the Quad-Committee probe.
This was their reaction to Duterte’s accusation that the congressional investigation was “politically motivated” and that House members were engaged in “political harassment” against her family.
On Tuesday, Zambales Rep. Jefferson Khonghun told the Vice President to encourage her brother, Davao City Rep. Pulong Duterte, and her husband, lawyer Mans Carpio, to appear before the consolidated panel to refute the accusations leveled by former Bureau of Customs intelligence officer Jimmy Guban.
Guban directly linked Rep. Duterte and Carpio to a botched multi-billion peso drug deal that took place in 2017.
“It is better for her brother, our fellow legislator, to face the music. I don’t think it would be hard for him to face the Quad Comm… Rep. Pulong is part of the Congress. He can easily go to the hearing and defend himself,” Khonghun said in Filipino.
“Also, Attorney Mans, the spouse of VP Sara, should show up to clear his name. Congress cannot keep quiet just because the people being implicated are the husband and brother of the Vice President. I think that would be wrong,” he added.
Khonghun also challenged Dela Rosa to stop hiding behind the Senate’s protection and just attend the Quad-Comm probe to shed light on allegations that extrajudicial killings (EJKs) were instituted as a policy during the Duterte administration’s drug war that killed thousands.
The challenge came after the incumbent senator brushed aside the Lower House’s probe, accusing congressmen of “sounding like broken records” for bringing up the EJK issue again.
It can be recalled that the senator served as chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) during the early part of the previous administration.
“[He] is the only one who can clarify the issues surrounding what really happened during the time of President Duterte, because Senator Bato was the architect of the war against drugs during that time,”
For his part, Lanao del Sur Rep. Khalid Dimaporo said “Senator Bato was in charge of Oplan Double Barrel. So, whether or not there were extrajudicial killings, we’ll leave that to the courts to determine.”
Nueva Ecija Rep. Mika Suansing, pointed out that the Quad Comm cannot play deaf and blind to allegations that the thousands killed during the bloody drug war had the previous administration’s blessing.
Tingog Rep. Jude Acidre said that based on accounts of resource persons invited to Quad Comm hearings on EJKs, the Duterte administration imposed a quota system on police units as to how many drug personalities they should execute.
Despite the supposed brutality, Acidre emphasized that illegal drugs remain a big problem in the Philippines today, contrary to the claims of Vice President Duterte that her father virtually eradicated the social menace.
The war on drugs waged by the Duterte administration killed thousands of Filipinos but did not seem to make a dent in the country’s narcotics problem, he noted.
“The present administration, you have to take note, has already recovered more than P44 billion in drugs. Yet, no extrajudicial killings are being reported,” said Acidre.
