Former President Rodrigo Duterte and Senator Risa Hontiveros had several heated exchanges during an expletive-filled Senate Blue Ribbon subcommittee investigation into the drug-related killings that occurred during Duterte’s administration.

The inquiry focused on alleged abuses and failures linked to the controversial war on drugs.

Hontiveros pressed Duterte on whether he assumed responsibility for specific deaths, such as that of a 17-year-old killed by police in 2017.

“Do you assume responsibility for the death of Kian de los Santos?” Hontiveros asked. Duterte responded, “No.” She pressed him to explain if death squads were being paid to kill, to which Duterte replied, “Nothing.”

Hontiveros continued to challenge Duterte, questioning the alleged existence of death squads used to target drug suspects. She cited past comments by Duterte about such squads, stating, “So, the former president’s statement that they have death squads is a bombshell. Whatever their name, whether police or non-police, because it looks like what we are investigating now. The instruments used for the war on drugs have resulted in numerous extrajudicial killings.”

The inquiry became tense when Hontiveros asked if criminals deserved to be killed rather than jailed.

Duterte responded dismissively, saying he did not care about the lives of criminals, “Why should I keep alive those sons of bitches? The money I would spend to feed them in prison, I should just give to those people who have no rice.”

Hontiveros asked if Duterte wanted criminals to die rather than be imprisoned.

He replied, “You make your own history on this planet,” and added, “that’s what they want to happen, they’re there, they’re in hell, and we’ll meet there.”

This response did not sit well with Hontiveros, who retorted that the Senate had no jurisdiction over hell.

“Well, I have no ambition to go to hell. But Mr. Chair, the point is that when any police operations start, drug-related police operations, supposedly, resource persons said, there is a continuum of force in enforcing the police anti-drug operation,” she said.

Accountable

Earlier in the day, Duterte defended his anti-narcotics campaign, which allegedly killed more than 30,000 suspected drug addicts and users during his six-year term.

He arrived at the Senate with a walking cane, far from his once tough image that charmed Filipinos.

He said he took “full legal responsibility” for the crimes committed by the policemen who followed his orders.

“I did what I had to do because I needed to do it. Why? To protect the people and my country,” Duterte said in an interview ahead of the Senate Blue Ribbon Subcommittee’s investigation into the Philippine drug war.

“I am here to make an accounting of what I did as President,” he added.

The Senate panel’s investigation was initiated by Duterte’s allies in the chamber, Senators Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who was the chief of the Philippine National Police in 2016 and led the anti-narcotics campaign of the Duterte administration, the controversial “Oplan Tokhang,” and Christopher “Bong” Go, his former aide.

Some political observers maintained that Duterte’s Senate appearance may have been intended to negate the negative publicity he and his family are getting in the House of Representatives’ Quad Committee hearing on the same drug war.

Duterte was accused of being the chief architect of the controversial drug war by retired P/Col. Royina Garma, who admitted in the House hearing that the former chief executive ordered her to find police officers who would implement an anti-narcotics campaign similar to the “Davao model.”

According to Garma, the so-called Davao Model was a reward-for-kill scheme that involved three levels of payment or rewards.

“First is the reward if the suspect is killed. Second is the funding of planned operations. Third is the refund of operational expenses,” Garma said in her affidavit during the House Quadcom hearing.

She said she recommended then-police colonel Edilberto Leonardo, her upperclassman at the Philippine National Police Academy, to be the implementer of the Davao model based on Duterte’s requirements: a policeman who is a member of the Iglesia Ni Cristo.

During the House Quadcom hearing last week, Leonardo validated the existence of the reward scheme for police officers who killed drug suspects.

At yesterday’s Senate inquiry, Duterte refuted Garma’s allegations that he had ordered her to look for police personnel who would implement an anti-narcotics campaign similar to the “Davao model.”

Duterte also denied calling Garma to his residence in Doña Luisa, Davao City in May 2016.

‘Liar, liar’

“I do not remember calling her. And for what? I was already the president at the time; I had everything I needed already,” Duterte told the panel when asked about Garma’s revelation at the House Quadcom investigation.

“I hate to say this, but that woman is lying. Why would I single out the Iglesia ni Cristo? I might as well include the Aglipayans and Mormons. Why would I focus only on Iglesia ni Cristo?” he added.

Both Garma and Leonardo skipped the Senate panel’s investigation, prompting Dela Rosa to make a motion to subpoena them.

“We have to require their presence here. I can only surmise that they don’t want their statements given before the House of Representatives to be debunked before this body,” Dela Rosa said.

“They do not want the truth to come out if they don’t come here,” he added.

Subcommittee Chair Aquilino Pimentel III earlier said that Garma was on a medical furlough as she was scheduled for a medical checkup while Leonardo was infected with Covid-19.

Dela Rosa also sought to subpoena Ronnie Dayan, the former driver of former senator Leila de Lima, who attended the Senate hearing.

At the House Quadcom hearing, self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa testified that Dayan allegedly received a total of P8 million from him to support De Lima’s senatorial bid in 2016.

Espinosa recanted all his allegations against De Lima in 2022, saying he was “coerced, pressured, intimidated, and seriously threatened” by the police to implicate the former senator.

Espinosa’s earlier testimonies were used by the previous administration’s prosecutors to jail De Lima, a staunch critic of Duterte’s war on drugs.

Bloated number?

Last August, De Lima was acquitted by the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 205 in her final drug case. During a recent House QuadCom hearing, Espinosa claimed that Dela Rosa had “coerced” him to link De Lima to the illegal drug trade in the New Bilibid Prison during her tenure as Justice secretary.

Based on government data, at least 7,000 people were killed under Duterte’s drug war; however, both local and international human rights groups disagreed with the figures, stressing that the actual number of victims could be as high as 30,000.

Defending his previous administration’s anti-illegal drugs campaign, Duterte insisted on the negative effects of using illegal drugs on Filipinos.

“My mandate as president of the Philippines was to protect the country and the Filipino people. Do not question my policies because I offer no apologies and no excuses. I did what I had to do; whether you believe it or not, I did it for my country,” he said.

Duterte lamented that his “war on illegal drugs was not about killing people.”

“It was about protecting the innocent and defenseless. The war on drugs was about the eradication of illegal substances such as shabu, cocaine, heroin, marijuana, party drugs, and the like — as it meant ruining people, families, communities, and relationships — and tearing apart the social fabric, which binds society together in peace, harmony and brotherhood,” he said.

“I hate illegal drugs, and I loathe the purveyors, the merchants and the pushers of this demonizing element. You destroy the hope of the fatherland, and you destroy yourselves.”

The former president pointed out that he had warned the public about his administration’s launch of a war on illegal drugs.

“I had not failed to emphasize this from the very first day of the campaign when I ran for the presidency in 2016. This was my covenant with the Filipinos who believed in me then. And to this day, most still agree with what we in government have achieved,” he said.

Duterte likewise stated that the previously recorded illegal drug-related deaths were not state-sponsored killings. “There was never an official order to the police and the military and to the agents of the government to kill,” he asserted.