In two stunning admissions he made before a Senate blue ribbon subcommittee on Monday, former President Rodrigo Duterte said he kept a death squad that was set up to “fight crime” when he was mayor of Davao City.

Duterte said three former Davao police chiefs had led the so-called “Duterte Death Squad (DDS)” and that he had encouraged police to prod suspects to resist and to ultimately kill them.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros said these twin admissions by Duterte were “bombshells.” 

“It looks like what we’re investigating now was the instrument used for the war on drugs that resulted in extrajudicial killings,” Hontiveros said during the first hearing of the Senate subcommittee’s inquiry into Duterte’s war on drugs. 

“You’re correct, ma’am. You are really right,” Duterte replied, adding that it is he who should be investigated, and not the “kawawa” (pitiful) police. 

Hearing Duterte’s admissions, former senator Leila de Lima commented that “inducing or prodding people directly or indirectly” to commit a crime is not part of the duty of an executive official.

Duterte said he should be taken to court for it.  

It was the first time the former president appeared in a congressional hearing to defend his bloody campaign against drugs. He chose to testify in the Senate and to skip the invitation of the House of Representatives’ quad committee that has heard several witnesses alleging he had ordered the killing of drug suspects in police operations in exchange for rewards.

His allies, Senators Christopher “Bong” Go and Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, have likewise ignored the summonses of the House special panel looking into the connections among the illegal drug trade, illegal Philippine offshore gaming operators, and extrajudicial killings during the drug war.

Go was special assistant to the president and Dela Rosa the Philippine National Police chief when the drug war was launched. They were also alleged by witnesses in the House inquiry to have ordered the killing of drug suspects and rewarded the police for the deed. Both senators have denied this.

‘Mandate’

“My mandate as president of the republic was to protect the country and the Filipino people. Do not question my policies because I offer no apologies, no excuses. I did what I had to do, and whether you believe it or not, I did it for my country,” Duterte said in his opening statement to the Senate subcommittee headed by Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III.

Speaking in a mix of English and Filipino and constantly cussing, Duterte repeatedly said he was taking “full responsibility” for the drug war that at one point he described as “not perfect.”

“For all its successes and shortcomings, I and I alone take full legal responsibility for all the actions of the police pursuant to my order. I should be held responsible, and I should be the one jailed and not the police who were just following orders,” he said.

Hontiveros based her queries to Duterte on that statement and ended up clashing with him.

She cited the case of the 17-year-old Kian de los Santos who was killed in a drug operation and asked him if he was taking responsibility for it.

Said Duterte: “I was referring to the policy of what the police did.”

Hontiveros then asked if he was taking full responsibility for the outcome of this policy. and he replied in the negative.

When she asked if he was assuming responsibility for the killing of 20-year-old Carl Anthony Nunez, which was a case of mistaken identity, Duterte said: “Guilt is personal, you just cannot pass it on.”

‘Semantics’

Hontiveros countered by citing Duterte’s statements in 2020 and 2021 that he would assume responsibility for any death in the drug war. He said he was taking responsibility for the drug war and that the court will not accept a specific crime.

“You are trying to pin me down,” Duterte said, raising his voice. “Don’t pin me down on semantics.”

The exchange prompted Pimentel to suspend the hearing. Duterte then asked if he could go to the restroom.

At the resumption of the hearing, Duterte told Hontiveros that he was just “excited” because it was his first appearance in the Senate and that the incident “has nothing to do with you or my character.”

“If you’re offended by my demeanor, let me change gear and I will try do it with moderation,” he said, adding that the senators could complete their questioning even if it took until the next day because he could not afford plane travel to Manila from Davao all the time.

It was Hontiveros who sought to clarify Duterte’s statement that he had his own death squad when he was mayor of Davao City. He made the admission when he said his former police chiefs knew that many criminals were killed as the crime rate rose in the city, and its economy bloomed thereafter.

“I can make a confession now if you want. Talagang yinayari ko … I have a death squad,” Duterte said.

He said it had seven members who were not part of the police force. He described them as “gangsters” that he would order to kill criminals and threaten to kill if they disobeyed him.

“So why sacrifice the police?” Duterte said, lamenting that it was the families of policemen who suffered if they got suspended from work. “And that’s why I protect them. If it’s in fulfillment of duty, I would die for them. But if they make abuses, I would be the one to kill them.”

Pimentel asked Duterte to make it clear if he had a death squad, and the ex-president said “it was not a death squad.”

“But the people in Davao know that I am there and if a heinous crime is committed and they do not have anyone to turn to, I am the one [they can turn to],” he said.

Hontiveros asked Duterte about the identities of the seven members of his hit squad and to describe its structure.

“My death squad, ma’am, of course it’s organized. Hanggang dyan lang (That’s all),” he said.

When Hontiveros prodded him on the setup, Duterte said it was to “fight crimes.”

She said she was asking about the seven members. He said they were all dead and he could not remember their names. He also denied having paid them, describing them as “very rich in Davao” and who “wanted to kill criminals because they want Davao to be safe.”

Hontiveros asked if the team included a certain Colonel Macasaet. Duterte said the person was dead and that she need not ask about the history.

‘There were killings’

Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada asked Duterte if he thought his drug war was a success. Duterte said that as president, he warned drug lords and suspects to stop the illegal drug trade or they may end up being killed if they were caught.

“So there were killings. But it was not state-sponsored killings. There was never an official order to the police and military and agents of government to kill,” Duterte said, adding that he had never made such an order to PNP chief Dela Rosa.

What he told his students when he was teaching law at the PNP Academy, he said, was that when they arrest a suspect and the suspect resists, they need to overcome the suspect’s resistance. 

To Estrada, Duterte dismissed as just “stories” reports that he had told his PNP chiefs to kill drug suspects and that there was a DDS (Davao Death Squad).

Still, he described those present who became his police chiefs in Davao City—Dela Rosa, Vicente Danao and Catalino Cuy—as “commanders of the death squad.” But he denied giving them orders to bind and “assassinate” criminals.

“What I told them is, let’s be frank, encourage the criminals to fight, encourage them to draw their guns, encourage them to fight, so that they can be killed and this could end the problem,” he said.

Asked by Pimentel if they mind being described by Duterte as heads of the death squad, both Dela Rosa and Danao said the ex-president was joking.

“In my three-year stint as city director, the former president did not order me to kill suspects,” Danao said.

Asked by Pimentel if there was a danger that policemen misinterpreted Duterte’s order, Cuy said the latter never made such an order. 

Hontiveros told Duterte that people were shocked that police had orders to kill suspects. He said this only happened when the suspects “fight” the police.

Duterte said police chiefs come from the Philippine Military Academy and are not foolish to obey illegal orders. He said that while he tried to do so, he was told that suspects should just be jailed.

Hontiveros said it was “very incorrect” for Duterte to say he had encouraged his police chiefs to prod suspects to fight the police.  

He said this was her view and that he knew his job as mayor and president. To which Hontiveros said: “Thank you for putting it on record, sir.”

Duterte said he would do it all over again if he would return as mayor, prompting certain people in the gallery to applaud. Pimentel warned that anyone engaging in such behavior again would be “excluded.”

‘Liar’

On Estrada’s questioning, Duterte called retired police colonel Royina Garma a “liar” as he denied her testimony to the House quad committee that he phoned her in May 2016 to help him find a police official with ties to Iglesia ni Cristo to organize a national task force to replicate the Davao war on drugs.

“I don’t remember calling her … I hate to say this, Garma is lying,” he said of one of his trusted police aides. “Why will I zero in with an INC member? For what reason?”

He said it was a “mystery” to him why Garma  should say that of him. “Until now I cannot fathom … It’s a lie or [she is] making up stories. I don’t know what she’s driving at,” he said.

Duterte also said he could not create such a police task force as he did not have authority to do so.

On Garma’s testimony that she had recommended then Col. Edilberto Leonardo to form and lead the task force, and who had set up a “reward system” in the drug war, Duterte wondered why he would pay the police when it was their job to go after drug suspects.

He said that if there was such a reward fund, he would have just pocketed it.

Also at the hearing, Duterte said a subordination of perjury complaint could be filed against Laguna Rep. Dan Fernandez, cochair of the House quad committee, after Col. Hector Grijaldo of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Group claimed that the congressman had tried to force him to issue an affidavit corroborating Garma’s allegation on the reward system.

Grijaldo testified that Fernandez talked to him on the sidelines of the House panel’s latest hearing last week. He said Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante, also a co-chair of the House panel, was present. Both congressmen have denied forcing anyone to issue such an affidavit.