Trillanes to present validated information on Matobato claims

Is self-confessed hitman Edgar Matobato credible? The allies of President Duterte say no, but Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV said he will prove them wrong.

According to Trillanes, he will be presenting “verifiable information” to his colleagues to show that Matobato was telling the truth.

Matobato, claiming to be a hitman of the so-called Davao death squad, twice appeared before the Senate committee on justice and human rights in its inquiry into the alleged extrajudicial and summary killings of suspected drug offenders.

Trillanes maintained Matobato was consistent in his testimonies, contrary to the claims of his colleagues that included Sens. Richard Gordon, Panfilo Lacson and Alan Peter Cayetano, who all claimed it was full of inconsistencies.

“In the coming days I will show them the truth. I will show my fellow senators that while they are trying to confuse the witness, I am digging for information that could be validated,” Trillanes said in Filipino.

Trillanes did not elaborate on what exactly he would be presenting, but said it would corroborate the claims made by Matobato.

“If this person is indeed bogus, then why are they so afraid that they removed the chairperson of the committee?” Trillanes said, referring to Sen. Leila de Lima, the erstwhile head of the committee.

Lacson said there were just too many inconsistencies in the testimonies of Matobato for him to be considered a credible witness.

He said it was now hard to tell which of Matobato’s narrations were true because of his flip flopping statements during the hearings.

Based on the account given by the relatives of a certain Sali Makdum, who Matobato claimed was killed by the DDS for being an international terrorist, Lacson said it appears as though the two of them were involved in some real estate transactions.

The statements of Makdum’s relatives, which came out in a television news program, gave Lacson the impression that there was a personal tiff between Matobato and Makdum.

He also cited reports regarding the attempted killing of Department of Agrarian Reform regional adjudicator Abeto Salcedo Jr. last October 2014 in Davao, which was reportedly perpetrated by Matobato.

Salcedo has claimed recognizing Matobato during the Senate hearings as the person who tried to kill him. This was personally relayed to Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III, who relayed the information to his colleagues in the Senate.

Just like the case of Makdum, Lacson said the attempted killing of Salcedo was apparently land-related, and made him question if Matobato was indeed a member of the DDS.

The committee has agreed to invite the alleged members of the DDS who were identified by Matobato during an executive session.

They will be appearing before the committee in a hearing that could be held on Wednesday next week.

Many of the personalities mentioned by Matobato are policemen.

Lacson said the committee would have to discuss what to do with the invited persons once they appear before them.

If they would be presented to Matobato in a police line-up style, Lacson said he and the other committee members would have to decide on what they would do if they are positively identified as DDS members.