THE Palace said Tuesday the allegation by a former policeman that President Rodrigo Duterte was behind the vigilante-style killings of the Davao Death Squad when he was still the city’s mayor was part of an attempt to oust the Chief Executive.
In a press briefings, Presidential Spokesman Ernesto Abella also cast doubt on the credibility of retired SPO3 Arturo Lascañas, who had testified before the Senate last year that the DDS did not exist, then recanted his testimony this week.
“Based on how he performed as a witness, he seems rather discredited,” Abella said. “In 2016, he denied certain things and in 2017, he flip-flops.”
He said the Palace would no longer respond to Lascañas’ allegations.
“If these are really, truly valid, then they should be brought to the proper court,” Abella said.
In a press conference Monday, Lascañas said Duterte formed the DDS when he was Davao City mayor and paid up to P100,000 depending on the status of the target he ordered executed.
“The existence of Davao Death Squad or DDS is real,” he said.
Accompanied by lawyers Jose Manuel Diokno, La Salle Law Dean Alexander Padilla and Arno Sanidad of the Free Legal Assistance Group, Lascañas also said Duterte spent as much as P4 million for the killing of radio broadcaster Jun Pala in 2003.
He said he was hired by Duterte, through the latter’s trusted aide SPO4 Sonny Buenaventura, to assassinate Pala, a broadcaster of Davao-based radio dxGO who was critical of Duterte.
In Davao City, retired policeman Dionisio Abude said he was surprised when Lascañas confessed to his involvement in the DDS.
Abude said that he was clueless of Lascañas’ sudden confession since they already gave a sworn statement during a Senate hearing in October denying the existence of the DDS.
But Magdalo party-list Rep. Gary Alejano on Tuesday said Lascañas had “a divine encounter” after undergoing a kidney operation.
Alejano said Lascañas had a vision of a demon, then a bright light “that erased the darkness symbolized by the demon.” Then he saw a child, who turned out to be one of the people he had killed. It was then that he promised to confess his sins before God, Alejano added.
Akbayan party-list Rep. Tom Villarin called on the Senate to reopen its investigation into the spate of extrajudicial killings of drug suspects.
Villarin said Lascañas may be a “flawed” witness because of his reversal, but his revelations on Monday “confirmed independently” the allegations against President Duterte from other sources, including the groups Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
The group Human Rights Watch said the Lascañas’ allegations emphasized the urgent need for an independent United Nations investigation into the killing of more than 7,000 people in Duterte’s “war on drugs” to uncover ultimate responsibility for those crimes.
The group’s deputy director for Asia, Phelim Kine, added that the disclosures suggest why the Duterte administration launched a “politically motivated prosecution of Senator Leila de Lima,” who has been charged with taking money from drug lords incarcerated in the New Bilibid Prison when she was still Justice secretary.
Kine said the authorities should immediately drop all charges against De Lima, cease their harassment of her and cooperate fully with a UN probe. With Maricel V. Cruz and Sandy Araneta