‘Let’s probe Duterte when tide shifts’

Senator Antonio Trillanes. AFP FILE PHOTO

SEN. ANTONIO “Sonny” Trillanes IV has expressed optimism that his colleagues in the upper chamber would soon move to investigate President Rodrigo Duterte’s alleged direct links to the Davao Death Squad and over a thousand deaths blamed on the shadowy vigilante group.

In an INQ&A interview Tuesday evening, Trillanes predicted that President Duterte would soon lose legislative support as the number of deaths in the government’s anti-drugs war continued to rise beyond 3,000 suspects, half of whom killed by unknown vigilantes.

This was despite senators voting against Trillanes’ motion to investigate Duterte over the killings of criminals when he was still Davao City mayor.

“Once the popularity wanes and the political tide sways, the senators will be up to the task. On one hand,  President Duterte is very popular and they (senators) have seen that what (he is) doing to Sen. (Leila) De Lima has a chilling effect,” Trillanes said.

He said politicians follow the public’s sentiment, stressing that “trailblazers” like members of the opposition often are looked upon to lead the charge.

Trillanes said his colleagues were still at a “vulnerable” stage to effectively initiate any move against President Duterte, partly in fear of an angry backlash from the president and his supporters.

De Lima, the president’s staunchest critic, initiated the Senate inquiry into the spate of suspected extrajudicial killings in the country amid the administration’s bloody war on drugs. But administration lawmakers in the lower house have mounted a challenge and accused her instead of coddling drug lords in the national penitentiary.

After his privilege speech that tagged the President as a “mass murderer,” Trillanes on Monday moved that the Senate blue ribbon committee launch an investigation into claims by confessed hitman Edgar Matobato linking President Duterte to killings.

In his speech, Trillanes presented a fact-checking of Matobato’s claims including several documents like ID card, payroll and job orders showing that he was indeed an employee of the Davao City government until 2013 and assigned to the heinous crimes division under the City Mayor’s Office.

Despite questions of “inconsistencies” from other senators, Trillanes said some senators were now starting to believe Matobato’s testimonies.

“When you look at Mr. Matobato you either see a farmer or an ordinary man on the street. You don’t see him as the hitman that he claims to be,” Trillanes said. “But it is now clear to them that this guy is indeed a member of the Davao Death Squad.”

WPP lawyer

Trillanes also revealed that a former counsel for Matobato when he was still under the government’s witness protection program (WPP) had asked the witness not to implicate the president and his son Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte in vigilante killings in Davao.

He said the President had known about Matobato’s testimonies because the Duterte camp supposedly reached out to him through the WPP lawyer, whom Trillanes did not name.

“Matobato refused, and was determined to expose him all the way,” Trillanes said.

Trillanes maintained that Matobato was “genuine” and served to validate President Duterte’s own claims of killing criminals in Davao. He said there appeared to be inconsistencies at first in his testimony because he was easily confused under tense questioning, stressing that Matobato only finished first grade.

Trillanes however conceded it was still unlikely that reported impeachment moves against the President would prosper, and called any extra-constitutional ouster plot a “figment of imagination.”

“The impeachment is part of constitutional processes. And when you vote to convict, you’re basically voting to oust. But we are far from that scenario, we’re just now fact-finding.”