Edgar Matobato — who claims to be an assassin-for-hire affiliated with the Davao Death Squad — has made shocking claims at the third Senate hearing on the vigilante or extra-judicial killings that have intensified amid the government’s war against drugs.
Matobato was presented as a witness by Senator Leila de Lima, a known nemesis of President Rodrigo Duterte.
For starters, Matobato claimed that in 1993, Duterte, who was then mayor of Davao City ordered them to bomb a mosque as retaliation against the bombing of the Davao Cathedral Church that same year.
Matobato explained, “Kasi parang gumaganti s’ya na binomba ang cathedral.”
(“It was revenge for the bombing of the cathedral.”)
Matobato added that Duterte later ordered them to arrest and kill the Muslim suspects.
“Among the people they allegedly killed was a certain Salik Makdum, whom he said they abducted from the Island City of Samal in 2002,” reports Maila Ager in Inquirer.net.
The report added: “According to Matobato, they presented Makdum to then-Davao PAOCTF head-now-PNP Chief Ronald de la Rosa. He added that they then killed Makdum whom they buried in a quarry owned by a policeman.”
In a GMA News report, Matobato was quoted as revealing that in 2010 they also kidnapped and killed four bodyguards of former House Speaker Prospero Nograles, who used to be a rival of President Rodrigo Duterte in their hometown of Davao City.
“Noong 2010, tumakbo po si Prospero Nograles na mayor ng Davao City. Naglaban sila ni Mayor Duterte so hinuli nila at pina-kidnap ang mga bodyguard ni Nograles. Kinidnap namin at dinala sa island city of Samal,” Matobato alleged.
(“In 2010, Prospero Nograles ran for mayor of Davao City. He went up against Duterte, so Nograles’ bodyguards were ordered kidnapped. We kidnapped them and took them to the island city of Samal.”)
Matobato then claimed that Duterte had the bodyguards killed. Matobato described the gruesome killing that he himself supposedly carried out.
Once the bodyguards were dead, he stated that he disposed of their bodies.
He said, “Pagkatapos, biniyak namin ‘yung tiyan tapos ako ang nag-karga ng bangka doon sa laot. Tinapon namin. Nilagyan ng hollow blocks, tig tatlo kada isang tao.”
(“After it was done, we split open their abdomens and I was the one who loaded them onto a boat. We then threw them overboard. We had tied three hollow blocks to each of the bodies.”)
Meanwhile, Nograles’ son, Karlo, who is the congressman of Davao City’s 1st District, has responded to Matobato’s statement. “I don’t know what this guy is talking about. From the time I was chief-of-staff to the time I was elected as congressman, no supporter of ours or persons under our employ was ever killed due to politics,” the younger Nograles wrote in a Facebook post.
He added, “Political differences in our city has always been strictly on the level of difference in policy and style; it has never degraded into the level of physical or violent. That is why it is easy for us to set aside our differences and unite for the common good of Davao and the nation. I can only suspect that this guy is being manipulated by some people to only serve their own selfish interests.”
Duterte, who took office more than two months ago, won May elections in a landslide on a promise to kill thousands of criminals.
Matobato said the death squad received orders either directly from Duterte or from active-duty Davao police officers assigned at the mayor’s office.
Many of the victims were abducted by members of the group who introduced themselves as police officers, then taken to a local quarry where they were killed and buried, he added.
“The officers told us ordinary killings won’t do. They are sadists,” he said, describing to de Lima how the victims were strangled.
“Then we’d remove their clothes, burn the bodies and chop them up,” Matobato said, adding that he had personally killed “about 50” of the victims.
The bodies of other victims were disembowelled and dropped at sea to be eaten by fish, while others were left on Davao streets, their hands made to clutch a handgun, he added.
One of the victims was a foreign man suspected of being an “international terrorist”, another was the boyfriend of Duterte’s sister.
One was a local broadcaster who constantly criticised Duterte, four were bodyguards of a local rival, while two were enemies of Duterte’s son Paolo, who is now Davao vice mayor, Matobato said.
In response, Paolo Duterte called Matobato’s testimony “mere hearsay”. “I will not dignify with an answer the accusations of a madman.”
De Lima said the rights body later dug up several skeletons of unidentified people at the Davao quarry.
De Lima, also a former justice secretary, said Matobato was put under the witness protection programme.
However Matobato said he left the programme and went into hiding, fearing for his life when Duterte won the presidency.
Asked why he left the death squad, he replied: “I am bothered by my conscience.
Matobato’s claims, though, are still subject to further investigation. Duterte, after all, has every right to due process.
With an AFP report
