• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The Senate will start its probe on extrajudicial killings in the war on drugs of former President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday, October 28, to be chaired by Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, as deputized by the Senate blue ribbon panel, disclosed Senator Risa Hontiveros on Friday.
Hontiveros, who paid a courtesy call on Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson at the Provincial Capitol in Bacolod City, said that with so many revelations coming out in the House of Representatives, “I intend that our hearings will additionally be victims centered.”
She said they will have human rights lawyer Chel Diokno, Fr. Flavio Villanueva, and other resource persons who are helping victims, survivors, widows, and orphans of the war of drugs.
Pimentel was the Senate president when former President Rodrigo Duterte launched his bloody anti-drug campaign, which led to police abuses and the deaths of thousands of mostly poor drug suspects.
Duterte’s war on drugs resulted in a death toll in the thousands. Official government tallies put the number of deaths at more than 6,000, but human rights groups say the figure could be as high as 30,000.*
