Former President Rodrigo Duterte will not attend the Tuesday hearing of the House Quad Committee concerning extrajudicial killings (EJKs) and his administration’s drug war.
This is according to his legal counsel, lawyer Martin Delgra III, who wrote a letter addressed to the House Committee on Dangerous Drugs on Monday.
“Unfortunately, despite his keen intention to attend, my client (Duterte) respectfully manifests that he cannot attend the public hearing set on October 22. Aside from the short notice given him, my client just arrived in Davao from Metro Manila last October 17,” the letter read.
“Considering his advanced age and the several engagements he had to attend, he is currently not feeling well and is in need of much rest,” it added.
Duterte requested to defer his Quad Comm appearance, with his camp notifying the said committee of his “willingness to appear before the House of Representatives on some other available date, preferably after November 1.”
The former president previously expressed his intention to appear before both houses of Congress in relation to ongoing probes.
In a recent Quad Comm hearing, retired police colonel Royina Garma claimed that Duterte and other high-ranking officials during his term operationalized the “Davao model” of EJKs on a nationwide scale through his administration’s drug war.
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