Police Col. Hector Grijaldo Jr. (PPAB)

"Injured" quad-committee (quad-comm) resource person Police Col. Hector Grijaldo Jr. is now under custody of the House of Representatives.

This was confirmed to House reporters Monday, Dec. 16 by quad-comm overall chairman Surigao del Norte 2nd district Rep. Robert Ace Barbers.

“Initially, because he was in the hospital, he said he wanted to stay at the hospital and have a hospital arrest. But of course, we did not allow that because his doctors said he was okay, he’s ambulatory, he could move out, and there was no reason for him to stay in the hospital," Barbers explained.

"So what we did was to implement the arrest order against him,” noted the veteran solon from Mindanao. 

It was during the last quad-comm hearing on Thursday, Dec. 12 that the mega-panel cited Grijaldo for contempt and ordered his detention at the House in Batasan, Quezon City. 

This served as punishment for the Philippine National Police (PNP) official's failure to appear at the quad-comm’s last four hearings for supposedly no good reason.

Grijaldo had claimed that he was recovering from a “rotator cuff syndrome” operation.

Police Lt. Col. Lionel Garcia, chief of the orthopedic department of the PNP General Hospital, provided an update on the medical status of Grijaldo during the Dec. 12 hearing.

“Upon checking the patient, the patient is awake, coherent, cooperative, and ambulatory. Upon knowing he underwent shoulder surgery last Dec. 2, one day post-operatively, he underwent physiotherapy bedside post,” Garcia said.

“On my orthopedic point of view, the patient may be able to attend this hearing but depende po ‘yan kung papayagan siya ng kanyang attending doctor (but that would depend on whether or not his attending doctor would allow it)," Garcia told the quad-comm. 

Grijaldo has not shown himself to congressmen since his appearance in the Senate, where he accused two quad-comm co-chairmen Santa Rosa City lone district Rep. Dan Fernandez and Manila 6th district Rep. Bienvenido “Benny” Abante Jr. of coercing him to corroborate former PCSO General Manager Royina Garma’s testimony about an alleged reward system for killing drug suspects during the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.

Fernandez and Abante denied Grijaldo's accusations.

Grijaldo had been implicated in the death of former PCSO Board Secretary Wesley Barayuga, who was killed in Mandaluyong City in July 2020.