By the time this editorial comes out, President Rodrigo Duterte may have revealed his latest watch list of drug suspects ranging from police officials, politicians, public officials and so on.
Depending on who’s on the list, the President’s unpredictable announcement won’t extinguish the negative (mostly)/positive effect of last week’s Senate committee hearing that showcased a self-confessed member of the Davao Death Squad named Edgar Matobato claiming that then Davao City mayor and now President Rodrigo Duterte ordered a hit on then justice secretary and now Sen. Leila De Lima.
Depending on which side of the fence one sits in, Matobato’s account/testimony may either be a godsend to Duterte critics who are labeled by the President’s supporters as yellowtards (after the color adopted by the Liberal Party) or yet another evidence of plans to impeach President Duterte as seen by his loyalists and supporters.
But the sideline drama during the Senate justice committee hearing threatened to nearly overshadow the details in Matobato’s testimony, which not a few netizens noted were riddled with inconsistencies.
Netizens were quick to point out Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV’s attempts to silence Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, Duterte’s vice presidential candidate, by turning off his microphone and supposedly saying, “Di ka na makakaporma dito (You cannot swagger here).”
For Cebuanos, it was Matobato’s account of the details of businessman Richard King’s execution that drew the most attention. Predictably, the King family’s lawyer denied Matobato’s story, yet another public shaming of the businessman’s name after President Duterte identified him as allegedly engaged in the illegal drugs trade.
The Senate justice committee’s hearing was supposed to continue yesterday, but unless they come out with something stronger than just verbal testimony, even one from a self-confessed killer, the public will view this as yet another attempt by Sen. Leila De Lima to clear herself of allegations of, if not involvement in, benefiting directly from the illegal drugs trade through her alleged lover as claimed by the President.
For it is the Senate justice committee hearings that serve as the senator’s first line of defense against the President, who vowed publicly to destroy her for her supposed persecution of his tough campaign against criminals.
Both are supposed to be granted immunity from suit, the President more so, but De Lima is looking to constitutionalists to determine if the immunity is absolute or not.
As this war of words and will rages on, so does the war against the illegal drugs trade which as seen in the recent Tres Abril shooting, have claimed some collateral damage.
Regardless of which side of the fence one sits in, not a few would agree that ensuring the protection of the innocent is just as paramount as jailing the drug pushers and dealers.
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