Commander Maning is a short man, just a little over five feet tall. He stands with his feet splayed, the big heavy belly tucked under a bright yellow shirt that stretched at the seams.
Yes, he said, he was part of CSG Tondo Chapter 2. Yes, he was the one chosen to lead them, for no other reason that he was already the president of the local homeowners' association in Aroma, Tondo. Yes, he and his men helped patrol the village, but it was "for peace and order, so that there would be no snatchers and no riots, and we told off the ones who are trouble."
He said he had been dragged into the allegations, but added, "I have nothing to do with any of it." He also dismissed claims by sources who told Rappler he led vigilantes working for CSG Tondo Chapter 2. "Did they see anything?" he asked. "What right do we have to kill? We're not cops."
The police, said Commander Maning, "were really wrong" to accuse them.
"How can we be vigilantes when we're just here?" he asked Rappler. "We're not doing anything. We help the village officials."
OUTPOST. Photos of the facade of the CSG Tondo Chapter 2 outpost photographed in January of 2017 show the names of CSG officials as well as members painted on the outside walls.
The former outpost of the Confederate Sentinels Group Tondo Chapter 2 sat along Road 10, a short walk away from the Smokey Mountain Police Community Precinct (PCP).
It was that proximity that many of Rappler's sources pointed to when asked about the killings that police claimed were the responsibility of CSG Tondo Chapter 2.
“We were confident,” said Simon, a self-confessed vigilante, “because if we show the police our ID, or even if we didn’t have ID to show, we just give them our names and say we’re Commander Maning’s men. They’ll hold us at the PCP...They’ll take us for a ride and hold us. If they prove we’re positive [as CSG], they let us go.”
Rappler's sources said the outpost just under an overpass was mess hall and barracks and war room combined, where anyone on the job could trade a gun if he didn't like what he had. Inside the outpost, names and pictures of the members were posted on one wall. A whiteboard with a hand-drawn chart listed shift schedules. Outside, the CSG logo was painted on the blue walls, along with Alvin Constantino’s name as director, Commander Maning’s name – Ricardo Villamonte – as commander, and the names of nine of the chapter’s members.
"So Maning had his name up there," snickered Angel, another self-confessed CSG vigilante. "It said commander. He put it [his name] up there so people would show respect. Of course people were scared of the commander, and all the other people who had their names on the wall."
The list of dead targets grew longer, said Simon. He knew most of the targets by their aliases: Toyo, Joseph, JC, Antonio, Pinuno, Sitoy.
Not every target was killed on police orders, said Simon. One woman on the target list, a dealer the locals called “Mommy,” knew there was a hit out and refused to leave her house. “So they took it out on her son instead."
Another man, a former CSG member, was killed on the way to the outpost. "We found out he was positive [for dealing drugs]," said Simon. "After our operation we followed him and killed him."
On October 4, 2016, the media reported the death of a 36-year-old garbage collector named Albert Franco. A newspaper report said Franco, described as a CSG member and resident of Village 105, was shot in the head by unknown assailants. He was reportedly killed at 10:45 in the evening as he was walking a short distance away from PCP Smokey Mountain, on his way to the CSG outpost. His partner told reporters, however, that Franco had no vices or enemies.
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