But Mr Duterte has dismissed concerns over his drugs policies, calling UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon “a fool” and referring to US President Barack Obama as a “son of a whore”, something he later said he regretted.
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“It’s not true. I’ve been with the NBI for 26 years, and in these long years, I have been conducting myself in such ways that I give everyone his due, perform my job with honesty, objectivity, and fairness”, he said in a text message sent to reporters.
Mr. Panelo also said that yesterday’s Senate investigation could be a part of the Liberal Party’s (LP) plan to kick-out Duterte from presidency – an allegation that the President himself has been mentioning in his recent speeches.
Vice President Leni Robredo slammed Senator Alan Peter Cayetano over the “serious” allegations against her and the Liberal Party to which she belongs over an alleged plot to oust Duterte using self-confessed hitman Matobato.
Duterte ran for president this year promising to do for the Philippines what he had done for Davao: clear out the drug addicts, round up the criminals, and clean the city of corruption.
During his testimony, Matobato named Duterte as responsible for numerous killings in Davao City when the latter was still mayor.
President Rodrigo Duterte addresses the Philippine Army Scout Rangers at their headquarters. Leila de Lima has withdrawn her request to Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III to grant a confessed hitman protective custody and has chose to raise the issue with her committee instead.
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. As a warning to citizens, bodies of the slain have been left strewn across the streets with signs on them which say, for example, “I’m a pusher”.
The family of Mr Richard King, a wealthy businessman that Mr Matobato said Mr Duterte’s son ordered gunned down in 2014, also insisted the real killers were already behind bars. In the 10 weeks since he assumed the presidency, vigilantes have killed almost 2,000 people, leaving cardboard signs by the corpses that label them drug dealers.
Carrying out orders allegedly given to him by Duterte, Matobato said he bombed a mosque in 1993 and butchered Muslims. But Duterte enjoys diverse and wide support, like from the current vice president, a social activist from the country’s liberal party-the party Duterte accuses of trying to unseat him.
De Lima has yet to say why she did not seek to prosecute Duterte over the Davao killings when she was justice minister in the previous administration when Matobato first came to her for protection.
Since Mr Duterte became president, a crackdown on suspected drug users and dealers has left more than 3,000 people dead. “I was tortured for a week”, Matobato said, offering this betrayal as the reason for coming forward now.
“I’m testing to see if you were brought here to bring down this government”, he said.
Another senator, former national police chief Panfilo Lacson, warned Matobato that his admissions that he was involved in killings could land him in jail.
Lacson said PAOCTF was abolished in 2001. “You have no immunity”.
The Philippine Commission on Human Rights said that from 2005 to 2009, the Davao Death Squad had killed 206 people, including 107 who had criminal records or were suspected of crimes.
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Mr Matobato alleged the president had ordered the executions of hundreds of others. “What if a leader is elected and turns out to be a mass murderer?” de Lima asked in a news conference after the tense Senate hearing.
