Sometime in the last quarter of 2023, a friend in Manila called to ask me if I wanted to meet the Davao Death Squad team leader Arturo Lascañas. I knew by then that Lascañas had left the Philippines with the aim of eventually testifying in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the case against Rodrigo Duterte.

From my neck of the woods in Europe, I thought that the trip to see Lascañas would be a breeze. I had assumed he was exiled somewhere in Europe, too, perhaps in the Netherlands. My friend’s answer surprised me. Lascañas was nowhere in or near Europe. He was exiled in a distant country with his family.

I was given a contact number. As soon as we had communicated, Lascañas answered in the affirmative that yes, he was open for an interview. On the agreed date, I hopped on a plane to make the 11-hour trip to his country of exile.

Little did I know that I was in for some surprise. First, we were to meet in a hospital room. He had by then been hospitalized for about a month, as doctors had wanted to stabilize his kidneys. Other than that, he was perfectly okay and fit.

Second, he had informed me that my trip would coincide with the trip of an ICC team from The Hague who wanted to check on him. He then assured me that I would not be crossing paths with the ICC team. And the most surprising coincidence of all — when I told him which hotel I had booked myself into, he said that it was the same hotel where the ICC team was billeted.

It was also in that same hotel where the ICC had once conducted a pre-trial hearing of his testimony some months prior to my trip.

Wept like a boy

And so on the appointed time, I went to the hospital where he was confined. They had arranged that a family member of his would meet me at the entrance. No visitors were allowed to see the patient. The family member accompanied me to a hospital reception to explain that I had the permission of the family.

As soon as he saw me enter his room, Lascañas wept like a little boy. He said I was the first Filipino he would see since he left the Philippines. It had been seven years since they had escaped the Duterte government. There certainly was a Filipino diaspora community in that city, but the Lascañas family avoided contacts. 

The other family members present narrated to me where they had gone after the escape. First they tried Malaysia, then Thailand. As they were in Southeast Asia, they heard the awful news: Duterte had canceled their passports and the government had issued an arrest warrant for him. It was too late to catch him; Lascañas was determined to tell his story to the ICC. 

In one way or the other after that brief Southeast Asian sojourn, they had finally reached their country of exile. Here he was protected with the status of political asylum. The Duterte government’s passport cancellation did not work.

I had read and reread all 186 pages of the Lascañas affidavit that he had submitted to the ICC. The thick volume was a narration of very detailed incidents that reflected Lascañas’ sharp memory. He had the names, the dates, the places, and the context of each killing incident he had participated in as the most trusted assassin of former mayor Rodrigo Duterte. 

Yet not everything in the affidavit was pleasant reading. It was an account of blood and gore, of the most coldhearted killings possible, of the sick and vicious mind of Duterte, of victims’ innocence who were killed so that dead men would tell no tales, of protecting drug traders, of dirty money changing hands. It felt incredible that it all happened under the guise of local government rule because no doubt it was plain and simple criminal savagery.

With his detailed memory as sharp as nails, I had thought there was nothing else to talk about with this very determined whistleblower who once served Duterte as his most ruthless killer. I was wrong. Lascañas wanted to divulge more.

Sara in the affidavit

One of the things that struck me about his affidavit was the very scarce mention of Sara Duterte. At the time of our conversations, Sara had become the vice president of the Philippines. I thought I had gravitated on a very minor detail about his affidavit. And then the narration happened.

When Sara assumed her father’s position as city mayor, she wanted to change the modus operandi of the crime. She asked to meet with Lascañas in the parking lot of one Caltex Star Mart shop in Ecoland, Davao City. That is narrated in the affidavit and a good many journalists had read that.

Lascañas provided the context. When Sara became city mayor, the system of extrajudicial killings had become set in stone as a Duterte trademark. According to Lascañas, now that her father was no longer city mayor, she assumed the role of boss over her father’s most trusted killer and the system of killing operations already in place. 

Sara was bothered by the intrusions of media questions. The killings had reached a major decibel noticed by Davao City’s pliant media. For example, bodies they had dumped in the Davao Gulf would float. Despite tying them with hollow blocks (after death by strangulation on shore), they would go out on their so-called Death Boat provided by Rodrigo Duterte. Unfortunately, some bodies floated and washed ashore. One barangay chairman of Samal Island wanted an investigation.

Sara, Lascañas explained, had wanted to mute the news leaks. The plan she devised was different from her father’s — after killing the victims, bury them right away. Presto, any police blotter reporting on it would just end up as a missing persons case. And after that, case closed. Omerta was achieved.

Under international law on crimes against humanity, Sara had become an indirect co-perpetrator like her father, who is now charged before the ICC. There was a system of killings in place; all she had to do was to perpetuate the system. In a layperson’s mind, that would make her as guilty as her father — if she were to be charged too.

Sara had once stated publicly that in her years as city mayor she was never officially involved in extrajudicial killings. Yet aside from devising a layer of secrecy, she also allegedly continued the payments for kill rewards. And as it was during her father’s time —  there were neither receipts nor vouchers for the financial rewards, but only pieces of yellow pad paper the killers would sign on — she continued the same payment system using city hall money, according to Lascañas.

In the parlance of the ICC on crimes against humanity, Sara can be charged with enforced disappearances — the concealment of victims’ whereabouts to hide the fact that they were actually killed. In international law, “enforced disappearances” means taking individuals into custody and concealing their fate.

When Sara gave the instructions to Lascañas in the presence of the Duterte driver and hitman Sonny Buenaventura, her exact words were: “kidnapa na lang nâ ninyo (just kidnap them).” 

“Unyâ ilubong” — then bury them. That way, no dead bodies would turn up in roadsides or on the shores of Davao Gulf. Media nosiness was solved.

In other words, Sara was aware of the existence of the Laud Quarry. Lascañas said: “Of course she was very much aware of the Laud Quarry. In fact, she would often go there to do target practice shooting with Michael Yang.” That was astounding information, that Sara herself was on interaction basis with Yang, who is now wanted in the Philippines as an alleged drug lord. This information was not mentioned in his affidavit.

After some days of conversations, I left the country of exile. On my last day in his hospital room, he pleaded with me: “Please write my story. The world needs to know about Duterte.” 

He, his family members, and I would continue to communicate long after that. More than a year later, I was informed that he is now in the ICC’s Witness Protection Program. The family was finally safe in the Netherlands.

Lascañas would eventually be grilled in the ICC court chamber once the Duterte case progresses into the trial stage. He can then expand from his brief mention of Sara in his affidavit. The enforced disappearances make Sara far from being a minor player in the Davao Death Squad killings. It is possible the prosecutorial team of Karim Khan would elevate her status to that of an indirect co-perpetrator like her father.

The ICC must consider her inclusion in the next round of arrests. Impeachment or not, she must be surrendered too and brought before the bar of international justice for crimes against humanity. – Rappler.com