Edgar Matobato, a self-described former member of what he called a vigilante killing squad that used to operate in Duterte’s hometown, told lawmakers at the hearing that he and other members of the armed group shot and injured the justice department official, named only as Jamisola, after an argument at a roadblock in the city.
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Ex-militiaman Edgar Matobato testified today that he carried out about 50 of the killings, and heard Duterte order others, including a suspected kidnapper fed to a crocodile in 2007.
Matobato also described how, in one 1993 mission, Duterte had killed an agent from the justice department’s National Bureau of Investigation who had set up a road block.
Duterte himself has variously denied and confirmed that he was responsible for the squads, and even that he has personally killed criminals.
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.
Mr Duterte’s spokesman Martin Andanar said he doubted that the then mayor could have ordered the killing of 1,000 people.
Matobato’s testimony also fleshed out in gruesome detail for the first time long-running allegations Duterte was behind the killings of more than a thousand petty criminals, including minors, in Davao.
“Our job was to kill criminals, rapists, pushers, and snatchers”.
Matubato said his group had also kidnapped and killed four supporters of former House Speaker Prospero Nograles on the orders of Duterte, then his bitter political rival.
Davao will look into the veracity of the revelations of an alleged Davao Death Squad (DDS) member during the Senate hearing on extrajudicial killings on Thursday, September 15.
After a 1993 bombing of a Roman Catholic cathedral in Davao city, Mr Matobato said Mr Duterte ordered him and his colleagues to launch attacks on mosques in an apparent retaliation. 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.
Since taking office as president this summer, Duterte has been linked to the gangland style killings of roughly 3,000 suspected drug users and dealers throughout the country.
The recent killings of suspected drug dealers have sparked concerns in the Philippines and among United Nations and US officials, including President Barack Obama, who have urged Duterte’s government to take steps to rapidly stop the killings and ensure his anti-drug war complies with human rights laws and the rule of law.
Other victims, he added, included a suspected foreign terrorist, the boyfriend of Duterte’s sister, a radio broadcaster critical of Duterte, and two enemies of Duterte’s son.
“We killed people nearly on a daily basis” between 1988 and 2013, said Matobato, adding they also killed Duterte family foes and an “international terrorist”. Matobato added that two other persons were killed in the operation.
He left the protection programme when Mr Duterte became president, fearing he would be killed, and said he had chose to speak up “so the killings will stop”.
“I don’t know what this guy is talking about”, he wrote on Facebook.
“They were killed like chickens”, he told the televised hearing. “We did not go to the part where you said you were waiting”, de Lima said in response to the claim. I’ve been a member of Congress for 18 years, hind po kami ini-i-interrupt ng chairman pag kami na ang nagsasalita, pag kami na po ang magtatanong, ” Cayetano said.
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The Guardian reported that Matobato entered a witness-protection program after the guilt of the executions overwhelmed him but left the program after Duterte became president as he feared for his life.
