A Philippine senator who led an investigation into the president’s bloody anti-drug campaign was ousted Monday from the justice committee in a vote that human rights advocates said could derail accountability in the crackdown.
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In last Thursday’s Senate inquiry into drug-related killings, Trillanes clashed with Cayetano when the latter grilled for political motive, witness Edgar Matobato, a self-confessed hitman linking President Duterte to summary executions in Davao City. Matobato said President Rodrigo Duterte ordered him and his peers to kill suspected snatchers, rapists, and drug pushers from 1988 to 2013. “The Senate is showing greater interest in covering up allegations of state-sanctioned murder than in exposing them”.
Duterte and De Lima have been longtime rivals, after the senator tried to tie him to the “Davao Death Squad” (DDS), a paramilitary vigilante organization, when she was head of the Commission on Human Rights under the former administration.
De Lima will continue to serve on the committee, but will be replaced as its chair by Senator Richard Gordon – who recently called for Philippine law enforcement to be allowed to make arrests without warrants.
Justice Minister Vitaliano Aguirre told reporters he will present dozens of high-profile inmates who will testify that they raised millions of pesos to bankroll Ms de Lima’s Senate bid.
Mr Pacquiao, 37, the eight-time boxing champion who ran for senator under former vice-president Jejomar Binay but has since switched loyalty to Mr Duterte, agreed with Mr Cayetano that Ms de Lima was “not fair to all”. She has denied the allegations, but the president’s allies in the House of Representatives are to launch an inquiry Tuesday. The hearings exposed her to a torrent of harassment and intimidation from Duterte and other government officials.
Earlier on Monday, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano had hit out at De Lima in a speech on the Senate floor, saying she had a “bias against the President’s crusade”.
During Cayetano’s speech, De Lima walked out.
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Cayetano then asked, “Can Senator Trillanes stop talking to me?”
