The House of Representatives in the Philippines established a special committee, the 'Quad Comm,' in 2024 to investigate interconnected issues from the previous Duterte administration. The committee consolidated four separate panels focusing on Philippine overseas gaming operators (POGOs), Chinese crime syndicates, the narcotics trade, and extrajudicial killings. The Quad Comm conducted hearings, compelling testimonies from high-profile figures like former President Duterte, leading to a recommendation to file crimes against humanity charges against Duterte and other officials.
The House of Representatives broke new ground in 2024 when for the first time since its establishment, it consolidated four separate committees to investigate Philippine overseas gaming operators , Chinese crime syndicates, the narcotics trade, and extra-judicial killings during the previous administration into a single panel called the “Quad Comm.”
Before Congress went on Holiday break last Dec. 18, Barbers, the QuadComm overall chair, reported to the plenary the mega panel’s recommendation that was contained in a 43-page progress report, compiled from 13 hearings from August 16 to December 12 this year.
Enacted in 2009, or two years before the Philippines became a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, RA 9851 defines and punishes crimes against international humanitarian law, genocide and other crimes against humanity. Barbers earlier said when former President Duterte attended the 11th Quadcom hearing last November 13, the latter confirmed the existence of the so-called Davao Death Squad, the Davao Template or Model of reward system to police offices involved in EJKs, advising and encouraging officers to have “nanlaban” scenarios against drug suspects, and assumed “full legal responsibility” of the bloody drug war aftermath.
The issue on POGOs and its links to illegal drugs flourished during a September 23, 2023 seizure of some 560 kgs of shabu worth P3.6 billion at a warehouse in Mexico, Pampanga which turned out to be owned by Empire 999 Realty Corporation led by a suspected Chinese drug lord identified as Willie Ong .
When Quadcom was formed in August 2024 to conduct joint legislative inquiry on POGOs, EJKs and illegal drugs, the other names that later cropped up and found to have links to Ong and his Empire 999 firm include Bamban Mayor Alice Guo’s Baofu, and Cassandra Li Ong’s Whirlwind Corp. Former presidential spokesman Harry Roque Jr, who is a subject of Quadcom on his POGO links, is now in hiding abroad after the panel cited him in contempt for alleged lying and failure to provide documents he promised to deliver relative to his Biancham firm’s mysterious rise in assets from P125,300 in 2014 to P67 million in 2018.
Taguba also exposed the so-called “Tara System” for certain BoC officials and employees for the facilitation with ease of container van shipments, suspicious or not, from various ports and facilities in the country, particularly in Manila.
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