She is one of the most vocal in calling for the conviction of the Ampatuans.
Zainal said a paternal uncle, a policeman, was assigned to a place in Maguindanao where the Ampatuans have supporters and purportedly learned about a P3-million bribe offer for her mother to withdraw from the case.
“If she will not agree, the money will be used as bounty for the head of my mom,” Zainal said in an email.
Further complicating their safety concerns, Zainal said, was the petition filed by the Butuyan and Roque Law Firm before the Court of Appeals seeking the inhibition of the judge hearing the petitions of Zaldy U. Ampatuan, suspended governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and his cousin Akmad Ampatuan, former mayor of Mamasapano town, to be excluded from the case.
“Do pray for the safety of my mom and to my family and relatives,” she said, adding this development would “surely infuriate further the Ampatuans.”
Early this month, the Court of Appeals’ Special 11th Division junked the petition of the patriarch, former Maguindanao governor Andal S. Ampatuan, Sr., to be excluded from the massacre case.
“After a careful scrutiny of the records of this case, we find and so hold that there is no grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of the Department of Justice…On this note, the petitioner’s main petition, as well as the supplemental petition, must therefore necessarily fail for lack of merit,” portions of the 27-page decision read.
Associate Justice Noel Tijam penned the decision which Associate Justices Antonio Villamor and Amy Lazaro-Javier concurred with.[]
Ampatuan is currently detained at a maximum prison facility in Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig, along with son Andal U.[]
