Mr Duterte’s spokesman said the allegations had already been investigated without charges being filed while his son, Paolo Duterte, called the testimony “mere hearsay” of “a madman”.
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Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that the accusations of Edgar Matobato are “very serious allegations that require an independent investigation”.
Meanwhile, the Manila Times reported that President Rodrigo Duterte said the Philippines is considering buying military equipment from China and Russian Federation, vowing to modernize the Armed Forces to improve its capability to address insurgency and terrorism.
At the time of the orders, Duterte was mayor of Davao City, then a chaotic but now a bustling urban center in the Philippines’ south.
Prospero Nograles, a former congressman, denied Matobato’s account of the abduction and execution of his four former bodyguards in Davao.
Some of the victims were shot and dumped on Davao streets or buried in three unmarked graves, he said, adding some were disposed of in the sea with their stomachs cut open so they would not float and would be eaten by fish right away.
She said the total number of 1,779 killed translates to 35 people killed daily.
He left the protection program when Duterte became president, fearing he would be killed.
Matobato said the group grew in 1993 and evolved into the DDS.
ABS-CBN News reported Matubato as saying that in 2009 Duterte ordered the death squad to kill de Lima – then the country’s human rights chair – while she was was visiting an alleged dumping ground for victims of the squad in Davao City.
“People in Davao City were like chickens – they were being killed without any reason”, Matobato said.
Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said he did not believe Rodrigo Duterte was capable of ordering the killings and investigations proved him innocent.
“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. Alan Peter Cayetano as he grilled Matobato over the DDS’ existence.
In 2012 the Philippines’ Commission on Human Rights confirmed earlier reports of targeted and systematic killings in Davao, on the southern tip of Mindanao island.
The 57-year-old witness told the inquiry that he and a group of policemen and ex-communist rebels had killed around 1,000 people between 1988 and 2013 on Duterte’s orders. He said that prompted his colleagues to implicate him criminally in one killing to silence him.
The witness claimed he is testifying against Duterte to atone for his sins. “Jamisola [the justice department official] was still alive when he [Duterte] arrived”.
“We waited for you Ma’am”.
Under Duterte, Davao transformed Davao from a crime ridden hovel to a peaceful and investment-friendly city, where he imposed bans on public smoking, and the selling of alcohol and the operation of entertainment spots past midnight.
“How did I reach that title among the world’s safest cities?” Police claim they only shoot suspected drug dealers or users in self-defense, reporter Michael Sullivan explains.
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.
Mr Duterte has rejected the criticism, questioning the right of the United Nations, the United States and Mr Obama to raise human rights issues when U.S. forces, for example, had massacred Muslims in the country’s south in the early 1900s as part of a pacification campaign. “A human rights violation, whether committed by Moses or Abraham, is still a violation of human rights”, he said.
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“Obviously, this witness, just wants to destroy the name of the President and his family”. You drug pushers, hold-up men and do-nothings.
