Rody will attend Senate inquiry, says Dela Rosa

Former President Rodrigo Duterte will attend the Senate investigation into his administration’s war on drugs, Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa confirmed Tuesday.

“The former president told me he is going to attend the Senate hearing regardless of who is presiding,” Dela Rosa told reporters in a Viber message.

Testimony at the ongoing House of Representatives hearing on the drug war pointed to Duterte as the chief architect of the extrajudicial killings mainly of small-time drug users and pushers.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, the Blue Ribbon subcommittee chair, confirmed Duterte’s attendance on Monday.

“[Dela Rosa] informed me that he [Duterte] was willing to attend. So we will include him in the hearing on Monday,” Pimentel told reporters in a separate interview.

Duterte’s attendance at the Senate comes after he has avoided the House of Representatives Quad Committee hearings.

He snubbed the lower chamber’s invitation due to health reasons, according to his lawyer, Martin Delgra III.

“Unfortunately, despite his keen intention to attend, my client respectfully manifests that he cannot attend the public hearing set on 22 October,” Delgra said.

“Considering his advanced age and the several engagements he had to attend, he is currently not feeling well and is in need of much rest,” he added.

Delgra said his client would be available to the lower chamber after 1 November.

Who else is invited?

According to Pimentel, the Senate subpanel will also invite retired P/Col. Royina Garma, who had admitted in the House hearing that Duterte ordered her to find police officers to implement a nationwide anti-drugs campaign similar to the “Davao model.”

The subcommittee also plans to invite former police colonel Edilberto Leonardo, who was recommended by Garma to implement the reward-for-kill scheme in Duterte’s war on drugs.

Pimentel said the subpanel will also invite alleged drug lord Kerwin Espinosa who had claimed that Dela Rosa coerced him into linking former senator Leila de Lima to the illegal drug trade.

Dela Rosa was chief of the Philippine National Police in 2016 and led the anti-narcotics campaign of the Duterte administration — the controversial “Oplan Tokhang.”

De Lima, a staunch critic of Duterte’s war on drugs, was recently acquitted by the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court in her third and remaining drug case.

The former lawmaker was accused of pocketing payoffs from drug lords when she was Justice secretary in 2016, a charge that was not substantiated by the prosecutors.

Pimentel said De Lima would also be invited to the Senate hearing, aside from the families of the victims of the alleged extrajudicial killings.