SENATOR Francis Pangilinan said Sunday it was misleading to say he fully agreed to the Senate report that said the summary killings taking place in the country was not state-sponsored.
“It appears that the 11 senators who signed the committee report agree with its findings when in fact the affixed signature is followed by the words ‘I dissent,’ which is what I did,” said Pangilinan in his Facebook account.
“We also stated that we would be filing a separate opinion and in it we will be stating the basis of our dissent on key points.”
Pangilinan made the clarification following reports that he and 10 other members of the Senate committee on justice and human rights, led by Senator Richard Gordon, completely agreed with the committee report that there was no evidence to show that there was a State-sponsored policy to eradicate illegal drugs.
The findings virtually cleared President Rodrigo Duterte of any liability in the killings that are taking place as a result of his bloody war against illegal drugs.
Pangilinan, the president of the Liberal Party, said he disagreed with some portions of the report.
The report was drafted by Gordon and Panfilo Lacson, chairmen of the Senate committees on public order and dangerous drugs, which jointly conducted the Senate hearings on the extrajudicial killings and summary executions.
Pangilinan, Gordon and Lacson aside, the other senators who signed the report were Gregorio Honasan II, Loren Legarda, Juan Miguel Zubiri, Nancy Binay, Manny Pacquiao, Alan Peter Cayetano, Franklin Drilon and Vicente Sotto III.
Pangilinan said he “will dissent/concur in part.” Cayetano said he had “reservations and amendments,” while Drilon said he signed “with reservations and will interpellate.”
Despite signing the report, Lacson said the finding that the killings were not State-sponsored was not conclusive since Gordon barred some witnesses from testifying following his spat with Commission on Human Rights Commissioner Roberto Cadiz.
“The report is not conclusive. “It’s just that no evidence was presented to prove the killings were State-sponsored,” Lacson said.
He said he was dismayed when Gordon did not allow the witnesses from the CHR to testify.
As a result, he said, Gordon stood his ground and never allowed the CHR witnesses to give their testimony during the hearing on extrajudicial killings and summary executions.
“That is only one aspect to which I do not agree. Because every time there was a hearing, these witnesses were there. Only the witnesses from Pasay and Antipolo were able to testify,” Lacson said.
Those who did not sign the report were Senators Ralph Recto, Leila de Lima, Antonio Trillanes IV, Joseph Victor Ejercito and Grace Poe.
Trillanes called Gordon a “lackey” of Duterte and his committee report a “cover-up” for the extrajudicial killings that started and surged when Duterte assumed the presidency.
He assailed him for covering up all the evidence linking the President to the killings as an offshoot of his war on drugs that have claimed the lives of more than 5,000 people.