It was the sort of information that dropped a bombshell. Edgar Matobato, the primary former murderer of the dreaded Davao Demise Squad of Rodrigo Duterte to testify within the Senate, had fled the Philippines to seem earlier than the Worldwide Legal Court docket.
Many had been caught unaware: for individuals who had lengthy thought he was already outdoors the nation like his DDS group chief Arturo Lascañas earlier than him, and for individuals who had forgotten his title as a result of he had since been out of sight in a safehouse someplace in Luzon for the previous seven years.
The New York Instances article about his escape, full with photographs of him and his spouse, even confirmed scenes of his safehouse, the experience they took to the Manila airport, his flight to an undisclosed overseas nation and eventually strolling the streets of a land whose language was alien to him.
However extra importantly, the information of his escape confronted us of the type that sends shivers down the backbone: the Davao Demise Squad was actual; Duterte’s orgiastic extrajudicial killings (EJKs) had certainly taken place. After which the unbelievable actuality confounds: Edgar Matobato is free eventually!
For the numerous who had lengthy crusaded towards the Duterte EJKs, it was an emotional catharsis.
In early 2022, a priest buddy, who was in exile in Europe due to loss of life threats he had been receiving, requested for my assist. He had behind him 20 strong years of publicly denouncing the killings proper from the stomach of the beast — Davao Metropolis. In 2022, he was within the technique of firming up an in depth report of the DDS spanning 1998 to 2015, for submission as info to the ICC.
The assistance he requested was in no way appreciable. However he thought it was of import to the case towards Duterte et al of crimes towards humanity within the ICC. It was an interview he had with Matobato manner again on June 22, 2016. Discover the date — it was earlier than June 30, 2016 when Duterte formally assumed workplace as president. There was no speak but of Matobato showing earlier than the Senate, hardly any nationwide consciousness at all the grisly mass murders in Davao metropolis.
Matobato had solely completed Grade 1. The interview language was Cebuano Binisaya, his lingua franca. A translation was wanted for the perusal of the ICC prosecutor (at the moment, Fatou Bensouda of Gambia). That was my humble function within the ICC case, to translate Matobato’s account for the understanding of a world tribunal.
It was a task I used to be very happy to do. Like my priest buddy, I used to be in exile myself from my very own loss of life threats within the Philippines, albeit his was extra menacing. Though we lived in several Mediterranean international locations, we’d typically share notes to search out solace within the loneliness of exile.
The Matobato interview was greater than an eye-opener. Like all narratives on the Davao Demise Squad, it was ghastly and macabre.
Matobato started his story in 1988 when Duterte himself organized seven males in a gathering on the Grand Males Seng Lodge. The title was Lambada Boys. His function was as hit man. In reality, that title smacks of stylishness. The work was to be an murderer. It was, in his phrases, “to kill and solely to kill.” They had been paid as ghost staff of the Davao metropolis corridor.
Duterte was vitriolically illiberal of political opposition to his rule in Davao Metropolis. When the previous speaker Prospero Nograles challenged him for mayor, one thing needed to be accomplished. Matobato narrates:
In 2009 we killed the folks of Prospero Nograles when he ran for mayor, the victims had been picked up from their resort, they had been from Manila. Then we killed them, we introduced them to Davao del Norte, in Samal Island, and we disposed of them within the sea, one girl and 4 males.
We picked up the bodyguards. First we took them inside a van, a Hello-Ace, then we tied them, then we slashed their our bodies and tied these to hole blocks. However one physique had floated and this was recorded in Samal Island’s Kaputian District, which was investigated by PO2 Hector Solano. One of many our bodies had floated and there was a criticism by the barangay, the barangay captain was Loreño of barangay Panggubatan the place one physique of Nograles’ bodyguards, which we had tied with weights then loaded on a pump boat to be disposed within the sea, was retrieved. Then the lady who was additionally killed was a barangay captain of Marilog, or was she an ex-captain? However she was a frontrunner of Nograles and her physique had floated to Santa Cruz, Davao del Sur and it was the place it was discovered. And there have been killings that adopted, ordered by the mayor.
Mere suspicion of drug use was additionally a motive to kill. He narrates the killing of three younger girls. The New York Instances article had a extra detailed account.
In 2013, we had been concerned in killing 3 girls and we dumped their our bodies in San Rafael Village. They had been suspected to be drug pushers or drug lords. However the best way I had sized them up, they had been simply suspects. We killed them and dumped their our bodies in San Rafael, a subdivision.
Duterte had additionally engaged the town’s barangay officers in his kill hierarchy. Right here, Matobato (a minor participant truly as he was solely a civilian power multiplier within the hierarchy) would corroborate what Arturo Lascañas would later attest to in his affidavit to the ICC.
The barangay capitans are additionally given hit males (“tirador”) who’re insurgent returnees, the insurgent returnees who weren’t hard-core, they’re those assigned to the barangay captains to kill small-time offenders (“pipitsugin”) and they’re additionally 15-30 ghost staff on the Davao metropolis corridor.
Matobato additionally recalled the a number of instances that Paolo Duterte gave them orders to kill. What else did he know of Paolo’s actions?
Paolo is a kind of that management smuggling within the port for the import of used clothes (“ukay-ukay”), rice, and crude oil. Tankers and ships that ply on the port, that’s their enterprise. They positioned the blame on Bangayan however it was Paolo himself who controls the import of rice from different international locations.
It was Arthur Lascañas and I used to be tasked to provide the bribe cash (“tong”) to the Bureau of Customs. A number of instances I used to be tasked to convey the cash to Customs, 3 million pesos as bribe cash to them. It was there I knew they had been accountable for smuggling within the port of Sasa.
He retains firm with high-tech mates, all drug lords. Not one amongst his Chinese language mates has been killed.
In his affidavit to the ICC, Lascañas additionally narrated the fee of bribe cash to the Bureau of Customs from Paolo.
He was requested what he knew about Bong Go. Discover the corroboration as properly with the Lascañas declare on Go.
Bong Go is the bagman who offers the cash to finance when there’s a killing operation. If to not the opposite group of hit males, then to us. However he additionally has a private group of hit males, like Titing, he has his personal private hit males.
Bothered by his conscience, Matobato retreated from the Davao Demise Squad in September 2013. He was tortured for per week after which escaped to cover in Cebu, Samar, and Leyte.
On August 21, 2014, he surrendered to a regional workplace of the Fee on Human Rights in Tacloban Metropolis. The CHR nonetheless declined to guard him. He left together with his spouse to Manila the place he knocked on the door of the Division of Justice on September 1. The then-secretary of justice Leila de Lima admitted him within the Witness Safety Program of the Nationwide Bureau of Investigation. It was a twist of irony. In 2009, Matobato was one of many hitmen tasked to assassinate De Lima when her CHR group inspected the premises of the Laud Quarry, the DDS killing subject, upon orders of Duterte.
In his Twitter (X) account, former senator Antonio Trillanes gives the right context as to Matobato’s whereabouts simply earlier than Duterte got here to energy:
One of many final acts of PNoy as president was to make sure the security of Edgar Matobato (who was below the NBI Witness Safety Program at the moment) earlier than the idea of Duterte as president in 2016. He directed a trusted senior authorities official to facilitate Matobato’s switch of custody to a senior member of the Catholic Church. This act of PNoy saved Matobato’s life.
Who was that “senior member of the Catholic Church” who we should additionally credit score now for saving Matobato? Due to his intercession, Matobato was given the haven of a safehouse. Sources now say it was Archbishop Soc Villegas. Apologies to the nice Father Soc for the disclosure, however it is a time for our gratitude to him.
On September 15, 2016, when Duterte was already president, Matobato testified within the Senate concerning the Davao Metropolis EJKs with the backing of then-senator Leila de Lima. In that Senate listening to, Duterte loyalist senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Richard Gordon pounced on Matobato as if they weren’t asking a Grade 1 finisher. The Matobato Senate listening to solid Duterte’s die on De Lima for exposing his EJKs. She was to be silenced for it by means of fabricated prices that locked her up in jail for six years of unjust detention.
On September 27, 2016, Rappler’s Chay Hofileña ran a detailed biographical background on Matobato together with his ID card at Davao metropolis corridor and his appointment papers signed by authority of Duterte for job order work. Matobato was actual. This was no rumour.
Someday late 2022, my priest buddy knowledgeable me that his detailed report on the Davao Demise Squad and the Matobato transcript I had translated had been admitted as info within the ICC. My priest buddy died in Might 2024 of cardiac arrest after he had returned to the Philippines. One of many final issues he had written: I’m hopeful that justice will likely be served regardless of how lengthy it takes.
The emotion is actual: Matobato is free eventually — thank God Almighty he’s free eventually! It factors to a beneficiant heaping of hope, that Rodrigo Duterte and all accomplices named with him will face the bar of justice within the Worldwide Legal Court docket. – Rappler.com
