In our column yesterday we committed to write lengthily about what transpired during the hearing conducted by the House Quadruple Committees supposedly looking into allegations of Extra-Judicial Killings (EJKs) during former President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on illegal drugs. The hearing was done last Wednesday afternoon and lasted for about fourteen hours.-
However, we decided to not make good our promise as we were dead certain that most, if not all, households in Davao City and elsewhere in Mindanao were glued to the live television coverage of the hearing. Thus, the listeners and viewers could already be having their own observations and opinion on the manner the former President comported himself at the hearing, and how the quad com members conducted their interpellations.
We are sure too, that depending on the viewers’ bias what they have considered of the former President’s behavior during the hearing cannot anymore be altered by the opinion of others like ours, should we share it on this page. So to say, as far as the viewers from this southern Philippine island their “die is cast.”
Anyhow there are just a few observations that we feel worthy of sharing. First and foremost, it was the only hearing that we failed to hear the former President used any single cuss word. We have however, noted that with the movement of his lips he would have wanted to verbalize the words he normally uses when he talks in a crowd, media groups and gatherings of friends and associates. But the former President was able to hold his mouth – a sign that he respected the probe body and the formal request from certain quad com members.
We also noted that the Davaoeno former President was very civil in answering questions from, committee members who were professional in the way they framed their interpellations.
In the same hearing we were able to discern the seeming hatred to the former President of the members of the Makabayan Block Partylist lawmakers like Gabriella’s Arlene Brosas and ACT-Teachers Partylist France Castro. The two never showed even an iota of respect to the former President – not even to his being a much senior in age compared to the lady lawmakers.
Imagine the two women legislators unabashedly addressing the leading resource person as simply “Rodrigo Duterte.” Now that disrespect is definitely undeserving of a respectful manner in answering their postulated questions.
We also feel that the interpellators also did not have their own crafted questions. Instead, all they did was to ask former President Duterte to confirm what he told Senate probers during an earlier hearing conducted by one of the Committees’ of the Upper Chamber.
So, if indeed the purpose of the Quad Com hearing is to find means “in aid of legislation,” the lawmakers from the House of Representatives could have just requested from the Senate a transcript of the proceedings of that particular hearing. We believe the transcript could have given them all the inputs for their crafting of a new bill or an amendment to existing ones relative to addressing the EJK issue.
But no, the House Quad Committee members wanted to have their own show for their own desire to do grandstanding.
In last Wednesday’s hearing though, the former President, while astutely parrying questions from congressmen members of the mixed Congressional bodies, may have done something that may not bode well with the more observant citizens of this country.
Yes, while the former chief executive managed to control uttering his “colorful” language, he made acts short of being aggressive. He was caught on television raising his arm with clenched fist as if wanting to hit former Senator Laila Delima, one of his most vocal critics.
In another instance, when Duterte was in a verbal tussle with former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, he was caught on television camera acting like he wanted to pull up the microphone attached on the table in his front as if he wanted to throw the object to someone else, probably to Trillanes.
He however made a levity of the act by saying, he’d rather not pursue what he was trying to do because “sayang ang microphone.”
Other than those two seemingly aggressive posture, the Davaoeno former President stood out as one impenetrable rock despite the spiting of the Quad Com grandstanders.
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