Senate to wrap up probe on drug killings

MANILA, Philippines - The Senate is expected to wrap up its inquiry into the rising incidents of drug-related extrajudicial killings next week with new witnesses invited to the hearings.

The Senate committees on justice and human rights, and public order and dangerous drugs scheduled their next hearings from Monday to Wednesday next week.

“It’s looks like we’re wrapping up our hearings next week,” Sen. Panfilo Lacson, chairman of the public order committee, said in a telephone interview.

He said the credibility of self-confessed hitman Edgar Matobato continues to be tested and that there were suggestions to hold one hearing in Davao City to interview a few other witnesses on his various claims.

Lacson said he was open to the suggestion but proposed that it would make for a better hearing, and cost less in taxpayers’ money, if the few witnesses be escorted by the Senate security from Davao City and brought to the chamber instead.

Among those invited to testify were the police officials who Matobato tagged as his handlers when he was in the so-called Davao death squad, as well as officials from the Commission on Human Rights.

The 57-year-old Matobato earlier testified that President Duterte ordered the killings of over 1,000 suspected criminals and opponents from 1988 to 2013 when he was mayor of Davao City.

Matobato, who claimed to be a former member of the Davao death squad, was under the Witness Protection Program of the Department of Justice in 2014 under then justice secretary and now Sen. Leila De Lima.

He left the WPP shortly after Duterte won the presidential elections last May.

His testimony was explosive that it led several senators to oust De Lima as chair of the justice panel and replaced her with Sen. Richard Gordon.

The senators believed that De Lima – who is the subject of Duterte’s attacks as allegedly a protector of drug lords – could no longer steer the hearings with objectivity.

During the hearing of the two panels last week, Gordon implemented new rules, such as putting up lecterns for senators who will ask questions, for more orderly proceedings.

He also stressed there is no need to kill people with impunity and that law enforcement agencies should always follow the rule of law.

Gordon said there is a need to eradicate illegal drugs or a day would come when drug lords and drug pushers would be more heavily armed than law enforcers, citing Mexico and Colombia as examples.

Nevertheless, this cannot be used as an excuse to flout the law and kill people indiscriminately, he said.

Gordon said the committee would focus on crafting new laws or injecting amendments to correct flaws in existing laws to prevent incidents like convicts being released to kill people; to make sure that policemen would strictly follow the rules of engagement; ensure that more crime laboratories will be established and that policemen shall be continuously trained, among others.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II yesterday said De Lima might incriminate herself because she disclosed that the families and inmates of the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) have been helping her.

Aguirre said that the statements issued by De Lima show signs of familiarity between her and the inmates and their families.

De Lima earlier said that the inmates and their families have been contacting her and saying that they were being pressured to testify against her.

“Why call her? This means that they are very familiar with each other,” Aguirre said.

It is being alleged that De Lima allowed the illegal drug trade to flourish at the NBP and collected millions that she used in her senatorial campaign.

He said that when the House hearing on the illegal drug operations in prison resumes on Oct. 5, they would be presenting more witnesses.

He, however, declined to identify them because it might be used to the advantage of De Lima.

“There are a lot of people who are helping her from the inside (prison). Was not she the one who said that there are people who are calling her, even the wife of Jaybee Sebastian,” the DOJ official added.

Meanwhile, Aguirre also said that aside from the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) would also conduct a parallel investigation on the alleged riot last Wednesday that resulted in the death of drug convict Tony Co and injured four others, including Sebastian.

He also said that he intends to go to the NBP to personally inspect the two signal jammers that they have installed to prevent inmates from using cell phones smuggled into the jail.

The authorities believe that once they block the signals of cellular phones at the NBP, they would be able to paralyze the illegal drug transactions from prison.

“I am planning to go there not because of the close circuit television (CCTV) but because I was asked to inspect the installation of the two signal jammers and the report of the donors is that you cannot get any signal,” he added. – With Evelyn Macairan