MANILA – The cockiness, expletives and threats unleashed by former President Rodrigo Duterte in a Senate inquiry brought back the nightmare of the bloody “war on drugs” for many families of the thousands of victims who were gunned down under his rule.
Speaking under oath in Monday's televised hearing into the killings, a defiantly combative Duterte returned to the national spotlight for the first time since leaving office in 2022 with little show of remorse.
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He got away with it again, critics say.
"If I’m given another chance, I’ll wipe all of you,” Duterte, 79, who is seeking a new term as mayor of his southern home city of Davao next year, said of drug dealers and criminals.
Duterte again denied that he authorized extrajudicial killings of drug suspects, saying there were no “state-sponsored killings.” But he acknowledged that as mayor of Davao, before becoming president, he kept a small “ death squad ” of gangsters whom he had ordered to eliminate other criminals.
Duterte's profanity-laced outbursts scared Randy delos Santos, who was invited by the Senate to speak about the killing of his nephew, Kian, by police under Duterte’s “war on drugs.” It felt, he said, like a nightmare had returned.
"I had this frightening feeling that thousands of innocent people may be gunned down again,” delos Santos told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “I was wondering why he was allowed to speak with disrespect and given a stage to vent his past excuses."
Duterte has upended politics in Philippines
The thousands of killings — which human rights groups estimate could exceed 20,000 — under Duterte's administration 2016-2022 were unprecedented in recent Philippine history and triggered an International Criminal Court investigation as a possible crime against humanity.
They have also become a delicate fault line in the increasingly hostile rivalry between Duterte and his children, including Vice President Sara Duterte, and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. They had a bitter political fallout over key issues. While Duterte had nurtured cozy ties with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Marcos has broadened defense and military relations with the United States and its Western allies.
“It’s unfortunate that drug-related crimes are on the rise again. Everyday you can read about children being raped, people getting killed and robbed and just recently a drug den was raided within the Malacanang complex,” Duterte said, referring to the presidential palace in Manila. “Purveyors of this menace are back in business.”
Duterte has previously accused Marcos of being a drug addict and weak leader. Marcos had retorted that Duterte was a user of fentanyl, a painkiller and powerful opioid.
Looking frail and misstating his age as 73 at one point, the daylong Senate hearing also served as the latest reality check on the political restraints that Duterte and his family face after he relinquished his grip on power.
Duterte was one of Asia’s most unorthodox leaders and carved a controversial political name for his deadly campaign against criminality, expletives-laced outbursts and disdain for human rights and the West. He once called the pope a “son of a bitch” for setting off a monstrous traffic jam during a Manila visit and told then-President Barack Obama to “go to hell” for criticizing his brutal anti-drugs crackdown.
Duterte’s profanities became a trademark of his political persona and some regarded him as Asia’s Trump.
During a heated exchange on Monday, Duterte raised his voice at Sen. Risa Hontiveros, a staunch human rights activist, who said that his campaign had killed 122 children, including a baby. Hontiveros asked the chairman overseeing the hearing to restrain the increasingly volatile Duterte, who rambled on as she spoke. He later stopped and apologized.
“You’re trying to pin me down on semantics,” Duterte blurted out at Hontiveros, who shot back: “You’re pinned by your own words.”
"You were never a mayor, prosecutor … I was a prosecutor, mayor, president and I know my job. You should talk like, `Son of a bitch, you stop, or I will kill you,’” Duterte told the senators.
The killings left deep scars
A Roman Catholic priest, the Rev. Flavie Villanueva, showed during the hearing a list of more than 300 victims, many of them breadwinners of poor families, who were killed under Duterte’s crackdown. A roll of white paper with the victims’ names that the priest unfurled was so long it touched the carpeted floor.
Former Sen. Leila de Lima, one of the most vocal critics of Duterte who was arrested and detained for years during his presidency, confronted him during the hearing.
The drug charges against her, she said, were fabricated by Duterte and his officials to stop her investigation of the drug killings. She was cleared of the charges and freed last year.
"This man … for so long has evaded justice and accountability,” de Lima said of Duterte, who sat near her.
Sen. Jinggoy Estrada asked why de Lima failed to file any criminal complaint against Duterte for so long.
Witnesses against Duterte, she said, were afraid to come out during his presidency when larges-cale killings were unfolding.
"There was an atmosphere of fear, a culture of fear and impunity,” she said. "I hope many more will come out now.”