The House of Representatives’ quad committee announced on Thursday that it has uncovered a “grand criminal enterprise” centering on former president Rodrigo Duterte in the course of conducting 13 hearings on the connections of illegal drugs, illegal offshore gambling hubs, and extrajudicial killings during the bloody “war on drugs.” “Ladies and gentlemen, the quad committee has started...
Tag: Rodrigo Duterte
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‘Unbecoming behavior’: Duterte tries to get physical in House hearing
Confronted publicly for the first time by two of his fiercest critics, former senators Leila de Lima and Antonio Trillanes IV, former president Rodrigo Duterte gestured as if to hit them in separate occasions on Wednesday at the 11th hearing of the House of Representatives’ quad committee. It was Trillanes who appeared to enrage Duterte...
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‘Human Wrongs’: Images of Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’
Former president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs is back on the front-page news with the ongoing hearings in the Senate and the House of Representatives, bringing back memories of grief suffered by families of the victims. Duterte’s admission to senators of knowing the existence of death squads and encouraging police officers to kill drug suspects...
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Still alive: ‘Victims’ of ‘Davao Mafia’ reunite in House hearing
A former customs intelligence officer told the House of Representatives’ quad committee on Thursday that he wept on seeing ex-colonel Eduardo Acierto because of “anger and joy” that they are both still alive after losing their men to the “Davao Mafia” that prospered during then President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration. Jimmy Guban, who is serving a...
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Duterte admits setting up death squad in Davao City
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...
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Garma says Duterte phoned her after her testimony on drug war’s ‘reward system’
Former president Rodrigo Duterte phoned retired police colonel Royina Garma after she testified two weeks ago at a hearing of the House of Representatives’ quad committee that killings were enforced in his “war on drugs” in exchange for rewards. Garma made the admission under questioning by Alliance of Concerned Teachers partylist Rep. France Castro during...
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Story for our times
Kerwin Espinosa’s testimony at the Oct. 11 hearing of the House of Representatives’ quad committee dredged an 8-year-old case from the swamp of oblivion. The killing by state forces of his father, Mayor Rolando Espinosa of Albuera, Leyte, while incarcerated at the Baybay Sub-Provincial Jail, was a shocking development in President Rodrigo Duterte’s young administration....
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More ‘smoking guns’ needed to beef up case vs Duterte et al. at ICC
The explosive testimony on Friday of one of Rodrigo Duterte’s trusted police aides is the “start of the reckoning” for the former president and his brutal war on drugs, but “more smoking guns” are needed to pin him down and others for the crimes against humanity case they are facing at the International Criminal Court...
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Leila de Lima and her personal quest for justice
The lawyer Leila de Lima is counting her blessings and savoring her recent legal victory that cleared her of her third drug case. But she’s not losing sight of her personal quest for justice against her persecutors. She will sue those who publicly maligned her and haled her to court on fabricated drug trafficking charges...
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Some difficulty with Patricia Evangelista’s ‘Some People Need Killing’
More than two months have passed, and I still catch myself thinking of Patricia Evangelista’s book launch at Aldaba Recital Hall at the University of the Philippines Diliman. The event was dubbed as her homecoming, Evangelista being an alumnus of UP’s Department of Speech Communication and Theater Arts. She and her book, “Some People Need...