Ex-president Duterte invited to House probe into drug war killings

The House Quad Committee (QuadComm) has invited former president Rodrigo Duterte to its hearing on Tuesday on the alleged extrajudicial killings during his administration's war on drugs.

“The Joint Committee respectfully invites you to attend the said inquiry to provide valuable insights and shed light on the issues under discussion particularly on extra-judicial killings,” the letter dated Friday, October 18, read. It was signed by Representative Robert Ace Barbers, chairperson of the House Committee on Dangerous Drugs.

The next House QuadComm hearing is scheduled on Tuesday, Oct. 22, at 9:30 a.m.

In a Viber message, former presidential chief legal counsel Salvador Panelo said Duterte expressed intent to present himself in the House Quadcomm hearing if he received an invitation.

“He said if he received an invitation, he will,” Panelo told GMA News Online. 

Retired police colonel Royina Garma earlier revealed that Duterte asked her to look for an officer who would implement the Davao model of the war on drugs on a national scale, a system where one is rewarded up to P1 million for killing drug suspects.

Duterte however denied that a reward system was implemented during his administration’s controversial campaign against illegal drugs.

According to a report on “24 Oras” on Friday, Duterte said in an interview that the only reward he gives to the police who successfully complete their mission is food and greetings. 

“‘Yang sinasabi nilang reward, walang reward ‘yan. Hindi ako magbibigay ng reward,” he said told Sonshine Media Network International. 

(There was no reward. I will never give a reward.) 

In a separate statement on Sunday, Tingog Party-list Representative Jude Acidre said he expects “more explosive revelations” from Garma in the next hearing.

“Her testimonies lay bare what many have feared: that the so-called war on drugs wasn’t just a campaign against crime—it was a state-sanctioned bloodbath. The details we are hearing are appalling, and it is clear that this wasn’t an anti-drug campaign—it was a systematic execution plan with rewards for killings,” Acidre said.

“These revelations are shocking, but unfortunately, they aren’t surprising. The Duterte administration was known for its violent rhetoric, but we are now seeing how deeply entrenched this violence was in the institutions themselves,” he added.

In her affidavit, Garma claimed Senator Christopher "Bong" Go and former National Police Commission commissioner Edilberto Leonardo were among those involved in the implementation of the campaign.

“We are talking about a reward system for murder. This isn’t governance; this is criminal,” Acidre said.

Panelo earlier said Garma’s claim of a payment and rewards system for killing a drug suspect during the Duterte administration is  “pure imagination or fertile speculation.” 

Panelo also said Duterte would attend the QuadComm hearing if the members would ask “educated questions.”

“In his press conference in Davao he said he would attend if invited with one condition: The members of the committee should ask educated questions and not irrelevant, stupid and private invasive queries,” Panelo said.

Duterte has been invited to attend the House drug war probe before but repeatedly declined to present himself.

Government records show that there were at least 6,200 drug suspects killed in police operations from June 2016 to November 2021, but several human rights groups have refuted this and say that the number may have reached as much as 30,000 due to unreported related killings. 

Meanwhile, a partial committee report on the probe of the QuadComm on the Duterte administration's drug war may already be released this week, Barbers said.

The Senate blue ribbon committee on the other hand will conduct a parallel investigation into the war on drugs of the Duterte administration, Senate President Chiz Escudero said on Sunday. —WITH Mariel Celine Serquiña/KG/BM, GMA Integrated News