A self-confessed Philippine hitman who testified that President Rodrigo Duterte had personally issued assassination orders while a city mayor said on Friday (September 30) he was sorry for the dozens of people he had killed and was ready to die for his mistakes. <br /> <br />Edgar Matobato, 57, told a Senate hearing investigating Duterte's anti-crime crackdown that he had killed more than 50 people while a member of a "death squad" in the southern city of Davao, when Duterte was mayor. <br /> <br />Since giving his testimony, Matobato has been living under the protection of a senator, guarded by former soldiers. <br /> <br />"I apologise to all the people I wronged, those I killed. I don't know their issues since we were only told to kill, but I still want to ask for their forgiveness," Matobato told Reuters. <br /> <br />Duterte has dismissed Matobato's allegations as fabrications. <br /> <br />Matobato appeared relaxed when he spoke about his life as a killer, and the reason for making his confessions in the Senate inquiry. <br /> <br />"I will pay for my wrongdoing. I will not run. I am old and tired, and my only wish is to make right on what I did wrong," he said. <br /> <br />Matobato said he could not read or write and had virtually no education. He said for years he had felt like a hunter, preying on petty criminals and drug addicts. <br /> <br />"I was treated like a dog," he said. <br /> <br />Matobato had told the Senate hearing Duterte had once rushed to the scene after his men had clashed with an enemy and Duterte "finished him off" with an Uzi submachine gun. <br /> <br />Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre described Matobato's testimony as "lies, fabrications and a product of a fertile and a coached imagination". <br /> <br />Duterte was voted to power in a May election vowing to wipe out drugs and corruption in the country of 100 million people. <br /> <br />He took office on June 30 and more than 3,100 people have been killed since then, most of them alleged drug users and dealers, in police operations and in vigilante killings. <br /> <br />Duterte has repeatedly denied involvement in vigilantism as either mayor or president.
