Edgar Matobato INQUIRER.net file photo
MANILA, Philippines — Late president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III once saved the life of self-confessed hitman Edgar Matobato, former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV said on Tuesday.
Matobato hogged the headlines anew after the New York Times (NYT) revealed that Matobato, a self-confessed killer and member of Davao Death Squad (DDS) who linked former President Rodrigo Duterte to the vigilante group, is now out of the country.
“One of the last acts of PNoy as president was to ensure the safety of Edgar Matobato, (who was under the NBI [National Bureau of Investigation] Witness Protection Program at that time) before the assumption of Duterte as president in 2016,” Trillanes, a staunch ally of the late president, said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
“He directed a trusted senior govt official to facilitate Matobato’s transfer of custody to a senior member of the Catholic church,” he added. “This act of PNoy saved Matobato’s life.”
The NYT also reported that Matobato left the country alongside two Catholic priests who negotiated his escape from the country.
Matobato said he killed about 50 people as a member of a liquidation squad, which was eventually known as the DDS in the 1990s.
READ: IN THE KNOW: Edgar Matobato
Matobato said he withdrew from the DDS in September 2013, but he was tortured for a week until he escaped and hid in the provinces of Cebu, Samar and Leyte.
He then surrendered to a regional office of Commission on Human Rights on Aug. 21, 2014, but when the commission told him that it could not protect him, he and his wife went to Manila to apply for the witness protection program of the Department of Justice on Sept. 1, 2014.
Former senator and now House of Representatives aspirant Leila de Lima also shared the NYT report on her X feed on Monday.
“It takes extraordinary resolve to confess one’s crimes to the world, especially to bring light to the horrible crimes of those more powerful than them,” De Lima, also an Aquino administration ally, said of Matobato. “We can learn from this ex-hitman’s courage and avowal to atone for his crimes.”
De Lima, who was charged and arrested over drug charges in 2017, had always maintained her innocence, claiming that the charges were baseless and in retaliation to the investigation she conducted in the Senate on Duterte’s bloody drug war. Duterte is now among the accused in a crimes against humanity complaint before the International Criminal Court.
She was detained for six years, eight months, and 21 days before being acquitted in June last year.
“It’s a sad reality that most Filipinos do not yet fully realize the gravity and monstrosity of a Filipino president ordering the killing of more than 20,000 of his fellow Filipinos, and his continued impunity,” De Lima said.