The marker bearing the names of the victims of the Ampatuan Massacre at the site of the carnage in Sitio Masalay, Brgy. Salman in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao del Sur. Photo taken Sunday (Nov. 20, 2022) by GREGORIO BUENO / MindaNews
COTABATO CITY (MindaNews / 23 November) – For the first time, former three-term Maguindanao Governor Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu, who is the lead complainant in the Ampatuan Massacre case, and his supporters did not commemorate the gruesome event at the massacre site today, November 23.
Mangudadatu, who lost his wife and other female family members to the massacre, said they skipped visiting the massacre site out of security concern due to a dilapidated road caused by a landslide.
“It’s not safe to enter. I asked for assistance, they said it’s too dangerous. The road might collapse and because of the distance to walk, there might be snipers around,” he said in a phone interview.
Every year after the grisly massacre on November 23, 2009, Mangudadatu and his supporters would convoy to the massacre site to commemorate the event there.
He said that for the first time this year, the massacre’s 15th anniversary, they will just offer prayers at the graveyards of his slain wife Genalyn and their other relatives.
Mangudadatu was then vice mayor of Buluan town when he challenged the grip on power of the well-entrenched Ampatuans in the then undivided Maguindanao province.
He sent his wife Genalyn and other female family members to file his certificate of candidacy for governor, which he eventually won. The media victims were there to cover the filing.
Their convoy was stopped along the national highway and herded off to uphill Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman in Ampatuan town where they were brutally killed using high-powered weapons. The other civilian commuters at the wrong time were also forcefully brought with them.
The gunmen, headed by Andal “Unsay” Ampatuan Jr., buried the victims in freshly dug graves but were discovered following an aerial inspection.
The other principal suspect, their patriarch and former Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr., died while in custody in July 2015. He was suffering from liver cancer.
On December 19, 2019, Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of Regional Trial Court Branch 221 in Quezon City found Ampatuan Jr., his brothers Zaldy, former governor of the defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and Anwar, and 25 other principals guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The verdict is on appeal.
Mangudadatu eventually won the 2010 gubernatorial race and went on to serve three full terms and one term as second district representative (2019-2022). He lost his gubernatorial comeback bid in the May 2022 elections. (Ferdinandh Cabrera / MindaNews)
