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BY ADRIAN STEWART CO
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MANILA – A former Davao City congressman and the Department of Justice (DOJ) stressed there was no truth to the claims that a self-confessed member of the so-called “Davao Death Squad” made in a Senate hearing Thursday.
A “blatant lie” was how former representative Prospero Nogralesdescribed Edgar Matobato’s allegation that some of the ex-official’s security aides were killed by men of then mayor and now President Rodrigo Duterte.
DOJ, on the other hand, stressed the claims of Matobatowere a product of a “fertile and coached imagination.”
Testifying at a Senate hearing on drug-related extrajudicial killings,Matobatoclaimed Duterteordered to kill the close-inbodyguards of Nograleswhen the latter challenged him in the 2010 mayoral election in Davao City.
“I don’t remember any of my close-insecurity getting ambushed or killed due to politics,” Nograles, a former House speaker, said Thursday.“My close-insecurity (aides) are members of the Marine Corps, and they are still alive.”
He admitted he had a “quarrel” with Duterte when they bothran for mayor but dismissed it as “pure politics” and said they remain friends.
The Senate hearing was led by the committee on justice headed by the chairwoman Sen. Leila de Lima, a Duterte critic.
Matobato also claimed Duterte himself ordered killings in Davao City from 1988 to 2013.
The 57-year-old said he was a scout ranger when Duterterecruited him as member of Lambada Boys tasked to kill criminals in the late 1980s.
Lambada Boys became known as the Davao Death Squad sometime in the 90s after the group was tasked to bomb a mosque in retaliation for a cathedral bomb attack, he said.
Matobatoclaimed the group was led by Senior Police Officer 4 Arthur Lascañas, thenthe “most powerful” police officer in the city — so powerful even generals took orders from him.
He enumerated a series of killings the group was tasked to accomplish, including that of suspected terrorist SaliMakdum in 2002.
“His (Matobato) statements are lies and fabrications and can only be product of afertile and a coached imagination,” Justice secretaryVitalianoAguirre said in a statement.
Aguirre scored Matobato for claiming he did not execute any swornstatement prior to his appearance at the Senate when he was under theDOJ’s Witness Protection Program (WPP) before.
“How can that be possible? He claims that he was on WPP before. Onecannot be part of the WPP without executing an affidavit. He isobviously not telling the truth. Can he be trusted?” the secretary said.
“How is it possible that he arrived at the Senate withoutbeing invited or without knowing there is a Senateinquiry?” he added. “How can he not name who brought him to theSenate? Who is he protecting?”
Davao City representative KarloNograles also denied the claims, saying Matobatowas “being manipulatedby some people [for] their own selfish interest.”
“I don’t know what this guy is talking about,” said the younger Nograles. “From the time I waschiefofstaff to the time I was elected congressman, no supporterof ours or persons under our employ was ever killed due to politics.”
“Political differences in our city [have] always been strictly on thelevel of difference in policy and style,” he added. “It has never degraded intothe level of physical and violent. That is why it is easy for us toset aside differences.” (With PNA/PN)
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