On Nov. 23, 2009, 58 were slaughtered in Barangay Salman in Ampatuan municipality, many of them media practitioners covering the filing of candidacy of the ruling clan’s opposition. The story is as shocking now as it was shocking then, and what keeps us reeling today is the fact that it remains unresolved, and it appears that more deaths have occurred precisely because of this case unclosed.
Then Vice Mayor Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu had accused the Ampatuan family, whom he recently described as “powerful, influential and violent,” of plotting to kill him to stop him from running for governor against Andal Ampatuan Jr., who had been accused but pleaded “not guilty to 41 counts of murder.”
Today, only two persons from that powerful and feared clan in Maguindanao are behind bars and undergoing trial, along with over 60 more standing trial for the case. It is said that over 100 are suspected of involvement in that murder spree.
It has been two and a half years since that bloody massacre that shocked and distressed the nation with the blatant brutality and cold-blooded violence that long years of impunity had wrought in that part of our country.
The nation may have wailed in protest and sympathized with the families of the innocent victims, but these have not been enough to speed up the wheels of justice. Perhaps there simply are too many complicated twists and turns in the case to keep it from progressing further.
The Ampatuans, as revealed many times in the news, were linked with former President now Rep.Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who has been accused of election fraud that allegedly gave her the Palace throne over the late Fernando Poe Jr., who was the only candidate at the time popular enough with the masses to win over the ruling party.
“There are no Ampatuans if Arroyo did not coddle warlords and private armies,” stated Hustisya!, an organization of families of victims of extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances and other human rights violations, as reported in bulatlat.com on the second anniversary of the Ampatuan massacre last year.
To most people, the case may appear to be nothing more than the disturbingly familiar exercise of determining who has been guilty of abusing their power at the cost of many lives. But it is more than that, sad to say.
What the slow-going case shows us is that our judicial system is mottled with doubt and disgrace. It shows that our military and police are not impervious to political clout. The deaths of witnesses to the case certainly paint in blood the reality that fear and weakness remain among those with the authority to protect and punish.
A GMA News report says “Suwaib Upham was shot to death in 2010, Ampatuan driver Esmail Amil Enog’s dismembered body was found a month ago, and Menjie Nangulamas Ubpon was also shot to death in February.”
The third witness to die was killed at Shariff Aguak of multiple gunshot wounds. This potential witness, according to reports, would have been able to identify at least 36 militiamen involved in the 2009 killings. Alijol Ampatuan, a June 28 Philippine Star report said, was “an alleged aide of Kanor Ampatuan and a leader of the civilian volunteer organization (CVO) that took part in the murder, where 58 people were killed.” Alijol was apparently a “distant cousin,” and Kanor “a cousin of prime suspect and clan patriarch Andal Ampatuan Sr.”
According to prosecutors, “at least six witnesses, potential witnesses and their relatives have been killed since the trial started in an attempt to suppress testimony,” another report notes.
It is clear that the violence continues even with the prime suspects behind bars, proving that political power possibly has longer arms than the law.
This is the challenge that stares the Aquino administration and our Supreme Court (SC) in the face. Malacañang may have, in fact, exhorted the SC to find a way to expedite the Maguindanao massacre trial “without sacrificing due process,” as the same GMA News report says. But nothing will prove this government’s strength and sincerity more than actual results, and in the realm of justice, this remains to be seen.
Malacañang, of course, can no more influence the speed of the proceedings than we, ordinary mortals, can, but its support, including the protection of witnesses, will help ensure success of this “blot in our Philippine judicial system,” as presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda describes it.