Bodies exhumed from the mass graves at the massacre site in Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman in Ampatuan, Maguindanao in this photo taken on 25 November 2009, two days after they were brutally killed. MindaNews photo by FROILAN GALLARDO
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 23 November) – A group of Mindanawon lawyers called on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Saturday to give justice to the victims of the gruesome Ampatuan massacre and their families, as it remains elusive 15 years after the shocking incident happened in Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman in Ampatuan town, in the then undivided Maguindanao province.
In a statement, Atty. Antonio C. Azarcon, chairperson of the Union of Peoples’ Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM), said the Marcos administration should ensure to apply the full weight of the law for the immediate arrest and prosecution of all the suspects involved in the incident.
He lamented that after more than a decade of arduous battle for justice, only 44 accused were convicted, while 88 other suspects remain at large and never brought to justice.
He said that the victims’ families have yet to receive compensation.
On November 23, 2009, 58 individuals, including 32 media workers and two lawyers, were brutally murdered, their bodies mutilated, desecrated, and dumped in mass graves.
Infamously known as the Ampatuan Massacre, it was the bloodiest election-related violence in the nation’s history and the deadliest single attack against media workers anywhere in the world.
It took 10 years for the lower court to hand down its verdict finding the Ampatuan siblings guilty of the massacre. Twenty-eight of the 44 convicted were principals while 56 were acquitted.
On December 19, 2019, Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of Regional Trial Court Branch 221 in Quezon City found Datu Andal “Unsay” Ampatuan Jr., his brothers Zaldy and Anwar and 25 other principals guilty beyond reasonable doubt and ordered them to pay the heirs of 57 victims a total of 155.5 million pesos for civil indemnity; moral, exemplary, temperate and actual damages; and loss of earning capacity.
The 58th victim, Reynaldo Momay, was not included in the ruling because according to the court, “whether Momay died or was missing” after November 23, 2009 “could not be ascertained as no evidence of his actual death was adduced.”
The Ampatuans had appealed the case at the Court of Appeals (CA). If the CA affirms the decision of the lower court, the Ampatuans are likely to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Azarcon said that one of the victims included Atty. Concepcion Brizuela, founding member and treasurer of UPLM, who he said had “courageously fought and dedicated her life to upholding justice and protecting human rights.” The other lawyer-victim was Atty. Cynthia Oquendo-Ayon.
“The Ampatuan Massacre holds the horrific record of being the deadliest attack on journalists on a single day,” he said.
Azarcon urged Congress to swiftly enact stronger laws to end impunity and systemic abuses to human rights as he noted that truth tellers such as “journalists, lawyers, and human rights defenders who stand and speak for truth and justice, are still targets of harassment, red-tagging, enforced disappearances, and extra-judicial killings.”
He noted that Atty. Juan Macababbad, a human rights defender and former UPLM vice chair, was gunned down outside his residence in Surallah town, South Cotabato on September 15, 2021.
“We also call on civil society to stay vigilant and resolute. Organize, educate, and mobilize communities. We must hold power to account. The fight for justice requires a united front, for silence only emboldens those who seek to undermine our freedoms,” he said. (Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)
