Senator Lacson on Tuesday, October 18, said that Gordon should have let the three witnesses that were under the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) protection testify about the drug-related killing before terminating the Senate justice committee’s investigation.
The rejection by Senator Richard Gordon, Senate committee head, to let the three witnesses brought by CHR to testify was after one of the CHR commissioners publicly criticized his way of handling the investigation and called him a ‘coward’.
After this incident, the CHR chair Chito Gascon announced that the statement by Commissioner Roberto Eugenio Cadiz does not reflect the position of the agency about the issue.
[ads1]
Meanwhile, Lacson commented that his request to Gordon to let the CHR present was rejected because Gordon was “caught in the moment” with his issue involving Senator De Lima. Lacson said he decided to drop his request as there is a possibility to be caught in a three-cornered fight if he continued to insist.
After Gordon terminated the Senate justice panel’s investigation about the extra-judicial killings and summary executions on Thursday, Lacson says that he expects the committee report that will be released this week to go through extensive deliberations in the plenary.
Lacson agrees with Gordon’s position that the investigation did not clearly justified why the Davao Death Squad exists. Lacson also added that the investigation did not manage to establish a direct link between President Duterte and the alleged killings.
Moreover, Lacson said he is still waiting for the validation of Matobato’s testimony but that there is still nothing that would validate the hitman’s statement as of now.
Edgar Matobato was a hitman who was a member of the Davao Death Squad who professed that the President is connected to the killings in Davao City while he was still mayor of the city.
Furthermore, Lacson said that he is willing to go “all out” and push for the reopening of the investigation if there will be a corroborating witness and evidence that can validate Matobato’s testimonies.
Source: (gmanetwrok.com)
[ads3]
