Matobato charged for October 2014 ambush

By Carolyn O. Arguillas,
MindaNews

DAVAO City — The alleged hitman of the Davao Death Squad (DDS) who testified before a  joint Senate Committee hearing on Sept. 22 and 25 that then Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, now President of the Philippines, organized the DDS and ordered the killings is facing charges of frustrated murder before the Digos City prosecutor’s office for an October 2014 ambush while he was supposedly already under the Witness Protection Program (WPP) of the Department of Justice.

The complaint was filed before the Prosecutor’s Office in neighboring DigosCity  last Friday by lawyer and retired Regional Agrarian Reform Adjudicator AbetoSalcedo, Jr.  who survived an ambush on Oct. 23, 2014 in Digos City and who recognized the gunman when he saw Matobato on television when the latter first testified on Sept. 15.

“I want justice,” the 64-year old Salcedo said in his supplemental affidavit.

Sacedo was ambushed at around 5 pm on Oct. 23, 2014 along Bonifacio Highway in Barangay Aplaya, Digos City.

At the time of the ambush, Matobato was supposed to have been already under the WPP of the Department of Justice. Mato-bato at the Senate hearing on Sept. 22 said he went to the DOJ on Sept. 1, 2014 and stayed under the WPP until he left it this year.

Salcedo, now based in Cagayan de Oro City, filed the complaint in the company of his his lawyer and cousin Roy Salcedo, and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Northern Mindanao Director Cesar Bacani and NBI-Davao Region personnel.

The other complainant in the case was the office driver at that time of the ambush.

In his supplemental sworn statement dated Sept. 16, Salcedo said that in his first affidavit executed while he was confined at the  Davao Doctors Hospital in 2014, Matobato’s name was not mentioned “because he was not yet known and identified. But now, he has been identified already.”

After filing the complaint, Salcedo visited the ambush site. (mindanews)