MANILA, Philippines — The quad committee of the House of Representatives remains hopeful former president Rodrigo Duterte will change his mind and attend the panel’s next hearing on extrajudicial killings and the bloody drug war during his administration.
In a phone interview with The STAR, one of the quad comm leaders, Rep. Dan Fernandez, said lawmakers are willing to give the former president “parliamentary courtesy” despite the latter’s uncouth behavior during the previous hearing.
He said quad comm would try its best to convince Duterte to face the panel so that lawmakers would not have to take drastic action against him, like citing him in contempt. The quad comm has yet to set a date for the next hearing.
“Quad comm is a consensus body. The decision on whether to hold in contempt anybody, any resource persons, will need the consensus of all its members. We will have to discuss it first,” Fernandez said.
“The decision of the body, right now, is to exhaust all means to give the former president a chance to give his side by attending the hearing. Under the rules of the House and the committee, we have to observe the entire process giving due recognition of all the rights of the people invited by the committee as resource persons,” Fernandez said.
He said the rules of the quad comm would be strictly followed in the conduct of hearings.
“First, we have to issue a show cause order. If the invitation is continuously rejected or snubbed, it is only then that the entire committee will meet and decide on whether we will impose a contempt order,” the Laguna lawmaker said.
He said Duterte’s lawyer Martin Delgra wrote a letter to the quad comm notifying the panel of the former president’s decision not to attend last Thursday’s hearing.
In the letter, Delgra said Duterte decided to skip the hearing as his presence was “no longer necessary.”
The former president also claimed the quad comm hearing was meant to prepare the stage for his indictment for crimes he did not commit.
He also accused Fernandez and Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante of having already judged him guilty of “willful killing” under Section 6 of Republic Act (RA) No. 9851 or the Philippine Act on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide and Other Crimes Against Humanity.
Duterte, according to Delgra, was also “gravely concerned” about how the quad comm had tried to make resource persons admit to wrongdoing under oath.
Furthermore, the former president claimed he had said enough during his testimony before the Senate Blue Ribbon subcommittee.
In response, Fernandez said he is ready to inhibit if Duterte would appear before the quad comm.
“We are exhausting all means to give former president Duterte a chance to explain his side. We do not see the reason why he cannot attend the congressional hearing, while he can attend the Senate hearing,” Fernandez said.
“We just want to ferret out the truth. The law applies to all. Despite all the unsavory words and allegations thrown by the former president and his allies to us, we will continue the investigation, to give him leeway, hoping that he would finally decide to face us,” Fernandez said.