MANILA, Philippines -- A professed hit man who implicated President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines in extrajudicial killings backed off some of his earlier assertions of the president's involvement under tough questioning Thursday from a Senate committee.
But the self-described hit man, Edgar Matobato, who said he killed about 50 people as a member of a death squad in Davao City, was unshaken in his testimony that Duterte, as mayor there, presided over about 1,000 killings of criminal suspects and political opponents over more than two decades.
The televised hearing appeared to be part of an effort by Duterte supporters to discredit testimony that Matobato gave the committee last week, as well as to impeach the credibility of the former leader of that committee, Sen. Leila de Lima.
Matobato's earlier testimony, which has not been independently verified or corroborated elsewhere, was the first evidence to tie Duterte directly to the killings. Matobato, 57, was called as a witness by de Lima, who oversaw the committee until she was removed from that post Monday.
At times, Matobato, who has a first-grade education, admitted to being perplexed by the barrage of questions from skilled lawyers on the committee.
"I am confused, sir," he told Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, a Duterte backer.
Under Cayetano's cross-examination, Matobato acknowledged that in specific cases the orders to carry out killings did not come directly from Duterte. And he admitted that he did not hear Duterte personally order an execution.
But he repeated his testimony from last week that he saw Duterte give orders to the commander of the death squad, a police officer, who then passed on the orders to members of the squad.
Matobato reiterated that he was a ghost employee of Davao City who was paid for his death-squad activities but did not show up in city personnel records.
After more than four hours of testimony, several senators expressed skepticism about his credibility.
Sen. Richard Gordon, the new committee chairman, called him "a witness who appears to have a spotty memory."
Cayetano issued a statement saying Matobato's assertions of Duterte's involvement turned out under questioning to be mere "assumptions."
"Just an observation, the witness tends to change his testimony," he said.
The drama surrounding Matobato and de Lima has riveted the country, with each twist and turn broadcast live on national television.
The House Justice Committee held two hearings this week in which nine prison inmates accused de Lima of involvement in the illegal drug trade while she served as justice secretary, the position she held before she was elected to the Senate this year.
The witnesses said de Lima solicited payments from drug lords imprisoned at New Bilibid Prison for use in her Senate campaign and that they paid her more than $1 million in exchange for special privileges.
They also said she allowed them to take drugs and other contraband into the prison. Asked why they were testifying, they all said they were giving statements of their own accord.
In an unusual move, the House committee turned most of the questioning over to Vitaliano Aguirre II, the current justice secretary and a Duterte appointee. Aguirre told the committee Wednesday that he would pursue a criminal complaint against de Lima.
De Lima denies having received any payoffs. At a news conference Thursday, she asserted that the witnesses were paid or blackmailed to testify against her.
"These are really, really unfair, unfounded insinuations," she said.
She also accused the committee of violating her right to privacy by allowing one witness to read her cellphone number and home address during the televised hearing. Since then, she said she had received nearly 2,000 offensive and threatening messages and had moved out of her home.
"The attacks against me are getting worse every day," she said. "I am the subject of persecution. The truth is I am not safe. I don't feel safe."
Apart from his testimony last week, Matobato said in a video interview that Duterte founded the Davao Death Squad, the shadowy group believed to have carried out the killings. The group was largely made up of police officers, he said.
Matobato said he came forward because his conscience bothered him.
A Section on 09/23/2016