The Senate's Committee on Public Order and Illegal Drugs will hear from relatives of victims and witnesses to killings in Negros Oriental, including the widow of Governor Roel Degamo, on Monday.
It is unclear whether Negros Oriental 3rd District Rep. Arnolfo Teves Jr., the suspected mastermind of the March 4 assassination of Degamo and eight others, would be accommodated through videoconference after Pamplona Town Mayor Janice Degamo, the governor's wife, requested that he not be.
Despite the fact that his personal travel authorization expired on March 9, Teves has yet to return to the nation.
He has been suspended for 60 days, with House Speaker Martin Romualdez acting as caretaker of his district until May 22.
Senator Ronald Dela Rosa, chair of the committee, said in a Sunday radio interview that he expects "explosive" revelations from roughly 30 resource persons.
Mayor Degamo, who flew out of Dumaguete City with nearly 40 others on Saturday afternoon, begged the Senate not to allow Teves' remote testimony.
"Allowing some participants to attend through Zoom or teleconferencing undermines the value and importance of our presence in the hearing and is unfair to those who will be attending personally," Mayor Degamo wrote in her letter.
Mayor Degamo stated that several members of her entourage will also attend the Department of Justice's preliminary probe.
