Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) – A self-confessed member of the alleged Davao Death Squad (DDS) on Monday asked the Supreme Court to transfer his case from Davao City to Metropolitan Trial Court in Manila.
Edgar Matobato, a controversial witness in the Senate investigation on the extrajudicial killings, faces a criminal case in the southern Philippine city filed in 2014 for carrying a firearm outside without a permit to carry.
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The petition to the high court noted that Matobato and his wife cannot set foot in Davao City as they feared for their lives.
Witnesses on his behalf would be discouraged from revealing their identities if the case against him was pursued in Davao City.
“Precisely for the needed security and protection that he could no longer secure from the (Witness Protection Program) and the Senate where he testified, Matobato is constrained to request and is requesting from the Supreme Court to give him much-needed protection by at least transferring the venue of his criminal case from Davao City to Manila, in order to afford him and his witnesses the liberty to reveal their personal knowledge in court thereby preventing a miscarriage of justice,” the petition read.
The “unfavorable political atmosphere” in Davao City gives him “no other recourse but to seek protection from the Supreme Court,” it added.
In the Senate hearings held in August through September, he implicated President Rodrigo Duterte, who was then mayor of Davao City, as the leader of the alleged death squad.
But the Senate Committee on Justice headed by Senator Richard Gordon chose not to consider Matobato’s testimony in its investigation after they found numerous inconsistencies.
Matobato’s camp also asked that the hearing of his case set on November 3 be cancelled pending final resolution by the Supreme Court of Matobato’s petition for transfer of venue.
CNN Philippines’ Anjo Alimario contributed to this report.
