PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte is emerging unscathed from accusations he had ordered the killings of crime suspects and other individuals when he was mayor of Davao City, analysts said on Friday.
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Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre described Matobato’s testimony as “lies, fabrications and a product of a fertile and a coached imagination”.
The explosive testimony was delivered Thursday, at a Senate hearing related to President Duterte’s aggressive war on drugs.
According to the Philippines national police, almost 3,000 drug-related killings have been reported since Duterte assumed office June 30.
De Lima called to testify before Congress this week a man claiming to have worked as a hitman in one of Duterte’s Davao “death squads”.
As we’ve reported, Davao City was notoriously unsafe, once known as the Philippines’ “murder capital”.
Mr Matobato, 57, said he had been a member of the Davao Death Squad, a notorious vigilante group allegedly responsible for hundreds of killings.
In May 2015 before he ran for president, Duterte admitted links to the reported Davao Death Squad.
But there is one problem, Monsod said: “Who will do the investigating in Davao City?” In one incident, he said that he stabbed one of the accused criminal, and pushed him out into the sea.
Human rights advocates have previously suggested that other witnesses refused to testify “out of fear of being killed”, the AP notes.
The Davao Death Squad was first identified by Human Rights Watch in 2009.
Matobato said he received orders to kill either directly from Duterte or from active-duty Davao police officers assigned to the mayor’s office who were also part of the death squad.
“They were killed like chickens”, he told the televised hearing.
Vice President Leni Robredo declared on Thursday, September 15, “We are offended by Senator Cayetano’s accusation that the Liberal Party is plotting to oust the President and that I will be the intended beneficiary of this plan”. “It would be a good security practice to disallow garments that cover the faces in public places”, the mayor said in a written statement.
One was Davao broadcaster Jun Pala, who constantly criticised Duterte, four were bodyguards of a local rival, while two were enemies of Duterte’s son Paolo, who is now Davao vice mayor, Matobato said.
Matobato’s claims, which have not been independently confirmed, linked President Duterte and his son, Paolo Duterte, to a list of crimes worthy of a gangster film.
Duterte himself has not commented on the testimony, the AP says.
Another allegation is that Rodrigo Duterte once ordered the bombing of a mosque in retaliation for an attack on Davao Cathedral in 1993.
“Whatever testimonies, statements that the chairperson (of the Senate committee) are saying, we will have to have a proper investigation regarding that”.
The hearing’s chair, Senator Leila de Lima, is a longtime critic of Duterte’s human rights record.
The President has hit out at U.S., the United Nations and other groups raising concerns over human rights and worldwide law, calling Barack Obama a “son of a whore” earlier this month.
“He emphasized his message in his final campaign speech. That’s not right”, Lacson said. I’m going to make it public. You drug pushers, hold-up men and do-nothings. “So we stayed there waiting for you, but you did not went up and just stayed at the entrance, so we just stayed there and waited”, he said.
Since he took office, there have been deadly consequences for people accused of drug dealing or corruption. Duterte initially seemed to urge the killers on, but has more recently tried to distance himself from extra-judicial killings and summary executions.
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After their arrest, Rommel claimed during an interview with reporters that the killing was ordered by a high-ranking police official.
