They were killed by the Davao Death Squad, he said.
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Former congressman Prospero Nograles also called Matobato a liar, saying four of the men he claimed to have killed were still alive.
“President Duterte can’t be expected to investigate himself”, Brad Adams, its Asia director, said in a statement.
Under Duterte’s leadership on the southern island city of Davao, crime dramatically fell – in part, critics say, due to his endorsement of extrajudicial killings.
Mr Edgar Matobato, 57, made the allegations before Senate, which is investigating alleged extrajudicial killings in Mr Duterte’s anti-crime crackdown that police said has left 3,140 people dead in his first 72 days in office.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Sunday he needed six more months for his war on drugs, saying he only realised how bad the country’s narcotics problem was after taking office over two months ago.
The Senate hearing in which Matobato testified is part of an investigation into alleged extrajudicial killings as part of Duterte’s war on illicit drugs. She has denied the allegations.
The then head of the Commission on Human Rights, Senator Leila de Lima, told the inquiry Matobato had surrendered to the investigatory body in 2009 and had until recently been in a witness protection scheme. “It’s good that you left”.
Philippines National Police chief Ronald dela Rosa told CNN that as of 8 a.m. local time Friday, 2,035 deaths were under investigation – though not all were classified as drug related – and 1,105 people had been killed in police operations.
Mr Duterte has rejected the criticisms, questioning the right of others to raise human rights issues, when USA forces, for example, massacred Muslims in the country’s south in the early 1900s as part of a pacification campaign.
“The killings have not stopped”, he said.
He said he and fellow assassins referred to then-mayor Duterte using the code name, “Charlie Mike”, and he ordered them to kill dozens of people ranging from drug pushers, to the dance-instructor boyfriend of Duterte’s sister, to a millionaire hotelier.
Duterte has denied any connection to vigilantism-both as mayor and as president.
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.
There was no immediate reaction from Duterte.
Edgar Matobato told a Senate hearing he and others killed about 1,000 people over a 25-year period.
Matobato said the death squad had tortured him when he asked to leave the group, prompting him to surrender to the justice department’s witness protection programme.
He also urged armed citizens to kill drug suspects who would resist arrest in their communities, promising them medals. Matobato hurled a grenade at one mosque but said no one was wounded because the attack took place when no one was praying.
Some of the victims were shot and dumped on Davao streets or buried in three unmarked graves, he claimed, adding that 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.
Rodrigo Duterte’s eldest son and current Davao vice mayor, Paolo Duterte, issued a statement rejecting Matobato’s testimony, which he said was “all based on hearsays”.
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In June, after winning the presidency he effectively sanctioned the public killing of drug suspects, telling a rally “if you destroy my country, I will kill you”.
