Matobato: "I don't care if I die now"

I don't care if I die now.

This was stressed by Edgar Matobato, 57, as he claimed that he is already 'tired of running' from all the issues being raised against him, following his testimony in the Senate hearing on the Davao Death Squad (DDS).

Matobato is a self-confessed Philippine hitman who testified that President Rodrigo Duterte, during his mayoralty term in Davao City, had personally issued assassination orders.

"I don't care if I die now, I have accepted my fate... I just don't want to go to jail. They better kill me, hang me for all my sins," Matobato said, adding that he was sorry for the dozens of people he had killed and was ready to die for his sins.

"I'm tired of running," Matobato told Reuters in an interview at a safe house in Manila.

"I apologize to all the people I have wronged, those I killed," he said, as he claimed that his conscience was bothering him.

I want to correct the mistakes and I want justice for those people," he said, referring to his victims.

Another reason for his decision to come clean was that he was being framed up as a "fall guy" by his former colleagues for the murder of a businessman.

It was up to God what happened to him now, he said.

On September 15, Matobato said in a Senate inquiry that he had killed more than 50 people while a member of a "death squad" in the southern city of Davao, when Duterte was mayor.

He appeared relaxed when he spoke about his life as a killer, and the reason for making his confessions in the Senate inquiry.

Since giving his testimony, Matobato has been living under the protection of a senator, guarded by former soldiers.

Upon Duterte's assumption to office in May election, more than 3,100 people have been killed since then, most of them alleged drug users and dealers, in police operations and in vigilante killings.

The president has dismissed Matobato's allegations as fabrications and repeatedly denied involvement in vigilantism as either mayor or president.

'I was like a dog'

Matobato felt he was like a dog, when he always follow orders and made to do things.

"All my life, I was like a dog being sent here and there and made to do things. I obeyed them, no questions asked, he said.

Matobato told Reuters he could not read or write and had virtually no education.

For years, he had felt like a hunter, preying on petty criminals and drug addicts.

"My only appeal is spare my family," he said, tears welling.

He said he was being looked after but was frustrated with his life in hiding.

"It's very difficult," he said. "I can't go where I want to go. I only stay here all day.

"I'm tired of this life."

In the Senate hearing, Matobato said that Duterte had once rushed to the scene after his men had clashed with an enemy and Duterte "finished him off" with a Uzi submachine gun.

But, Matobato's testimony was described by Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre as "lies, fabrications and a product of a fertile and a coached imagination".

Source: GMA News/Reuters