Witness says Philippine president ordered killings

[webfact]

Witness says Philippine president ordered killings

By JIM GOMEZ and TERESA CEROJANO

 

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A former Filipino militiaman testified before the country's Senate on Thursday that President Rodrigo Duterte, when he was still a city mayor, ordered him and other members of a liquidation squad to kill criminals and opponents in gangland-style assaults that left about 1,000 dead.

 

Edgar Matobato, 57, told the nationally televised Senate committee hearing that he heard Duterte order some of the killings and acknowledged he himself carried out about 50 of the abductions and deadly assaults, including a suspected kidnapper who they fed to a crocodile in 2007 in southern Davao del Sur province.

 

The Senate committee inquiry was being led by Sen. Leila de Lima, a staunch critic of Duterte's anti-drug campaign that has left more than 3,000 suspected drug users and dealers dead since he assumed the presidency in June. Duterte has accused de Lima of involvement in illegal drugs, alleging that she used to have a driver who took money from detained drug lords. She has denied the allegations.

 

The killings of the suspected drug dealers have sparked concerns in the Philippines and among U.N. and U.S. officials, including President Barack Obama, who have urged Duterte's government to stop the killings and ensure his anti-drug war complies with human rights laws and the rule of law.

 

Duterte has rejected the criticisms, questioning the right of the U.N., the U.S. and Obama to raise human rights issues, when U.S. forces, for example, had massacred Muslims in the country's south in the early 1900s as part of a pacification campaign.

 

"Our job was to kill criminals like drug pushers, rapists, snatchers," Matobato said under oath, adding some of the targets were not criminals but opponents of Duterte and one of his sons in Davao city.

 

The killings he said he has knowledge of happened starting in 1988, when Duterte first became mayor, to 2013, when he expressed his desire to leave the death squad, prompting his colleagues to implicate him criminally in one killing.

 

Presidential spokesman Martin Andanar rejected the allegations, saying government investigations into Duterte's time as mayor of Davao had already gone nowhere because of a lack of real evidence and witnesses.

 

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.

 

There was no immediate reaction from Duterte, who has denied any role in extra-judicial killings when he was the longtime mayor of Davao and after he assumed the presidency in June.

 

Matobato said the victims in Davao allegedly ranged from petty criminals to people associated with Duterte's opponents, including a wealthy businessman from central Cebu province who was killed in 2014 by a gunman in his office in Davao city allegedly because of a feud with Duterte's son over a woman.

 

Other victims were a suspected foreign terrorist, who Matobato said he strangled then chopped into pieces and buried in a quarry in 2002. Another was a radio commentator, Jun Pala, who was critical of Duterte and was killed by motorcycle-riding gunmen while walking home in 2003.

 

After a 1993 bombing of a Roman Catholic cathedral, Matobato said Duterte ordered him and his colleagues to launch attacks on mosques in Davao city. He testified he hurled a grenade at one mosque but there were no casualties because the attacks were carried out when no one was praying.

 

Some of the victims were shot and dumped on Davao streets or buried in three unmarked graves, he said, adding some were disposed of in the sea with their stomachs cut open and their bodies tied to concrete blocks so they would not float.

 

"They were killed like chickens," said Matobato, who added he backed away from the killings after feeling guilty and entered a government witness-protection program.

 

He left the protection program when Duterte became president, fearing he would be killed. He said he decided to surface now because "I wanted the people to know so the killings will stop."

 

Matobato's testimony set off a tense exchange between senators allied with Duterte and those critical of him.

 

Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, who ran unsuccessfully for vice president in May's elections, accused Matobato of being part of a plot to unseat Duterte.

 

"I'm testing to see if you were brought here to bring down this government," Cayetano said.

 

De Lima eventually declared Cayetano, who was not a member of the committee, "out of order" and ordered Senate security personnel to restrain him.

 

Another senator, former national police chief Panfilo Lacson, warned Matobato that his admissions that he was involved in killings could land him in jail.

 

"You can be jailed with your revelations," Lacson said. "You have no immunity."

 

-- © Associated Press 2016-09-15

[webfact]

Philippine hitman says he heard Duterte order killings

 

 

MANILA: -- A self-proclaimed hit-man in the Philippines says he heard the country’s president order extra-judicial killings in the early ’90s.

 

Speaking during a legislative investigation into Duterte’s ongoing anti-crime crackdown, militiaman Edgar Matobato testified that Rodrigo Duterte had personally given assassination orders while he was Mayor of Davao City.

 

Matobato told senators Duterte allegedly gave the go-ahead for the summary execution of Senator Leila de Lima, a staunch critic of Duterte.

 

“They decided and ordered to ambush you,” he said, adding the order came from Duterte while he was still Mayor of Davao City.

 

“We were told about it inside the office. So we stayed there waiting for you, but you did not went up and just stayed at the entrance, so we just stayed there and waited,” he said.

 

He also told senators that the president’s eldest son and current Davao vice mayor, Paolo Duterte, was allegedly a drug user who ordered the death of a hotel owner in 2014.

 

“From my start from 1988 to 2013, I have gunned down over 50 people when we were told to kill. I cannot remember their names, but I still remember being a hit-man and what happened,” Matobato added.

 

Rights groups have documented some 1,400 suspicious killings in Davao since the early 1990s and critics say the bloody war on drugs Duterte has unleashed since taking office on June 30 bears the same hallmarks.

 

More than 3,500 people, or about 47 per day, have been killed in the past 10 weeks, some 58 percent by unknown assailants and the rest in legitimate police operations, according to police.

 

The president made no comment on the allegations, but his political allies dismissed them as lies.

 

-- © Copyright Euronews 2016-09-16

[Alive]

I believe it. This man didn't just start becoming a thug upon election. In some places, people have been getting away with murder forever.

[craigt3365]

Interesting reading on his past:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodrigo_Duterte#Davao_City_mayor

Quote

In early September 2015, an infamous incident was reported of a tourist being forced to swallow his own cigarette butt in a local bar in Davao City after the tourist refused to comply with the public anti-smoking ordinance of the city. Duterte was personally contacted by the bar owner and went into the bar and forced the tourist to swallow his cigarette butt. Duterte was then met with criticisms especially from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR).^[107]

The guy's a nut.

[NongKhaiKid]

Naturally the current allegations are being denied but this is a man who has publically said on many occasions " i will kill you " when speaking about drug dealers, criminals etc.

Due process, what's that ?

[craigt3365]

5 minutes ago, NongKhaiKid said:

Naturally the current allegations are being denied but this is a man who has publically said on many occasions " i will kill you " when speaking about drug dealers, criminals etc.

Due process, what's that ?

From the Wiki article:

Quote

In 2015, Duterte confirmed his links to extrajudicial killings in Davao, and warned that, if elected president, he may kill up to 100,000 criminals. After the said confirmation, Duterte challenged human rights officials to file a case against him if they could provide evidence to his links with vigilante groups

.................

Duterte responded to the reported arrest and subsequent release of a notorious drug lord in Manila by saying: "Here in Davao, you can't go out alive. You can go out, but inside a coffin. Is that what you call extra-judicial killing? Then I will just bring a drug lord to a judge and kill him there, that will no longer be extra-judicial."

 

[Britphils]

To quote a bank analyst "when a very credible witness testified against a former president in 2001 the stock market and peso immediately fell sharply. This did not happen yesterday". In fact the stock market surged over 2%.

 

Even the national media is reporting all the "errors" in his testimony. Totally lacking in credibility. I think they are up to 20 discrepancies so far including from memory

 

- he says he is ex-military, the military have no record of him

-.he says he signed an affidavit, De Lima confirmed there is no affidavit

- he says he killed a man in McDonalds. The man was not killed in McDonalds.

- he says De Lima was to be killed on her trip to Davao in 2003. She was forced to confirm her trip was in 2009

- he says he killed the bodyguards of a politician, the politician's son says none of their bodyguards or anyone connected to them has been murdered

- he says he killed the dance-instructor lover of Duterte's sister. She says all her dance-instructor friends (none of them lovers) are all still happily alive

- he says he killed a terrorist, no one of that name can be traced

 

The list goes on and on. 

 

Edited September 16, 2016 by Britphils

[Jingthing]

Filipino people won't be surprised. The world isn't surprised. The Filipinos elected this bombastic mass murderer with open eyes. Sad to say, they're culpable. They're saying -- more, more, more! I guess that's democracy. 

[craigt3365]

1 hour ago, Jingthing said:

Filipino people won't be surprised. The world isn't surprised. The Filipinos elected this bombastic mass murderer with open eyes. Sad to say, they're culpable. They're saying -- more, more, more! I guess that's democracy. 

Sadly, they don't have a great track record of voting in quality leaders.  Then again, look at the US voting back in that mayor who was convicted and put in jail. LOL

[djlest]

Well well well, he must have read Taksins autobiography to get that awesome idea of how to raise funds quickly and rid the nation of its drug problems all in one foul swoop!
Made taksin a hero....

[augustwest]

He better have a 100% proof exit strategy!

[Jingthing]

8 minutes ago, djlest said:

Well well well, he must have read Taksins autobiography to get that awesome idea of how to raise funds quickly and rid the nation of its drug problems all in one foul swoop!
Made taksin a hero....

Things worked out really well for Thaksin and Thailand after that ... huh?

Anyway, I don't accept an equivalence of Thaksin and Duterte. Different animals. 

[tuky]

Ofcourse it is true. 

Matobato was in protective custody prior to his statements.

He is a dead man now.

 

This the provincial way of doing things, and now the Philippines has a war lord  as president.

Everything I have seen points to this president as being a mass murderer.

I dont understand how people can be so blind about him.

If nothing else, then who will stop the killing once the druggies are all dead??

Who is next?  LGBT, Foreigners? Rivals?

This guy needs to be taken out, one way or another.

 

[tuky]

Atleast we will be able to observe history in the making.

[Britphils]

19 hours ago, tuky said:

Ofcourse it is true. 

Matobato was in protective custody prior to his statements.

He is a dead man now.

 

This the provincial way of doing things, and now the Philippines has a war lord  as president.

Everything I have seen points to this president as being a mass murderer.

I dont understand how people can be so blind about him.

If nothing else, then who will stop the killing once the druggies are all dead??

Who is next?  LGBT, Foreigners? Rivals?

This guy needs to be taken out, one way or another.

 

I like your use of facts. 

Yes it is claimed he was in protective custody. Unfortunately it appears he committed an attempted ambush while he was in it. Strange. Strange also that he was given protective custody despite not having signed a statement. 

Perhaps people are not blind but actually know what is really going on? Perhaps they rely on facts not gut feel and very dubious media reports from people who are not even in the country. 

There are masses of facts I could give you but you don't really want to know do you?  That is the sad thing, people going on about democracy and human rights but are not interested in hearing the defence but call for him to be murdered.

Have you given any thought what would happen in that situation? I know you like martial law in Thailand but we would rather not have it here.