The appearance of former President Rodrigo Duterte at the House of Representatives quad committee on Wednesday offered the nation another opportunity to reflect on what really went wrong in his war on drugs.
While we fully support all efforts to eliminate illegal drugs from the country, Duterte’s take-no-prisoner approach to his anti-drug campaign for six years has produced many widows and orphans and sent a number of police officers to jail.
The ravages of the drug war, both in terms of the lives lost and on the diminished reputation of law enforcement agencies, put into question the wisdom of treating the drug menace as mainly a law enforcement problem.
But Duterte’s willingness to be quizzed about his official acts as president in relation to the drug war provided the citizens of this nation with some answers to the troubling questions that extrajudicial killings, estimated to have taken the lives of around 6,200 victims by official account, have elicited.
Bravely facing the quad committee during its 11th hearing, Duterte stood his ground from morning until a quarter before midnight on Wednesday.
I’ve been a journalist long enough to realize that political archenemies sitting side by side—for hours on end—is a rare phenomenon in this country. Yesterday, the jailer sat beside his fierce critic, former Sen. Leila de Lima, whom he sent to jail on what she said were “fictitious and bogus” drug charges. The courts eventually upheld her innocence, dismissing all three drug cases after government witnesses, most of whom were Bilibid drug inmates, recanted their statements; but it took De Lima nearly seven years to regain her freedom.
Duterte’s other acknowledged enemy, former Sen. Sonny Trillanes, who filed plunder cases against him and a drug case against his son and son-in-law, was only two seats away from him.
One thing stood out during the back-and-forth discussions: Duterte’s insistence on taking “full legal, moral responsibility” for the drug war, an admission he first made on Sept. 28 during a Senate hearing on the same issue.
“All those that happened pursuant to my order to stop the drug problem in this country, they were mine. I gave the order. They did it illegally or legally, that’s mine. I take full responsibility for it,” he said.
But there’s a caveat: he doesn’t take responsibility for the direct beneficiaries of his “kill, kill, kill” order—the drug suspects killed in the drug war. He said he had no hand in those killings, insisting several times that “guilt is personal.”
Conspiracy theory
It was Rep. Gerville Luistro who first raised the legal theory of conspiracy to commit a crime ostensibly to challenge Duterte’s “full responsibility” statement, which, ironically, doesn’t cover any liability for the individual killings.
She reminded Duterte that in a conspiracy, one can be the principal either by inducement, indispensable cooperation, or direct participation. He agreed, even correctly specifying instances when any of these three situations can occur.
“Going back to your statement that you are taking full responsibility to all the victims of the war on drugs, both legal and illegal, it is my humble submission that the former president can be considered liable for all these crimes under the theory of conspiracy by being a principal by inducement. Without the order, without the reward, these police operatives could not have resorted to killing a huge number of victims of war on drugs,” said Luistro.
Luistro made the manifestation after Duterte himself said that giving money was one form of an inducement to commit a crime.
Apparently realizing a legal conundrum of his own making, Duterte retreated to the usual defense employed by public officials whenever they find themselves in hot water—the “presumption of regularity” in the performance their duties. “That’s a principle of law,” the former leader shot back.
Confession of guilt
Luistro clarified if Duterte was making an extrajudicial confession of guilt, and Duterte replied yes. “In a sense, yes, because … I ordered the campaign against the drug syndicates, and whatever they did—whether illegal or not—I was the one who ordered it, in that sense I take that responsibility of their actions,” said Duterte.
But when pressed further, he again contradicted himself, saying, “it was not about guilt or a wrong. What I’m saying is that all those I ordered (in the) war against drugs … whatever they’re doing, I take full responsibility for that.”
A bewildered Rep. Rodrigo Gutierrez then asked what exactly Duterte was taking responsibility for. “Where do you draw the line of your responsibility in this war on drugs, Mr. President?” the partylist solon said.
“Because guilt is personal,” replied Duterte, to which Gutierrez pointed out that Duterte was actually making a “distinction” between the policy considerations, or the orders given to the police, and “individual cases in which you would claim you would not know.”
Bravado
The personal admission of Duterte is essentially non-admission. However, his own legal theory must contend with the law, which states that a suspect in a criminal case cannot claim responsibility without incurring culpability.
Eventually, Gutierrez and several other lawmakers said that they couldn’t understand Duterte’s claim of full responsibility for the drug war without being held accountable for the deaths of alleged drug suspects. It’s not just confusing, it’s downright contradictory.
Thus, in trying to divine Duterte’s admission-cum-defense, one must be perceptive enough to recognize that he’s a man of contradictions. That implies that he could contradict himself by explaining in a convoluted manner, which would only confuse and not clarify. If you think you’ve made him admit to something he did, he can try to get out of the trap by using obfuscation as a weapon.
At the end of the day, it’s reasonable to say that Duterte’s statement was just a display of bravado, directed more at the public and to appease police officers whose murder charges related to the war on drugs now hang like a Sword of Damocles over their heads.
But the International Criminal Court and our own justice system have surely taken note of Duterte’s other admissions before the separate hearings of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Some of his statements taken under oath include killing 6-7 people and maintaining a seven-man death squad when he was Davao mayor. He also admitted to planting evidence against crime suspects, gave out “tips (to) the boys” as a reward for solved crimes, and goading the police to “encourage” suspects to fight back to justify their killing.
For comments: mubac@inquirer.com.ph