It was a plan that was hatched just when the then police hitman of the Davao Death Squad Arturo Lascañas was on the verge of confessing his sins to the Filipino people.
For those who have read the Lascañas Affidavit that he had submitted sometime 2020 to the International Criminal Court, one observes a notable quality: his memory was as sharp as nails. The details were astonishing: names, places, dates, and the conversations that transpired in the numerous events. More importantly, the hitman Edgar Matobato who later testified on the Davao city extrajudicial killings in the senate would corroborate many of the details in the Lascañas Affidavit.
Lascañas was about to retire in the final months of 2016 from the Philippine National Police when Rodrigo Duterte was already in Malacañang. The drug war had already begun. Police killers had already been exported to Manila to execute a carbon copy of the Davao city extrajudicial killings.
Unknown to Duterte and his close-in partners, however, Lascañas by then had began his journey of repentance and had already reached a resolute faith to expose the Duterte killing apparatus before the world.
He wrote in his affidavit: “Several months later, it was January 2017, I went to Metro Manila with a firm stand, and settled unity of courage and sacred purpose to expose and bring to light the deep darkness of Mayor President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, and not to play his ‘Devil’s Game’ anymore.”
In the closing pages of his tell-all affidavit (a morbid reading about blood and gore, if one can stomach it), he narrates the very special assignment given to him to assassinate then senator Antonio Trillanes IV.
I quote verbatim from Arturo Lascañas:
“Around November 2016, less than a month before my compulsory retirement from the police service, retired Police Master Sergeant Sonny Buenaventura ordered me to devise an ‘Oplan’ (Operational Plan) to kill then Philippine Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, as ordered to him by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. And I did.”
“The plan was to smash – break into pieces the vehicle of Senator Trillanes using a 20-wheeler container truck. The killing would appear to be an ordinary vehicular accident with an extraordinary victim, an incumbent senator of the Republic of the Philippines. A couple of days later, Sonny Buenaventura informed me that Mayor President Duterte approved the ‘Oplan’ I devised, with unlimited funding.”
“Then, Bong Go made a follow up call to me about the ‘Oplan’ to kill Senator Antonio Trillanes IV: when could this be possibly implemented and the logistics I would be needing.”
“I told Bong Go that Sonny Buenaventura and I will implement the ‘Oplan’ in 2017, after my compulsory retirement from the Philippine National Police. Bong Go even offered ‘intel’ information on Sen. Trillanes’ movement and vehicle route, and that President Duterte wanted the ‘Oplan’ to be implemented as soon as possible.
“In December 2016, Bong Go called me and informed me that he had already prepared a ‘safe house’ for me and my group somewhere in Parañaque City and Las Piñas City.”
“Also, Colonel Alden Delvo informed me that he had prepared a ‘safe haven’ for me inside the PNP Headquarters in Camp Crame, as approved by then PNP Chief Bato Dela Rosa.”
“Meanwhile, retired Police Master Sergeant Sonny Buenaventura planned to place me as an employee at the Bureau of Customs as my cover while secretly working on the ‘Oplan’ to kill then Senator Trillanes. I feigned consent of his plan.”
“In January 2017, I flew to Manila not to carry out President Duterte’s engineered evil plan to assassinate then Sen. Trillanes, but to expose Duterte publicly.”
“After my retirement (compulsory) from the Philippine National Police (PNP) after more than 34 years of service, after Christmas and before New Year, my Kumpare Christopher ‘Bong’ Go called me up and informed me that he was sending/instructing somebody to deliver to me his Christmas cash gift (Pamasko) to me. I thanked him and asked him about the person of Ryan Yu, alias ‘Bakten,’ and the corresponding reward on his head, as what Chief PNP Bato Dela Rosa and Senior Supt. Alden Delvo said to me; that Superman PRRD, thru him (Bong Go), offered a monetary reward of P10 million to kill Mr. Ryan Yu, who has a lending business inside The Manila Resorts World Casino.”
“Bong Go told me that he would re-confirm the monetary reward from Superman PRRD and he would inform me. He then asked me when would I come to Manila, and that he has a safehouse somewhere in Las Pinas City for me and my players (hitmen), good for six persons. I told Bong Go that Chief PNP Ronald ‘Bato’ Dela Rosa thru Senior Superintendent Alden Delvo offered me a room in the Officer’s Quarters inside Camp Crame, but during my personal conversation with Deputy Director Ramon Apolinario at his office in Camp Crame, he advised and discouraged me not to stay inside Camp Crame, much more at the Officer’s Quarters. Bong Go said to me not to stay in Camp Crame, to just call him when I’m in Metro Manila. End of our conversation.”
This particular vignette tells us how the Duterte-Go-Dela Rosa triumvirate and the persons around them functioned cavalierly of law and order to follow illegal instructions from Duterte. Worse, it shows us their casual use of state facilities to advance the killing orders, as if they were working not for a government of laws but of thugs.
Now that their reckoning before the ICC appears to be drawing near, publishing this particular incident gives the public the right to know. There is fair time for them to refute the Lascañas Affidavit. But it is only one among numerous incidents that they will have to answer for in court.
