reporter: edgar matobato says he and philippine president have something in common, they both have blood on their hands. translator: i want him to pay for what he did, for the many killings he ordered, he says. if we bring back the death penalty, i hope duerte is the first to hang. and then i will follow. decades before the president took his bloody war on drugs nationwide, matobato says he was part of a group known in the philippines as devout death suede. a 2008 investigation found a shadowy band of assassins was committing hundreds of murders, targeting street children and criminals, all during duerte s long run as the southern city s gun toting, crime fighting mayor beginning in 1988. i personally killed around 50 people, ma people, mat bought owe says. he shows us a journal with names and date of some of his victims,
written by his wife because he can t read or write. he also showed his city id. he says he was a ghost employee, earning just $100 a month to murder on command. reporter: who was ordering the death squad to kill all of these people? we got the orders from mayor duerte, he says. cnn cannot verify his story, but matobato s testimony before a hearing shocked the philippines. the president s office says he changed some details in his story. very inconsistent. if you go through the transcript in the senate, you will see for yourself that matobato is lying through his teeft. says if the testimony was credible police would have built a case. the davo death squad people are talking about, this is a legend. it is a legend.
scared. if we try to change we re killed. reporter: so you think if they find you they ll kill you? . they will kill me, he says, because now their secrets have been revealed. matobato says he is eager to confess his sins, to shine a light on the dark reality between the president s deadly drug war. will ripley, cnn, manila. really strange from president duerte there. thank you, will ripley. the process of peace in the middle east seems perpetually bleak, but u.s. president-elect donald trump is making big promises. especially in the wake of the u.n. resolutions, the one calling on israel to stop building settlements in palestinian territories. while donald trump says he will be strong for israel, critics say he could hurt a future peace deal. warren lieberman joins us live
there s no death squad. i did kill. i was only three months mayor. reporter: duerte told me he personally gunned down three people while mayor of davo to set an example for his officers. in media interviews he says he doesn t remember matobato and denies ordering vigilante killings. we meet in a safe house several hours from manila. he has moved at least ten times in the last year and is currently facing charges of kidnapping and illegal firearms possession. i was told to cut the body parts into pieces, he says. matobato claims they dumped bodies in crocodile farms, in the streets and even in mass graves, but those graves have never been found. reporter: why are you the only one who has come forward? he says many of them are
follow. decades before the president took his bloody war on drugs nationwide, matobato says he was part of a group known in the philippines as the devout death squad, a 2008 u.n. investigation found the shadowy band of asa assassins wer assassins was committing hundreds of murders as the gun-toting, crime fighting mayor beginning in 1988. i personally killed around 50 people, matobato says. he shows us a journal with names and dates as some of his victims written by his wife because he can t read or write. matobato showed his city i.d. saying he was a ghost employee earning $100 a month to murder on command. who was ordering to kill all these people? we got the orders from mayor