The existence of the “Davao Death Squads” has never been proven, but the term is familiar in the Philippines and has played a part in Duterte’s meteoric rise to the presidency as a no-nonsense crimebuster.
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Matobato said that King was killed in a hotel then changed his statement to say it was at a McDonald’s. Duterte fired them all in a speech effective immediately, relieving them of their access to taxpayer-funded security and demanding they all turn themselves in to police.
De Lima – who has been extremely vocal in criticizing Duterte’s controversial war on illegal drugs – has been accused, meanwhile, of collecting money from drug personalities through an alleged lover to support her senatorial bid in last May elections.
Matobato testified against Duterte and his son, Paolo, in the inquiry into the extrajudicial killings in the country.
“When I become president, I’ll order the police and the military to find these people and kill them”.
‘The officers told us ordinary killings won’t do. “It’s good that you left”. “The Commission on Human Rights already investigated this a long time ago and no charges were filed”, Mr. Andanar said.
He has rejected calls by the United States, the United Nations and rights groups to stop extra-judicial killings.
“Our job was to kill criminals, drug pushers, petty robbers and rapists”, Matobato said, adding that his group killed over 1,000 people between 1988 to 2013.
When it was launched, Mr Nkaissery praised it as one of the best in the market.
Hundreds of people have died amid President Duterte’s war on drugs and it is likely thousands more will be killed before the campaign ends.
“What De Lima and this certain Matobato say in public are bare allegations in the absence of proof: They are mere hearsay”, said Davao’s Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte, the president’s son who was also implicated in Matobato’s testimony, according toAl Jazeera.
Mr. Duterte said, however, he will disclose his next narco-list soon, containing names of 1,000 mayors, governors, and barangay captains.
Another spokesman, Ernesto Abella, said the allegations needed to be properly scrutinized.
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. Another was a radio commentator, Jun Pala, who was critical of Duterte and was killed by motorcycle-riding gunmen while walking home in 2003. “True, that’s true”, he said in a mix of English and Visayan, in an interview with a local television station in Davao. Matobato hurled a grenade at one mosque but said no one was wounded because the attack took place when no one was praying.
‘The people of Davao were being slaughtered like chicken, ‘ he said, adding he lied to his wife about butchering birds when she saw his blood-spattered shirts.
“Then we’d remove their clothes, burn the bodies and chop them up”, Matobato said, adding that he had personally killed “about 50” people.
In an extraordinary hearing in the Philippine Senate, a witness claimed President Rodrigo Duterte paid him to carry out executions that involved, among other things, feeding a body to a crocodile, chopping up corpses and murder by packing tape.
His testimony set off a tense exchange between senators allied with Mr Duterte and those critical of him.
Alan Peter Cayetano accused Mr Matobato of being part of a plot to unseat Duterte.
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Another senator, former national police chief Panfilo Lacson, warned Mr Matobato that his admissions could land him in jail.
