The State Department of United States is looking into the expose of Edgar Matobato seriously.
The US State Department has become one of those who are calling the Philippines to investigate the current President Rodrigo Duterte.
After a confessed hit man faced the Senate hearing on Thursday where he alleged that Duterte ordered a thousand opponents and suspected criminals murdered, the Philippines faced calls to investigate the president.
According to Edgar Matobato, the crimes happened during the times when Duterte was still the mayor of Davao City.
The confessed hit man told a Senate inquiry that he and a group of policemen killed some 1,000 people in Davao city on Duterte’s orders from 1988-2013.
A day after, calls came in towards the investigation against the president.
US State Department deputy spokesperson Mark Toner said, “these are serious allegations and we take them seriously, we look into them.”
Critics also say the alleged killings in Davao, where Duterte was mayor for more than 20 years, established a pattern that has spread nationwide under the new administration.
Human Rights Watch, a US-based watchdog, urged Manila to let United Nations investigators probe the claims.
In a statement, Asia director Brad Adams said, “President Duterte can’t be expected to investigate himself, so it is crucial that the United Nations is called in to lead such an effort.”
Despite these reports, Duterte had admitted or denied involvement in the death squads during the campaign for May elections.
Wilnor Papa, a campaign officer for the Manila office of Amnesty International, said the problem of impunity was coming due to the failure of previous governments.
“We are now seeing riding-in-tandem (motorcycle-borne assassins) like those that prowled the Davao streets in the late 1990s, The targets are not only drug syndicates. Even purse snatchers use them and they can target basically anyone,” he said.
After the Senate hearing on Thursday, Matobato left the Senate grounds after Senate President Aquilino ‘Koko’ Pimentel III refused to take him into protective custody.
The allegations on Duterte’s part on Davao Death Suqad came out as Senate investigated alleged extra-judicial killings in an ongoing anti-drug crackdown.
In the 72 days of Duterte in office, more than 3,000 deaths were already recorded.
