Quadgaroo court

Allegations of it being an omnipotent inquisition body being used for partisan objectives should be enough reason for the House to terminate the unprecedented debauchery called the Quad Committee or Quadcomm.

The body, composed of the Committees on Dangerous Drugs, Human Rights, Public Accounts, and Public Order and Safety, was supposedly created to consolidate the hearings on Philippine Online Gaming Operators (POGO), extrajudicial killings (EJKs), and illegal drugs since the subjects are interrelated and the same resource persons were considered, or so they say.

As the extended sessions proceeded, however, the Quadcomm appeared to have acquired God-like attributes such as being both prosecutor and judge of their witnesses, when none of its leaders had studied law.

A legislator said the body had achieved a record of sorts in the number of witnesses that it ordered detained.

A former head of an assassination squad, an actor, a religious preacher and a turncoat are cast as the group’s unlikely ringleaders.

“Wala sa hulog ang Quadcomm (Quadcomm is way out of line),” Sagip Partylist Rep. Rodante Marcoleta, a veteran lawyer, said.

He explained that Quadcom is not a court and the four chairpersons are not qualified to serve as judges. They should be investigating in aid of legislation and not prosecuting, which the Constitution does not allow.

The legislator, who is among the most seasoned members of Congress, said it is clear in the Charter that the Senate and the House of Representatives were created not to investigate crime.

Inquiries and investigations are conducted by Congress to help legislators craft laws, that’s the reason resource persons are called, he noted.

Marcoleta lamented that individuals called to the Quadcomm hearings were not there to help fill in missing aspects of a legislative measure.

“Even before a legislator invites a resource person, a proposed measure should already be in the process of being created, and in the case of Quadcom there is absolutely none,” he pointed out.

“They bring individuals into the House hearings, but they cannot produce a single law they are writing.”

Marcoleta continued: “Imagine the number of individuals that have been called in the series of hearings; it would be hard to count but the problem is they are not creating any law.”

“Even if one million questions are asked, they will not stop because it has no direction since the investigations do not have a legislative purpose,” he averred.

Recently, the body was pinned down for using a script for the supposed resource persons it summoned to push an agenda.

Philippine National Police Drug Enforcement Group Col. Hector Grijaldo issued a sworn statement and read it before the Senate, claiming that during the 22 October House hearing, he was called to a room by two of the committee heads who presented him with former Col. Royina Garma’s supplemental affidavit.

Grijaldo said he was told what to say when he appeared before the inquiry, which was to confirm Garma’s claim of a reward system for policemen in the war on drugs during the term of President Rodrigo Duterte. He also narrated instances that indicated the probability that Garma and her lawyers had been coached.

“When I entered the room, I saw two lawyers of police colonel Garma inside. One of the lawyers approached and asked me, ‘What are we going to talk about?’ I said, ‘I do not know,’” Grijaldo read from his affidavit.

Grijaldo’s statement was dismissed by the implicated Quadcomm heads as a brazen lie. Yet, they admitted talking to Grijaldo, to “ask him if he had any knowledge about what colonel Garma talked about.”

Garma, a former classmate of Grijaldo’s in the police academy, may have thought the police officer would go along with her statements made before the House body. Now, the Quadcomm wants to haul former President Duterte into their charade to legitimize it.

The four leaders must be made to explain the bovine manure they are up to since, clearly, there is no reason in terms of legislative function to hold the unending soap opera.