Incredulous, Palace and senators describe claim of confessed assassin

Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar: The Senate already showed everyone how incredulous his stories are, stories that belong to lala land. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/JOAN BONDOC

Malacañang on Tuesday dismissed as “incredulous” the latest allegations made by confessed assassin Edgar Matobato that he personally saw President Duterte kill eight people when he was mayor of Davao City.

Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar belittled Matobato’s claims in an interview with Inquirer.net, calling them a repeat of his earlier story that had been repudiated by the Senate justice committee.

No court witness

“The Senate already showed everyone how incredulous his stories are, stories that belong to lala land. #Rehash,” Andanar said in a text message.

Mr. Duterte has called Matobato a perjured witness and said he did not know the confessed hit man.

Reached by phone, Sen. Richard Gordon, the Senate justice committee chair, cited inconsistencies in Matobato’s previous testimony before the panel, saying he could not, as a lawyer, have presented the man as a witness in a trial court.

“He was damaged goods. It was his inconsistencies, they were ridiculous,” Gordon said, recalling Matobato had testified witnessing how Mr. Duterte finished off a National Bureau of Investigation agent who had dodged gunfire from the mayor’s henchmen.

“If I presented him as a witness, I’d be the laughingstock of the courtroom. I don’t want the Senate to be the laughingstock of the nation,” said Gordon.

“Too late the hero,” Sen. Panfilo Lacson said of Matobato, whose credibility the former national police chief has doubted since senators saw holes in his testimony during the chamber’s inquiry into the spate of drug-related killings under the Duterte administration.

Media outings

“Matobato had all the chances to testify in several Senate public hearings what he knew about the so-called Davao Death Squad (DDS). Unfortunately for him, he blew it,” said Lacson, who cochaired the inquiry that ran from August to October.

“He has a serious credibility problem owing to the many inconsistencies in his testimonies in as many times that he appeared before the joint committee that conducted the investigation on the matter,” Lacson said.

He also questioned who might be behind Matobato’s recent media outings.

“The issue that comes to mind is who are behind his interviews with members of international media that have recently been aired,” Lacson said.

Senate appearance

Matobato appeared at the Senate hearing to show how, as Sen. Leila de Lima had said during the hearings, Mr. Duterte led a systematic extermination of crime suspects in Davao City, a similar pattern now seen in the string of deaths in the President’s war on drugs.

De Lima was ousted as committee chair for insisting on Matabato’s credibility and was replaced by Gordon, whose final report recommending Matobato’s prosecution for murder and perjury was approved by the panel.

During the Senate inquiry, Matobato testified that Mr. Duterte himself ordered terror missions of the DDS during his time as mayor, including mosque bombings and the murder of criminals and perceived enemies.

Last month, Matobato filed charges of murder, kidnapping, torture and crimes against humanity against Mr. Duterte and 27 others in the Office of the Ombudsman.