Matobato during his testimony at the Senate hearing in the Philippines.
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In his testimony, Matobato said he was the triggerman of at least 50 of the murders in Davao.
He explained: ‘Our job was to kill criminals, rapists, pushers, and snatchers.
The view of some senators was that the alleged 1988-2013 EJKs could not be considered “recent” but the supposed pattern of the hearing by the committee was to stitch these EJKs during the mayorship of Duterte as part of the “recent” EJKs under the Duterte presidency.
Rights groups have long accused Mr Duterte of involvement in death squads while he was mayor of Davao city.
She said the killings in the country can now be compared to what happened in Davao City during the 1990s under the leadership of former city mayor and now President Rodrigo Duterte for more than two decades.
The Philippines is facing calls to investigate its brash, populist President over allegations he had a hand in more than 1,000 murders when he was mayor of the southern city of Davao.
The President’s office said it would wait for the Senate hearing to conclude before issuing an official statement.
Matubato said his group had also kidnapped and killed four supporters of former House Speaker Prospero Nograles on the orders of Duterte, then his bitter political rival.
On this claim Mr Duterte’s spokesman said “I don’t think he is capable of giving those orders”.
Duterte arrived later and killed him, he said.
Matobato said some of the squad’s victims were shot and dumped on Davao streets or buried in three secret pits, while others were disposed of at sea with their stomachs cut open and their bodies tied to concrete blocks. “These are the people we kill everyday”, ABS-CBN quoted Matubato as saying.
He left the protection program when Duterte became president, fearing he would be killed. Senate President Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel stood his ground as ally of President Rodrigo Duterte and refused to give sanctuary to embattled witness Edgar Matobato.
The then head of the Commission on Human Rights, Senator Leila de Lima, told the inquiry Mr Matobato had surrendered to the investigatory body in 2009 and had until recently been in a witness protection scheme.
In a press statement, De Lima said she is perplexed, disturbed, and extremely disappointed with the Senate President’s refusal to grant protective custody to Matobato.
“I’m testing to see if you were brought here to bring down this government”, he said, before Ms de Lima ruled him “out of order” and called on security guards to restrain him.
Compared to July 2015, remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) dipped by 5.4% this year as a result of low global oil prices and a sluggish global economy.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said the United Nations should look into the drugs war and be allowed to interview witnesses like Matobato.
Sen. Panfilo M.Lacson who fact checked Matobato’s testimony said Matobato definitely lied and his whole testimony suffers under the legal principle where a witness who testifies falsely about one matter is not credible to testify about any matter. “I am testing whether [the witnesses are credible] or is this part of the plan B of the Liberal Party”.
But there is one problem, Monsod said: “Who will do the investigating in Davao City?”
As we’ve reported, Davao City was notoriously unsafe, once known as the Philippines’ “murder capital”.
“If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful”, TIME quoted him as saying to another crowd that day.
Duterte has often been accused of being behind the Davao Death Squads that according to several human rights organisations, are responsible for the deaths of more than a thousand people.
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The UN has repeatedly condemned his policies, as has the Roman Catholic church, the dominant religion in the Philippines, but he has continued to champion a bloody crackdown on drugs. “The support of the President makes it very encouraging for the law enforcer”. Because I’d kill you.
