Maguindanao Massacre: The journey towards justice
Lady Glorynne C. Fontamillas
The Journalese
After years of delay, will justice be served?
On the 23rd of November 2009, 32 media practitioners and 26 others were murdered, marking the world’s largest
number of journalists killed in a single event. And exactly three years later, justice for their families remains far beyond their reach.
Genalyn Mangudadatu, wife of Esmael Mangudadatu who was then running for provincial governor, was to file her
husband’s Certifiacate of Candicacy.
Esmael was then the Vice Mayor of Buluan and was a member of the Mangudadatu clan who became close allies of the Ampatuans before they had bitter political fallout.
Andal Ampatuan Jr., the son of the then incumbent governor, Andal Sr, was to succeed the position and run against
Mangudadatu for the gubernatorial position. Andal Jr was then the Vice Mayor of Unsay. The entire political clan of the Ampatuans who became the powerful ruling family in that municipality were to support him in the local polls.
Because it was a challenge to the ruling political clan of the Ampatuans, the journalists who took interest to cover the event with the rest of Mangudadutu’s supporters joined the convoy going to the office of the Commission on Election in the municipality of Shariff Aguak.
On their way to the Comelec office, the local policemen and soldiers blocked the convoy and took all of them, to a hilltop where they were executed, some were even brutally murdered.
In an attempt to hide any trace of the murder, the soldiers buried the bodies in a mass grave compressing them on the ground along with their flattened vehicles. They did the killings with orders allegedly coming from the Ampatuans.
In December 2009, Maguindanao was placed under martial law and over a hundred suspects were charged with multiple murder complaints including Andal Sr, the Ampatuan patriarch, and his four sons – so was the beginning of the long road for justice.
Snail-paced trial
A month later, the Department of Justice’s motion to transfer the rebellion cases against the Ampatuans to the Quezon City Regional Trial Court was granted by the Supreme Court.
Also in January 2010, Vice Mayor Rasul Sangki, a known ally of the Ampatuans, testified and linked Andal Ampatuan Jr. to the murders. Esmael Mangudadatu also testified against him saying he once disuaded him from joining the 2010 elections.
The growing pieces of evidence against the Ampatuans were further intensified when on March 2010, a witness named Suwaib “Jesse” Upham came out saying he was one of the gunmen during the massacre and he wanted Andal Jr and others, behind bars. But on June 14 of the same year, he was shot dead in Parang, Maguindanao.
Another key witness to the case emerged on the re-opening of the trial on September 2010, after it was delayed by Judge Jocelyn Solis Reyes. A house help of the Ampatuans Lakmudin Saliao, testified that the Ampatuans planned the massacre over dinner on Nov. 17, 2009.
In June 2011, the arraignment of Andal Sr. took place and a month later, his son, Zaldy Ampatuan said in an interview aired on television that he would be willing to tell the truth even if it would involve his father.
On the second year anniversary of the massacre, the families’ victims testified on the trial and appealed to fasten up the hearing of the case. Several family members reported that some of them were offered millions to withdraw the cases they filed against the Ampatuans.
Long way to go
In an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the case’s lead prosecutor Harry Roque said that 91 of the 194 suspects in the case had yet to be arrested. While only 81 have been arraigned out of the 103 suspects charged
with 57 counts of murder, since the body of broadcaster Reynaldo Momay, the 58thvictim, is yet to be found.
Meanwhile, the prosecution requested the Supreme Court to assign another tribunal that will hear the countless petitions, motions and countermotions filed by the prosecution defense lawyers.
In the same interview, Roque said that they had to reduce the number of the accused and probably trim it down to 35 “primary accused.”
Seeking international help
In an article for the Asian Human Rights Commission, Danilo Reyes, Hong Kong Programme Officer stated that the United Nations Human Rights Committee held that the Philippines violated its obligation under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), for its failure to “ensure effective remedies at the domestic level.”
The Philippines has signed as a participant to the ICCPR, an arm of the UN Human Rights Committee, on December 19, 1966 and its membership was ratified on October 23, 1986.
Under Article 2, Section 2 of the 1987 Constitution, the country also “adopts the generally accepted principles of
international law as part of the law of the land and adheres to the policy of peace, equality, justice and freedom, cooperation and amity with all nations.”
Several cases concerning the Maguindanao massacre were cited by the Committee as a clear violation to the rights of the complainants, arguing that the remedies were ineffective and duly delayed.
However Reyes said that though the cases cited by the UNHRC, constituted a violation of international law, it also finds its justification under the country’s domestic law since delay is justifiable as a part of the domestic criminal legal process.
With the Philippines’ratification of the Optional Protocol of the ICCPR, Reyes suggests that the aggrieved parties
may file individual complaints with the Committee.
He even argued that“even when cases are within domestic procedural jurisdiction, the state could not invoke this as non-compliance to exhaustion of domestic remedies.”
In September this year, a delegation of human rights and media practitioners headed by Nestor Burgos, a Philippine Daily Inquirer reporter and chairperson of the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines met with United Nations General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser in New York to hand him the letter of appeal seeking the help of UN to call for justice.
Nasser then called the attention of the Philippine government to provide greater protection for journalists saying that “it is unacceptable that journalists are being murdered every year but the killers often go free.”
Media groups’ plea remains unheard
In their three years of protesting against the slow-paced trial of the massacre, media groups remain disappointed with the government’s “lack of meaningful action.”
The National Union of Journalists in the Philippined (NUJP), in a letter to President Aquino, expressed their dismay saying that the trial was“moving with extraordinary slowness … a mockery that insults the memory of the dead and seriously questions the resolve of the authorities to see that justice is done.”
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, however put the blame on defense panel’s “dilatory tactics.”
“If we don’t improve the current pace of the trial, we won’t finish this in 20 years. It’s going to take us longer,” Harry Roque told the Inquirer in an interview.
And because of the growing public criticism on the deliberate trial, Judge Solis-Reyes said she is looking forward to hand down the verdict before Aquino’s term ends.
Despite promises of support and a change to a transparent and genuinely democratic government, which gave hope to families of Maguindanao Massacre victims in their search for justice, the masterminds and the Ampatuan dynasty remain untouched under the Aquino leadership.
While the masterminds roam free and clans like the Ampatuan family still free to run in the 2013 polls, little attention been given to human rights violations and no still no reforms were made to resolve these. The power and influence dynasties yield in the provinces paint another potential Maguindano Massacre, with a grip on private armies and politics. Not even a word on the said violence, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, among others, was uttered in Aquino’s previous State of the Nation Address.
Worse than local lords being secured in the larger bureaucracy, is the killing of expression and information, the killing of democracy itself. According to the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, 153 journalists have been killed since 1986 and 14 of these happened under Noynoy Aquino. So far, only 10 cases ended in conviction.
The road to end impunity continues. J
The Journalese
After years of delay, will justice be served?
On the 23rd of November 2009, 32 media practitioners and 26 others were murdered, marking the world’s largest
number of journalists killed in a single event. And exactly three years later, justice for their families remains far beyond their reach.
Genalyn Mangudadatu, wife of Esmael Mangudadatu who was then running for provincial governor, was to file her
husband’s Certifiacate of Candicacy.
Esmael was then the Vice Mayor of Buluan and was a member of the Mangudadatu clan who became close allies of the Ampatuans before they had bitter political fallout.
Andal Ampatuan Jr., the son of the then incumbent governor, Andal Sr, was to succeed the position and run against
Mangudadatu for the gubernatorial position. Andal Jr was then the Vice Mayor of Unsay. The entire political clan of the Ampatuans who became the powerful ruling family in that municipality were to support him in the local polls.
Because it was a challenge to the ruling political clan of the Ampatuans, the journalists who took interest to cover the event with the rest of Mangudadutu’s supporters joined the convoy going to the office of the Commission on Election in the municipality of Shariff Aguak.
On their way to the Comelec office, the local policemen and soldiers blocked the convoy and took all of them, to a hilltop where they were executed, some were even brutally murdered.
In an attempt to hide any trace of the murder, the soldiers buried the bodies in a mass grave compressing them on the ground along with their flattened vehicles. They did the killings with orders allegedly coming from the Ampatuans.
In December 2009, Maguindanao was placed under martial law and over a hundred suspects were charged with multiple murder complaints including Andal Sr, the Ampatuan patriarch, and his four sons – so was the beginning of the long road for justice.
Snail-paced trial
A month later, the Department of Justice’s motion to transfer the rebellion cases against the Ampatuans to the Quezon City Regional Trial Court was granted by the Supreme Court.
Also in January 2010, Vice Mayor Rasul Sangki, a known ally of the Ampatuans, testified and linked Andal Ampatuan Jr. to the murders. Esmael Mangudadatu also testified against him saying he once disuaded him from joining the 2010 elections.
The growing pieces of evidence against the Ampatuans were further intensified when on March 2010, a witness named Suwaib “Jesse” Upham came out saying he was one of the gunmen during the massacre and he wanted Andal Jr and others, behind bars. But on June 14 of the same year, he was shot dead in Parang, Maguindanao.
Another key witness to the case emerged on the re-opening of the trial on September 2010, after it was delayed by Judge Jocelyn Solis Reyes. A house help of the Ampatuans Lakmudin Saliao, testified that the Ampatuans planned the massacre over dinner on Nov. 17, 2009.
In June 2011, the arraignment of Andal Sr. took place and a month later, his son, Zaldy Ampatuan said in an interview aired on television that he would be willing to tell the truth even if it would involve his father.
On the second year anniversary of the massacre, the families’ victims testified on the trial and appealed to fasten up the hearing of the case. Several family members reported that some of them were offered millions to withdraw the cases they filed against the Ampatuans.
Long way to go
In an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the case’s lead prosecutor Harry Roque said that 91 of the 194 suspects in the case had yet to be arrested. While only 81 have been arraigned out of the 103 suspects charged
with 57 counts of murder, since the body of broadcaster Reynaldo Momay, the 58thvictim, is yet to be found.
Meanwhile, the prosecution requested the Supreme Court to assign another tribunal that will hear the countless petitions, motions and countermotions filed by the prosecution defense lawyers.
In the same interview, Roque said that they had to reduce the number of the accused and probably trim it down to 35 “primary accused.”
Seeking international help
In an article for the Asian Human Rights Commission, Danilo Reyes, Hong Kong Programme Officer stated that the United Nations Human Rights Committee held that the Philippines violated its obligation under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), for its failure to “ensure effective remedies at the domestic level.”
The Philippines has signed as a participant to the ICCPR, an arm of the UN Human Rights Committee, on December 19, 1966 and its membership was ratified on October 23, 1986.
Under Article 2, Section 2 of the 1987 Constitution, the country also “adopts the generally accepted principles of
international law as part of the law of the land and adheres to the policy of peace, equality, justice and freedom, cooperation and amity with all nations.”
Several cases concerning the Maguindanao massacre were cited by the Committee as a clear violation to the rights of the complainants, arguing that the remedies were ineffective and duly delayed.
However Reyes said that though the cases cited by the UNHRC, constituted a violation of international law, it also finds its justification under the country’s domestic law since delay is justifiable as a part of the domestic criminal legal process.
With the Philippines’ratification of the Optional Protocol of the ICCPR, Reyes suggests that the aggrieved parties
may file individual complaints with the Committee.
He even argued that“even when cases are within domestic procedural jurisdiction, the state could not invoke this as non-compliance to exhaustion of domestic remedies.”
In September this year, a delegation of human rights and media practitioners headed by Nestor Burgos, a Philippine Daily Inquirer reporter and chairperson of the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines met with United Nations General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser in New York to hand him the letter of appeal seeking the help of UN to call for justice.
Nasser then called the attention of the Philippine government to provide greater protection for journalists saying that “it is unacceptable that journalists are being murdered every year but the killers often go free.”
Media groups’ plea remains unheard
In their three years of protesting against the slow-paced trial of the massacre, media groups remain disappointed with the government’s “lack of meaningful action.”
The National Union of Journalists in the Philippined (NUJP), in a letter to President Aquino, expressed their dismay saying that the trial was“moving with extraordinary slowness … a mockery that insults the memory of the dead and seriously questions the resolve of the authorities to see that justice is done.”
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, however put the blame on defense panel’s “dilatory tactics.”
“If we don’t improve the current pace of the trial, we won’t finish this in 20 years. It’s going to take us longer,” Harry Roque told the Inquirer in an interview.
And because of the growing public criticism on the deliberate trial, Judge Solis-Reyes said she is looking forward to hand down the verdict before Aquino’s term ends.
Despite promises of support and a change to a transparent and genuinely democratic government, which gave hope to families of Maguindanao Massacre victims in their search for justice, the masterminds and the Ampatuan dynasty remain untouched under the Aquino leadership.
While the masterminds roam free and clans like the Ampatuan family still free to run in the 2013 polls, little attention been given to human rights violations and no still no reforms were made to resolve these. The power and influence dynasties yield in the provinces paint another potential Maguindano Massacre, with a grip on private armies and politics. Not even a word on the said violence, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, among others, was uttered in Aquino’s previous State of the Nation Address.
Worse than local lords being secured in the larger bureaucracy, is the killing of expression and information, the killing of democracy itself. According to the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, 153 journalists have been killed since 1986 and 14 of these happened under Noynoy Aquino. So far, only 10 cases ended in conviction.
The road to end impunity continues. J