Sen. Trillanes wants Senate to probe Pres. Duterte for alleged ‘DDS’ involvement

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV. (Photo courtesy of Trillanes’ Facebook page)

MANILA—Senator Antonio “Sonny” Trillanes IV in his privilege speech on Monday moved to have President Rodrigo Duterte investigated under the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee for his alleged involvement in the so-called vigilante group, the Davao Death Squad (DDS).

“I now move that this privilege speech be referred to the Senate Committee on Accountability of Public Officers and Investigations (Blue Ribbon Committee) so that an inquiry be conducted to look into the alleged direct involvement of then mayor and now President Rodrigo Duterte and other public officials in the killing of more than a thousand persons in Davao City through the Davao Death Squad,” Trillanes said in his speech.

Trillanes made this move after insisting that witness and alleged former DDS hitman Edgar Matobato did not have inconsistencies in his previous testimony but merely had lapses in his memory and lack of knowledge on the alleged killings.

Matobato, in a Senate inquiry into extrajudicial killings, claimed that then Mayor Duterte himself ordered the DDS to kill bodyguards of then mayoral candidate Prospero Nograles who ran against his daughter, Sara Duterte in 2010; a certain Richard King who was a rival of his son, incumbent Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte over a woman among other non-criminals.

“Now that we have seen the different corroborating evidence on the testimony of Mr. Edgar Matobato, we are faced with a very frightening prospect — that of having a mass murderer as President of the country,” Trillanes said.

“Edgar Matobato is telling us in the face — he has testified that Pres. Duterte as mayor of Davao City was the mastermind behind the Davao Death Squad, which was responsible for the killing of more than a thousand persons from 1998 to 2013,” he added.

Trillanes said that investigating the President will rule out that possibility that he was “indeed” what he described as a “mass murderer”.