On Wednesday, the Philippine House of Representatives held its last session of the year, during which several committee chairpersons recommended the filing of charges against former President Rodrigo Duterte and his subordinates for crimes against humanity.
The leaders of the Quad committee, which was formed to probe the drug-related killings that took place under the Duterte presidency, shared key findings in their progress report after conducting 13 widely covered public hearings over the past year.
Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, the committee chair, spoke on the House plenary floor about the “chilling revelations” about the rise of extrajudicial killings in the past administration. “The investigation brought to light a harrowing narrative of abuse of power and institutional impunity during the Duterte administration,” he said. Barbers added that “witness testimonies corroborated by evidence revealed a system that incentivized the killing of suspected drug personalities.”
Rep. Romeo Acop, a former police officer and also a leader of the Quad committee, identified Duterte as the “center” of a “grand criminal enterprise.”
“President Digong won on the platform of a hardline stance against illegal drugs and criminality, but he turned out to be the face of illegal drugs and criminality,” he said in a media event.
Aside from Duterte, the committee also recommended the filing of charges against key officials who implemented the anti-drug campaign, which include two incumbent senators. In a media interview, Acop explained the role of these officials in enabling drug-related killings during the time of Duterte.
“These are the people whose hands are on the purse and the sword of the Republic, and they have definitely used it,” he said. “It is most unfortunate, however, that the sword was used to slit, stab, and slash the very people it swore to protect – we the people. And the purse was used not to benefit the Republic, but to line the pockets of the few.”
Duterte’s former spokesperson dismissed the Quad’s findings and claimed that their witnesses gave “coerced testimonies” based on hearsay. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, a former police chief, said that the recommendations of the Quad committee were a tool for “political demolition” and “persecution” of the Dutertes ahead of the 2028 presidential election. In response, the Quad committee members challenged the Duterte camp to provide counter-evidence.
The release of the preliminary Quad committee report marks another escalation in the political rift between the Marcos and Duterte families. After joining forces to dominate the 2022 elections, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and Duterte’s daughter Sara formed a unity government with a big majority in both houses of Congress. It would have been unthinkable in 2022 or even last year for Marcos allies in Congress to entertain the idea of setting up a committee to probe the abuses under the previous administration.
This only became possible when the Dutertes started attacking the leadership of the Marcos government. Vice President Sara Duterte, daughter of the former president, resigned as education secretary in June amid allegations that she misused public funds. Her brother, the mayor of Davao City, has called for Marcos to resign as president.
After the House of Representatives stripped the vice president of confidential funds in 2023, former President Duterte came out from his supposed political retirement and criticized Congress as the most corrupt and “most rotten” institution in government. A year later, the House came out with a strong rebuke backed by evidence and testimonies. Duterte rallied his supporters with his sensational comments while the House leadership responded by presenting documents and whistleblowers regarding the abuses committed by the previous government.
The political tension is expected to intensify next year ahead of the May midterm election. The Quad committee has yet to make a final report and it could unearth more evidence against the Dutertes. The House also has yet to act on the three impeachment complaints filed against Vice President Duterte.
The recommendations of the Quad committee resonate with the demands of the opposition to pursue accountability for the grave abuses that took place when Duterte was president. The challenge for the committee and the House in general is to expand the probe by also looking into the extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations under the Marcos administration.