AN OPPOSITION senator suggested lifting Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s immunity from prosecution yesterday in an alleged attempt to oust him.
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Duterte swept to power this spring promising to crackdown on crime, just as he did as the longtime mayor of Davao, where he earned a reputation for strongman tactics and was christened “the death squad mayor” for allegedly overseeing extra-judicial killings.
Matobato said that in 1993‚ he and other death squad members had approached a Davao road blocked by the vehicle of an agent from the justice department’s National Bureau of Investigation.
Sen De Lima said Mr Matobato’s testimony showed a clear pattern from the hundreds being killed in Mr Duterte’s current campaign to the more than 1,000 mysterious deaths rights groups documented in Davao between 1988 and 2013.
Matobato said he personally killed about 50 people using various methods that included feeding one man to an alligator and burning others.
He added that bodies would often be dumped in the sea so that fish could eat them, reported BBC.
According to Philippines police, almost 3,000 people have been killed in police anti-drug operations and extrajudicial killings in the past more than two months.
De Lima and Philippine human rights officials and advocates have previously said that potential witnesses refused to testify against Duterte when he was still mayor because they were afraid they would be killed.
However, following his testimony, Philippines Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre called the allegations “lies and fabrications”, adding Matobato “is obviously not telling the truth”.
In a series of controversial speeches during his election campaign he appeared to encourage extrajudicial killings.
In his testimony, Matobato went into detail about several cases, including an alleged order by Duterte to “massacre the mosques of Muslims” after the Davao City Cathedral was bombed in 1993.
“Mayor Duterte was the one who finished him off”, he said.
Paolo Duterte issued a statement dismissing Matobato’s testimony as “all based on hearsays”. The self-confessed former DDS member was presented to the Senate hearing on extrajudicial killings in the Philippines by De Lima, a known critic of Duterte’s.
One was a local broadcaster who constantly criticised Mr Duterte, four were bodyguards of a local rival, while two were enemies of Mr Duterte’s son Paolo, who is now Davao vice mayor, Mr Matobato said.
Since his election this year more than 3,000 drug users and dealers have been killed amid worldwide alarm over human rights violations.
Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Panfilo “Ping” Lacson meanwhile questioned the witness’ credibility since he was not able to name the person who invited him to testify at the Senate.
‘The officers told us ordinary killings won’t do.
Other victims were a suspected foreign terrorist, who Matobato said he strangled then chopped into pieces and buried in a quarry in 2002.
Matobato said that he killed frequently on Duterte’s orders, and fed human remains to crocodiles at the now-president’s behest.
“When I become president, I’ll order the police and the military to find these people and kill them”.
The Davao Death Squad was first identified by Human Rights Watch in 2009.
Asked why he left the death squad, he replied: “I am bothered by my conscience”.
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Mr Matobato said he withdrew from the squad after feeling guilty and entered a government-run witness protection programme.
