Edgar Matobato says he killed again and again for former President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. Now he’s trying to stay alive to testify.
Edgar Matobato says he killed again and again for former President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. Now he’s trying to stay alive to testify.
Hannah Beech and Jes Aznar spent more than a year reporting on the death squad linked to former President Rodrigo Duterte.
There are, the hit man said, many ways to kill.
A string tied between two sticks strangles with a tug of the wrists. A butcher’s blade, long and thin, slices into the heart.
Edgar Matobato said he fed a man to a crocodile, but only once. Mostly, he said, he ended people’s lives with a trusted weapon: his .45-caliber Colt M1911 pistol.
“For almost 24 years, I killed and disposed of many bodies,” Mr. Matobato said of his time with a death squad in Davao City, in the southern Philippines. “I am trying to remember, but I cannot remember everyone.”
“I’m sorry,” he added.
We were sitting in the outdoor kitchen of Mr. Matobato’s secret refuge in the Philippines. A fierce rain sent water skittering into the room. Mosquitoes followed. He slapped one dead, its body oozing someone else’s blood.
Mr. Matobato was in hiding. He has been for a decade, ever since he confessed to his crimes and divulged who ordered the bloodletting: Rodrigo Duterte, the mayor of Davao City, who later became president of the Philippines.
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