A confessed assassin for the Davao Death Squad, Edgar Matobato was the first to go public about the killings allegedly ordered by former President Rodrigo Duterte. Since 2014, when he was detained and brutally tortured by his former comrades, Matobato has been on the run. For ten years, an unlikely network kept him alive: Catholic clergy who believed in his redemption, former military mutineers who shielded him, and, at one point, the security detail of an outgoing president. Together, they helped him evade the powerful forces intent on silencing him.

Today, Matobato is out of the country, having fled in the company of two priests, a journalist, and a photographer from The New York Times. With his wife at his side, he assumed a new identity, slipped through airports under cover, and landed in an unnamed country. It is an indefinite stop on his way to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where Duterte may one day stand trial for crimes against humanity.

His journey, from a recruit into a brutal profession, to whistleblower, to fugitive, is a remarkable tale that mirrors the country’s complex relationship with violence, power—and redemption.