Rody’s Senate testimony transcript sent to ICC—Trillanes

The Philippine National Police said it will investigate the sworn statements of former President Rodrigo Duterte during Monday’s Senate inquiry into his bloody war on drugs and re-open cold cases of alleged extrajudicial killings linked to the former administration.

This as former senator Antonio Trillanes IV said the transcript of the Senate hearing where Duterte claimed full legal responsibility for his campaign against illegal drugs and admitted maintaining a death squad in Davao City was already sent to the International Criminal Court.

“The transcript of the Senate hearing where the evil (Duterte) admitted a lot on EJKs was transmitted now to the ICC,” Trillanes posted in a mix of English and Filipino on social media.

“The pertinent (House) Quad Comm transcripts were transmitted early on and all were duly received,” he added.

Senate President Francis Escudero earlier said the former chief executive’s words can be used “either for or against him” as these were sworn under oath.

Even Senator Ronald dela Rosa, who served as PNP chief during Duterte’s term, admitted on Wednesday the statements made during the Senate hearing can be used against his former boss.

At the Quad Committee, retired police colonel Royina Garma said Duterte and other high-ranking officials during his term operationalized the so-called “Davao model” of EJKs on a nationwide scale, rewarding cops for every drug suspect killed with incentives ranging from P20,000 to P1 million.

Police Lt. Col. Jovie Espenido also testified a scheme of payouts to hitmen neutralizing or killing drug suspects existed, with funds flowing from the level of Duterte’s former special adviser and now Senator Bong Go.

As for the cold cases to be revived, PNP spokesperson Brig. Gen. Jean Fajardo said the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) was tasked to lead the investigation.

The cases include, among others, the ambush on former Daanbantayan, Cebu mayor Vicente Loot and the killing of two Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency agents all in 2018, she said.

“All these are being investigated by the PNP. There is an instruction to extract from the PNP database those unsolved cases, particularly those mentioned during the hearing,” Fajardo added.

As this developed, a lawyer of the complainants against Duterte before the ICC said the latter himself confirmed that the cops’ “nanlaban” (fought back) narrative was false.

Lawyer Neri Colmenares said Duterte implicated himself when confirmed he instructed police to “encourage” suspects to resist arrest, thus allowing officers to kill them and avoid the long process of prosecution.

“He exposed that the ‘nanlaban’ narrative is not true. It even seemed like he betrayed his policemen,” said Colmenares, a counsel of the complainants who charged Duterte for alleged crimes against humanity.

“That’s one of the reasons why the case against President Duterte is so strong in the ICC and I wouldn’t be surprised if the ICC terminates its investigation soon and issues a warrant of arrest against President Duterte, at least maybe before the end of this year,” he said.

Kabataan Rep. Raoul Manuel said the ICC now has more evidence to use in its investigation.

“No one should stop the ICC now. Various agencies should cooperate all the more with the ICC so that we can hold the people responsible for the killings accountable once and for all,” he said.

The ICC is investigating Duterte and other top officials of his administration for crimes against humanity over the alleged systematic drug war deaths in police operations. These deaths reached around 6,000 based on police records, but human rights groups contend that the deaths were as much as 30,000, including vigilante killings.

Duterte pulled out the Philippines from the Hague-based tribunal’s Rome Statute in 2018 after the ICC began a preliminary probe into the allegations of state-sanctioned killings in his war on drugs.

For his part, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III, who heads the Blue Ribbon subcommittee conducting the probe on the drug war, said he no longer sees the need to invite Duterte again to attend the next hearing.

“As of the moment, I see no need,” Pimentel said.

“We have a lot of material to work with. Let the material stay. Let criminal law experts study very well the material with the committee,” he added.

At the House, the Quad Committee is set to press former Palace official Irmina “Muking” Espino for answers during its hearing next week following her Senate testimony denying involvement in the alleged cash reward scheme under the Duterte administration’s drug war.

Sta. Rosa Rep. Dan Fernandez said Espino may be cited in contempt and arrested if she fails to appear at the mega panel’s Nov. 6 hearing.

Espino was identified by Garma as a staff of then special presidential assistant Go.

Garma said Espino managed the cash rewards distributed to police officers for killing drug suspects.

Editor’s Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline “Trillanes: Transcript of Senate drug war hearing sent to ICC.”