DAVAO CITY—THE campaign against summary killings here is now “armed” with a man who provided detailed information on the activities of the so-called Davao Death Squad or DDS, Fr. Amado Picardal, chair of the Coalition Against Summary Execution (CASE), said on Tuesday.

Picardal said the informant, whom he identified only as Ramon, had approached his group and provided insights on the operation of the DDS, which is being blamed for more than 800 killings in this city alone since 1989.

Ramon is a former DDS member, Picardal said, but the priest declined to elaborate.

Ramon had already submitted a sworn statement to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and sought a meeting with CHR Chair Leila de Lima, he said.

“Ramon said he had to tell the truth. He has finally broken the culture of silence. What we have been praying for has finally come true as conscience has touched him,” Picardal said.

Proof

“It’s very encouraging to see witnesses willing to come out in the open and tell their stories,” Picardal said.

For the past 10 years, the CASE and allied groups had been trying hard to prove the existence of the DDS even as local officials, including Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, and the police denied it.

“No one can say now that the DDS did not exist and that this group does not have the inspiration and support of the powers-that-be … we have to stand up against this serial mass murder,” he said.

The CHR has been investigating the spate of killings, which targeted suspected criminals, including those barely in their teens.

Picardal said the probe appeared to have been effective because during the past three months, the number of killings had dropped.

Acceptable form

De Lima has described the killings as alarming because these have become an acceptable form of peace and order campaign among the residents.

She also said the commission would try to investigate the alleged involvement of government officials.

The New-York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement read during Monday’s launch of the book “You Can Die Any Time” that it has interviewed nine people with insider’s knowledge of the DDS operation and all of them had pointed to the involvement or complicity of police officers and local government officials in the decade-old killing spree.

“As Davao citizens are well aware of, Mayor Rodrigo Duterte is famous for projecting an image of being tough on crime at all costs. Yet despite his hands-on approach to governance, he claims ignorance of the so-called Davao Death Squad, denying that it even exists,” the HRW said.

His daughter, Vice Mayor Sara Duterte, said the CHR investigation was politically motivated.