In reaction, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Sunday said that as far as it was concerned, the Philippine National Police (PNP) was still the lead agency implementing the government’s relentless campaign against illegal drugs.
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President Rodrigo Duterte’s eldest sister, Eleanor, says she will file charges against Edgar Matobato, the witness during the Senate hearing who linked the President to the extrajudicial killings in Davao City when he was still a mayor.
“President Duterte can’t be expected to investigate himself”, Brad Adams, its Asia director, said in a statement.
Mr. Duterte has denied involvement with the Davao Death Squad, but Matobato told Thursday’s Senate inquiry that he and other members of the liquidation squad took orders from him and killed about 1,000 suspected criminals and opponents of Mr. Duterte and his family.
Mr Matobato said that as a member of the Davao Death Squad, a notorious vigilante group, his job had been to “kill criminals”. “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”.
Justice Secretary Vitalliano Aguirre has branded Matobato’s statement “lies, fabrications” and a product of a “fertile and a coached imagination”.
The vice mayor of Davao city and the eldest son of the president, Paolo Duterte, has also denied the accusations and said that the witness was a “madman”.
Human-rights groups have also called Duterte the “Death Squad Mayor”, a moniker he seemingly embraced in May during the election, saying in televised remarks, “Am I the death squad?”
Eleanor, 74, who lives at the Duterte’s ancestral house here said that she has not talked to her lawyer yet, but said that she will pursue charges. “He emptied two Uzi [sub machine gun] magazines on him”.
An admitted former assassin has accused Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte of personally ordering extrajudicial killings – and, in one case, pulling the trigger.
She pointed out that Matobato has provided the Senate information that sheds light on the complexity of the current anti-drug campaign, especially on the similarity of the DDS and that of the vigilante killers.
The latest controversy concerns Duterte’s time in Davao, a city in the country’s south, where he served as mayor beginning in the late 1980s.
“President Duterte has announced that during the Philippines’ chairmanship, we ( the government) will highlight Asean as a model of regionalism and a global player, with the interest of the people at its core”, said the EU Parliament resolution.
Witness Edgar Matobato during the Senate probe on the alleged extrajudicial killings at the Senate in Pasay City.
He has, however, been criticised by several local and worldwide human rights groups.
Duterte‚ the Davao mayor at the time‚ then arrived on the scene‚ Matobato said. Duterte’s son, Paolo Duterte, who is vice mayor of Davao, said the man’s claims were “all based on hearsays”.
Matobato’s alleged that a death squad abducted and executed four bodyguards of Prospero Nograles, a rival of Duterte’s. Another was a radio commentator, Jun Pala, who was critical of Duterte and was killed by motorcycle-riding gunmen while walking home in 2003.
“You can be jailed with your revelations”, Lacson said.
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When asked about President Duterte’s directive that the Philippine military would not conduct any joint maritime patrols with its allies in the South China Sea, Hachigian referred the reporters to the United States and Philippine defense departments for “more details about that”.
