“I didn’t kill anyone unless ordered by Charlie Mike”, he said, telling the senate it was the death squad’s coded reference to Duterte, who was then mayor of the southern city of Davao, using the phonetic alphabet.
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Testifying before the Senate committee on August 23, Philippines National Police chief Ronald dela Rosa said that more 700 drug traffickers and users had been killed in police operations since July 1.
He added that bodies would often be dumped in the sea so that fish could eat them, reported BBC. “We killed people nearly on a daily basis”, said Matobato.
Matobato said that for more than 20 years, Duterte ordered the deaths of almost 1,000 criminal and political rivals, even claiming that Duterte “finished off” a justice department agent with an Uzi submachine gun.
Mr Duterte arrived at the scene shortly after and is said to have finished off the dying official by “emptying two Uzi magazines” into him.
Presidential spokesman Martin Andanar rejected the allegations, saying government investigations into Duterte’s time as mayor of Davao had already gone nowhere because of a lack of evidence.
Duterte has so far ignored the latest allegations while his senior aides dismissed them, with Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre branding them “lies and fabrications”. Duterte initially seemed to urge the killers on, but has more recently tried to distance himself from extra-judicial killings and summary executions.
Duterte also called out hits on outspoken journalists critical of his reign, political rivals, and human rights investigators.
President Duterte has earlier denied ordering Pala’s 2003 Davao ambush but described him as an extortionist and a “rotten son of a bitch” who “deserved it”.
“They were killed like chickens”, said Matobato, who added he backed away from the killings after feeling guilty and entered a government witness-protection program.
Malacañang on Thursday said it will wait for the investigation to end before giving any statements on the ongoing Senate hearing.
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.
Cayetano said Duterte’s removal would pave the way for the takeover of Vice President Leni Robredo who belongs to the Liberal Party. Matobato’s claims have not been independently corroborated.
Lacson also corrected Matobato’s story about the death of billionaire Richard King who was killed inside a fastfood chain allegedly on order of Paolo, Duterte’s son.
After a 1993 bombing of a Roman Catholic cathedral in Davao city, Matobato said Duterte ordered him and his colleagues to launch attacks on mosques in an apparent retaliation. “I’ll kill you, ‘ he said, as The Guardian reported”.
Mr Matobato is the first person to admit any role in such killings and directly implicate him under oath in a public hearing.
Therefore, if the allegations against Duterte are based primarily on the testimony of that lone hitman, then this controversy will likely fade and for now this appears to be the more likely outcome.
“You can not wage a war without killing”, Duterte said, adding that many drug users were beyond rehabilitation”.
Representative Edcel Lagman, a human rights lawyer, said Mr Duterte himself should create an “independent fact-finding commission” consisting of retired justices to “determine the identities of the principals and perpetrators, as well as those of the victims”.
Matobato’s testimony set off a tense exchange between pro-Duterte and opposition senators. “Because I’d kill you”.
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Duterte, 71, who served as the mayor of Davao City for 22 years, ran for the presidency on an anti-crime platform that appealed to the country’s upper and middle classes who fear rising criminality.
