A former Filipino militiaman testified before the country's Senate that President Rodrigo Duterte, when he was still a city mayor, ordered him and others to kill criminals and opponents that left about 1,000 dead.

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 man who they fed to a crocodile in 2007 in southern Davao city.

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 hearing was briefly halted so senators could discuss how to provide security for Matobato because of the explosive nature of his allegations.

“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.

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.

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 political opponents, and included a wealthy businessman who was killed in central Cebu province because of a feud with Duterte’s son over a woman.

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 so they would not float and would be eaten by fish right away.

“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 program when Duterte became president, fearing he would be killed.

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© 2016 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. </s> 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.

The witness, Edgar Matobato, spoke to Filipino lawmakers at Senate hearings investigating a recent wave of extra-judicial killings that has claimed more than 3,000 lives as part of the president's anti-drug campaign.

Matobato said he spent years working as part of the so-called "Davao Death Squad," a group of killers associated with the president's time as a city mayor.

Matobato's claims, which have not been independently confirmed, linked President Duterte and his son, Paolo Duterte, to a list of crimes worthy of a gangster film.

He said he and fellow assassins referred to then-mayor Duterte using the code name, "Charlie Mike," and he ordered them to kill dozens of people ranging from drug pushers, to the dance-instructor boyfriend of Duterte's sister, to a millionaire hotelier.

"People in Davao City were like chickens - they were being killed without any reason," said Matobato.

The hearing's chair, Senator Leila de Lima, is a longtime critic of Duterte's human rights record. She said she saw the testimony as a step toward truth and justice for victims of the president's alleged purges, past and present. "People deserve to know," she said.

A Duterte ally present at the hearing, Senator Alan Cayetano, dismissed Matobato's sworn testimony as "lies," questioning his credibility and casting the whole process as a politically motivated plot against the president. A spokesman for the president denied the allegation.

The dramatic scene at the Senate on Thursday showed a country divided at home and struggling to keep its balance on the global stage.

Duterte swept to power this spring promising to crackdown on crime, just as he did as the longtime mayor of Davao, where he earned a reputation for strongman tactics and was christened "the death squad mayor" for allegedly overseeing extra-judicial killings.

During this year's campaign Duterte did not shy away from his "death squad" moniker, promising he would kill 100,000 criminals in six months.

"When I become president, I'll order the police and the military to find these people and kill them. The funeral parlors will be packed. . . I'll supply the dead bodies," he said.

Since he took office in July, some 3,000 people have been murdered. Duterte initially seemed to urge the killers on, but has more recently tried to distance himself from extra-judicial killings and summary executions.

The deaths have been condemned by the United Nations and questioned by President Barack Obama. Duterte has shrugged off all criticism, instead railing against U.S. colonialism in the saltiest possible terms.

The president's undiplomatic comments and erratic approach to foreign policy has the U.S. worried.

The Philippines, a onetime U.S. colony, is a close ally of the United States. With China pressing its claims to most of the South China Sea, the U.S. and Philippine sides have for several years been moving toward greater military cooperation.

But Duterte's rise puts that in question. After his profanity-laced comments about Obama at a recent summit, Duterte called for the withdrawal of U.S. special forces from the island of Mindanao. He also announced he will buy weapons from the Chinese.

Duterte has yet to comment on Wednesday's hearing. </s> National Former 'DDS member' links Duterte, son Paolo to more than 1,000 murders

InterAksyon.com

The online news portal of TV5

MANILA, Philippines -- (UPDATE 4 - 12:28 p.m.) A self-confessed member of the so-called “Davao Death Squad” recited Thursday a litany of more than a thousand murders over than three decades, including retaliatory bombings of mosques in Davao City, he claimed were carried out on orders of then Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and his son Paolo, the incumbent vice mayor.

Edgar Matubato, 57, said he appeared at the Senate inquiry into the extrajudicial killings that have accompanied the Duterte administration’s war on drugs because “I want to give justice for my crimes and to those who we, I, killed.”

He estimated having killed up to 50 persons personally between 1988 to 2013, and described several of these in detail.

The motives for the killings, he said, ranged from getting rid of alleged criminals to personal grudges.

Among the many murders he claimed were ordered by Duterte, who went by the code name "Charlie Mike," was the ambush of broadcaster Jun Pala, a former bosom friend turned fierce critics of the then Davao mayor who was ambushed in September 2006.

He also accused Paolo Duterte of ordering the 2014 murder of Cebu hotelier Richard King, supposedly because of rivalry over a woman. The two gunmen were also later killed, again supposedly on Paolo Duterte's orders.

A police officer, Superintendent Leonardo Felonia, former head of the regional intelligence unit, has been charged for the King murder.

Government broadcaster PTV-4 tweeted what it said was Vice Mayor Duterte's reaction to the revelations: "What De Lima and this certain Matobato say in public are bare allegations and in the absence of proof are mere hearsay. I will not dignify the accusations of a madman."



Matubato also hinted that now Philippine National Police Director General Ronald Dela Rosa, then head of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force unit in Davao, knew of the murders because, at one time, the DDS was detailed to his unit.

This was in 2002, he said, they abducted a foreigner and alleged terror suspect named Salim Macdum from Samal Island, taking him to a quarry in Davao City where they stabbed him dead and chopped up his body before burying him.

Matubato said he was a militiaman under the Scout Rangers when he was personally recruited by Duterte in 1988 to join the “Lambada Boys,” a seven-man “liquidation squad” he said was the precursor of the DDS.

The Lambada Boys, he said, was sent out to kill “criminals -- pushers, rapists, snatchers every day.”

"Ang trabaho lang po namin Ma'am, pumatay lang nang pumatay ng tao (Our only job was to kill and kill people)," he told Senator Leila De Lima.

Following the 1993 bombing of Davao’s San Pedro cathedral, in which seven were killed and more than 150 wounded, Matubato said Duterte ordered them to carry out grenade attacks on mosques in the city. He said he personally attacked the mosque in Bangkerohan.

Later, he said, they would abduct Muslim men and murder them.

By this time, Matubato said, their ranks had increased with former communist rebels who had surrendered as well as members of the city police, particularly the “heinous crimes” unit that he said was also known as “pulis ni mayor (the mayor’s police).

Among the policemen Matubato linked to the DDS was Senior Police Officer 4 Arthur Lascanas, who he described as the “team leader” of the death squad and “the most powerful police officer” in Davao because of his ties to Duterte.

Others were Bienvenido Laud, who owns a quarry in Ma-a district where several victims were supposedly taken to be killed and buried, many of them chopped up, a Major Lao, a Major Francia, Lascanas, and Sonny Buenventura, who he described as a security aide of Duterte’s since he was a fiscal.

Both Matubato and De Lima both recalled an incident in 2009, when the senator, then chair of the Commission on Human Rights, conducted hearings on the DDS in Davao City and visited the Laud quarry where they found some human remains.

Matubato said he and several DDS members were ordered, allegedly by Duterte, to ambush De Lima and her party and had positioned themselves on the hilly portion of the quarry. However, the attack was not carried out because De Lima said, "hindi na kami umabot doon (we did not reach that far)."

In the 2010 elections, Matubato said when Prospero Nograles ran for mayor against Duterte, they killed four “bodyguards” of the former speaker, including a former woman barangay chairman. The four, he said, were taken to Samal where they were strangled after which their abdomens were cut open and hollow blocks placed inside their bodies before these were thrown out at sea.

Duterte’s son, Paolo, on the other hand, allegedly ordered at least two hits in 2013, when he was already vice mayor-- one on a man who had angered him by accusing him of acting brave only because of his position, and another man who supposedly cut him at a gasoline station.

Matubato said an elderly woman and another man were also killed in the first hit when they tried to protect the target.

Another hit prompted by personal motives, Matubato claimed, was the 2013 murder of a dance instructor who was allegedly the lover of Duterte’s sister.

Although he said he did not participate in the murder of Pala, Matubato said he was part of “planning” the ambush carried out by two policemen and a number of surrendered rebels. The killing was then made to appear as if Pala, who was an avid supporter of the anti-communist Alsa Masa vigilantes, had been killed by the New People’s Army.

Another victim, an alleged kidnapper seized in Sarangani, was supposedly fed to crocodiles at a breeding farm in Digos, Davao del Sur. </s> A Philippine opposition senator and leading critic of President Rodrigo Duterte's deadly anti-drug crackdown was arrested Friday on drug charges but professed her innocence and vowed she would not be intimidated by a leader she called a "serial killer."

Sen. Leila de Lima's arrest came a day after the Regional Trial Court in Muntinlupa city in the Manila metropolis issued the warrant for her arrest along with other officials who have been charged by state prosecutors for allegedly receiving bribes from detained drug lords.

De Lima has denied the charges, which she said were part of an attempt by Duterte to muzzle critics of his crackdown, which has left more than 7,000 drug suspects dead. She questioned why the court suddenly issued the arrest order when it was scheduled Friday to hear her petition to void the three non-bailable charges.

"If they think they can silence me, if they think I will no longer fight for my advocacies, specially on the truth on the daily killings and other intimidations of this Duterte regime, it's my honor to be jailed for what I've been fighting for," she said before policemen took her into custody at the Senate.

A police convoy, trailed by media vans, took de Lima to the main police camp, where officers will take her photograph and fingerprints before her detention.

When de Lima headed the government's Commission on Human Rights, she tried unsuccessfully to have Duterte prosecuted when he was mayor of Davao city for allegedly unlawful deaths that occurred during an anti-drug crackdown in the city. No witnesses came forward then to testify against the mayor, human rights officials said.

Duterte expanded the crackdown nationwide after becoming president last June, and de Lima has continued to criticize him after winning a Senate seat last year.

In one of her strongest statements against the president this week, de Lima called Duterte a "sociopathic serial killer" who has not been made to answer for more than 1,000 deaths during his crackdown in Davao city as its mayor and now for the thousands of drug suspects killed in his national fight against illegal drugs.

She urged Duterte's Cabinet members to declare him unfit to serve as president. Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II warned that such remarks were seditious, but de Lima replied that Aguirre and Duterte are "the rebels and inciters against a constitutional order that values life and due process above everything else."

Prosecutors allege that de Lima, while she was justice secretary under former President Benigno Aquino III, received bribes from detained drug lords to finance her senatorial campaign, and they say some of the drug lords would testify against her. The bribes were allegedly solicited by her former driver and lover, who was also charged and arrested Thursday in northern Pangasinan province.

Duterte has lashed out at de Lima with foul language, calling her a sex-crazed immoral woman whose election opened "the portals of the national government ... to narco politics."

De Lima said the case against her might be the "wakeup call" the country needs, referring to the absence of a public outcry in the country over the killings in the anti-drug campaign.

De Lima said people were starting to fight back, citing recent accounts by a former militiaman and a retired police officer who acknowledged their roles as assassins in the Davao deaths and Duterte's alleged involvement in the killings. </s> ANTI-COMMIE. Journalist Jun Pala was known for his anti-Communist stance. Graphic by Nico Villarete

MANILA, Philippines – A key witness during a Senate probe into the rise of killings in the government's war on drugs said on Thursday, September 15, that President Rodrigo Duterte, then mayor of Davao City, ordered the killing of broadcaster Jun Pala in 2003.

Speaking under oath during Thursday's Senate probe, Edgar Matobato said that Duterte, through his supposed "right hand man," a certain Arthur Lascañas, ordered Pala killed because the Davao-based radio commentator had been criticizing Duterte repeatedly.

On September 6, 2003, Pala was gunned down by unknown men on a motorcycle in Davao City. He sustained 9 gunshot wounds, mostly on his chest and head, and was pronounced dead on arrival at the San Pedro Hospital. His murder remains unsolved.

Shortly after he won the May 2016 presidential race, Duterte said in press conference that journalists are legitimate targets of assassination "if you're a son of a bitch."

One of these people "who deserved it," he said then, was broadcaster Jun Pala. (READ: Duterte's 'enemy': Jun Pala) – with reports from Jodesz Gavilan/Rappler.com </s> (CNN) Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte's office has denied accusations that Duterte ordered a militia group to carry out extrajudicial killings while he was mayor of Davao City.

The claims were made by a witness who was testifying Thursday before a Philippines Senate committee set up to probe alleged extrajudicial killings in the three months since Duterte became president.

The man, who identified himself as Edgar Matobato, testified that he was part of the 300-member "Davao Death Squad" (DDS), which he alleges was run on the orders of Duterte.

Matobato testified the DDS killed alleged drug dealers and criminals in the southern city of Davao, on the order of Duterte when he was mayor, between 1988 and 2013. More than 1,000 were killed in Davao City alone, he claimed.

Edgar Matobato answers questions as he testifies before the Philippine Senate in Pasay, south of Manila, Philippines on Thursday Sept. 15, 2016.

When asked by a reporter if he thought Duterte was capable of giving such directive, Martin Andanar said: "The Commission on Human Rights already conducted an investigation years ago, when the President was still a Mayor, and charges were not filed, they did not see any direct evidence."

Last year, Duterte addressed claims he was part of a death squad during a regular live weekly TV show broadcast locally in the Philippines.

He later retracted that statement in a press conference, telling reporters there were "no Davao death squads," but the allegations remain and numerous local and international human rights groups have repeatedly criticized his record.

Matobato testified the death squad started out as a "liquidation squad" called "Lambada Boys," which he said was formed by Duterte.

"Our work was to kill criminals like drug pushers, rapists, snatchers. Those were the people we killed every day," Matobato said.

He said the group grew in 1993 and evolved into the DDS. Its members consisted of former rebels and police.

In his testimony, Matobato went into detail about several cases, including an alleged order by Duterte to "massacre the mosques of Muslims" after the Davao City Cathedral was bombed in 1993.

"A few days later, he ordered that we arrest and kill Muslim suspects, so we were staking out the Muslims," Matobato testified. He added the squad kidnapped and killed the suspects and buried them in a quarry.

When the Philippines Commission of Human Rights launched an investigation into the Davao killings in 2009, Duterte allegedly ordered the DDS to kill the Commission's Chairman Leila de Lima, according to Matobato. But the killing was not carried out.

Matobato also brought up other cases in his testimony, including one in 2010 when he alleged Duterte ordered the killing of his own sister's boyfriend.

Matobato accused Duterte of ordering the DDS to kill a journalist who was critical of him.

And, in his testimony, he implicated Duterte's son Paolo, who is now Vice Mayor of Davao. He told the committee Paolo Duerte also ordered the DDS to kill people, and that Paolo was a drug user.

One of the people Paolo Duterte ordered killed was billionaire Richard King in 2014, with whom he was fighting with over a woman, Matobato said.

"People are like chickens in Davao," Matobato said.

Paolo Duterte posted a response on Facebook saying "What de Lima and this certain Matobato say in public are bare allegations in the absence of proof. They are mere hearsay. I will not dignify with an answer the accusations of a madman."

Witness says he was tortured

Matobao told the committee he quit the death squad in 2013 and was tortured and threatened to keep quiet about the killings.

He said he surrendered to the Philippines Commission of Human Rights and the Department of Justice in 2014 and was in Witness Protection up until earlier this year.

He left Witness Protection before Duterte took the presidency because he feared for his life, he said.

Duterte has come under increasing international criticism for his war on drugs, which as of late August had claimed more than 1,900 lives.

Testifying before the Senate committee on August 23, Philippines National Police chief Ronald dela Rosa said that more 700 drug traffickers and users had been killed in police operations since July 1.

He added that the police "follow the rule of law" and that there was no shoot-to-kill order despite the growing toll of bodies piling up in the wake of Duterte's crackdown.

Duterte came into office with huge public support after he vowed to clean up the country of drugs and corruption. </s> Philippine drug war critic Leila de Lima was a highly paid lawyer who switched focus mid-career to human rights, a decision that would draw her into the deadly world of President Rodrigo Duterte.

De Lima was due to be arrested Friday on drug trafficking charges she insists are manufactured to silence her opposition to Duterte's anti-crime crackdown, which has claimed more than 6,500 lives in eight months.

De Lima, 57, began her career as one of the brightest legal prospects in the Philippines, having scored the eighth highest mark in the country's annual lawyer licence exams in 1985.

She worked as a law clerk for the House of Representatives and as a legal aide of a Supreme Court associate justice, while building a successful law practice that specialised in helping prominent politicians in election court challenges.

De Lima helped now-Senate President Aquilino Pimentel Jnr to unseat a senate election rival, and future senator Alan Peter Cayetano beat a suit alleging he was not a Filipino citizen and therefore not qualified to run for office.

Ironically, Pimentel and Cayetano are now among the most powerful allies of Duterte, a longtime mayor of the southern city of Davao who won presidential elections last year after promising to kill tens of thousands of criminals.

De Lima's life turned in 2008 when she accepted her first government post as chairwoman of the government's independent Commission on Human Rights.

During two years in the job she worked with a small team of lowly paid lawyers, investigating extrajudicial killings, abductions and human rights violations by the Philippines' notoriously corrupt security forces.

Another one of her main targets was Duterte, who had for years faced allegations of running death squads in Davao that killed hundreds of drug addicts and petty criminals as part of a ruthless anti-crime campaign.

She left the commission with the probe unfinished in 2010 to become justice secretary in the administration of Benigno Aquino, who swept to power on a pledge to fight corruption.

As justice secretary she prosecuted cases linked to the misuse of huge amounts of legislators' so-called pork-barrel funds, and raided the country's biggest prison to dismantle the perks accorded to inmates convicted of drug offences.

She left the cabinet in late 2015 to run for the Senate, winning a seat last year at the same time Duterte was elected president.

As Duterte launched a Davao-style anti-crime crackdown that would go on to claim thousands of lives, De Lima was one of the few politicians willing to criticise him.

"I will have to destroy her in public," Duterte said in August last year, then proceeded to build a case alleging she was one of the nation's biggest drug traffickers.

"Throughout my entire life, I never imagined myself becoming a victim of a human rights violation myself," De Lima, a divorced mother-of-two, said in October as she insisted the charges against her were absurd. </s> Image copyright Reuters Image caption Senator Leila De Lima has spoken out strongly against extrajudicial killings

Philippine prosecutors have filed drug-related charges against a senator who is an outspoken critic of President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs.

Senator Leila de Lima is accused of receiving money from detained drug lords.

A former top human rights official, she has denied the claims, calling them "politically motivated".

More than 7,000 people have been killed since Mr Duterte launched his war on the drug trade in July 2016.

Critics say he has encouraged police, vigilantes and mercenaries to shoot suspected drug dealers and users on sight.

Mr Duterte has defended the crackdown, saying police were only authorised to open fire when threatened by suspects.

'Butchery'

Ms De Lima, who served as justice secretary under Mr Duterte's predecessor, Benigno Aquino, has been one of the most vocal critics of the crackdown.

When she served as chair of the Commission on Human Rights between 2008-2010, she investigated Mr Duterte - who was then mayor of Davao City - over unexplained deaths during his anti-crime campaign.

She is now accused of accepting money from jailed drug lords and allowing a convict to run a drug operation from behind bars.

Justice Minister Vitaliano Aguirre said three charges had been filed against Ms De Lima, her driver and a number of other people. "This is not the product of politics, this is the product of drug trading,'' he said.

Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption Mr Duterte launched a major drug crackdown after he became president last year

Image copyright AFP Image caption More than 7,000 people have been killed in the war on drugs, leaving behind grieving families

Ms De Lima has strongly rejected the allegations.

"If the loss of my freedom is the price I have to pay for standing up against the butchery of the Duterte regime, then it is a price I am willing to pay,'' she said in a statement.

"But they are mistaken if they think my fight ends here. It has only begun.''

Mr Duterte suspended his crackdown last month after the killing of a South Korean businessman inside police headquarters. He said the police force needed to be cleaned up and has now ordered the Drug Enforcement Agency, rather than the police, to lead it, with back-up from the military.

The death toll from the crackdown has attracted intense criticism from human rights groups and Western countries, although the president continues to enjoy a high level of support among Filipinos. </s> Senator and vocal critic of President Duterte faces drug trafficking charges related to her term as a justice secretary.

A Philippines senator and staunch critic of President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs has been arrested by law enforcement agents after charges were filed in court alleging she received money from drug dealers inside the country's prisons.

Senator Leila de Lima is accused of orchestrating a drug trafficking ring when she was justice secretary during the 2010-2015 administration of Benigno Aquino.

"The truth will come out and I will achieve justice. I am innocent," she told reporters shortly before law enforcers escorted her away from her office on Friday.

De Lima, her former driver and bodyguard and a former national prison official were ordered to be arrested by a local court on Thursday after a judge found merit in criminal charges filed by the Department of Justice last week.

De Lima has denied the charges, calling herself a victim of political persecution and saying she has long prepared herself to be the first "political prisoner" under the Duterte administration.

"While the issuance of the warrant of arrest is questionable, I do not have any plans to evade it," she said, calling the order premature as the court has yet to hear the response from her lawyers.

READ MORE: Duterte accused of paying police to kill

She slept in her Senate office overnight then gave herself up to armed officers in flak jackets who put her in a van and drove into morning rush hour traffic apparently towards police headquarters.

Duterte, 71, won a presidential election last year after promising during the campaign to eradicate drugs in society by killing tens of thousands of people.

Since his inauguration on June 30, an anti-drug drive has seen more than 7,000 people killed over suspected drug links - with over 60 percent of the deaths carried out by unknown assassins.

De Lima has previously called for foreign intervention to put an end to the "state-inspired" extrajudicial murders, which she said have been instigated by Duterte since his election to power.

De Lima also led a series of Senate investigations over allegations that police officers were involved in the killings, and that hired killers were operating under orders from police.

De Lima's supporters also insist she is innocent, and that the charges are trumped up to silence one of Duterte's most prominent critics.

In a statement to Al Jazeera, Senator Paolo Aquino condemned the "political persecution" of his fellow opposition Senate member.

"This arrest is purely political vendetta and has no place in justice system that upholds the rule of law. This is condemnable.

"We reiterate that an arrest based on trumped-up charges is illegal," he said citing the "haste" in de Lima's arrest.

De Lima previously claimed she was targeted because of her criticism of Duterte's drug war policy.

During her time as head of the country's human rights body, de Lima also led the investigation into the alleged extrajudicial killings of an estimated 1,000 drug suspects in Davao, while Duterte was mayor of the city.

When Duterte won as president in 2016, his feud with de Lima continued.

At one point he called on her to "hang herself", after he ordered prosecutors to investigate the senator's alleged links to the drug syndicate.

This week, de Lima branded the president a "sociopathic serial killer" after new allegations surfaced accusing Duterte of ordering drug killings in Davao.
A former militiaman claims while testifying at a hearing by the Philippine Senate that President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte ordered the deaths of criminals and political opponents, allegedly Leila de Lima, critic and journalist Juan Pala, and unidentified Filipino Muslims in 1993, while he was mayor of Davao City. The witness also revealed that Duterte's son Paolo may also have been involved in the murders as an accomplice to his father.