MANILA, Philippines - Testimony has begun in the trial of a prominent Philippine politician accused in last year's massacre of 57 people, including at least 30 journalists.
A former house servant of Andal Ampatuan told the court Wednesday his boss had gathered his children at his home to discuss how to stop a rival politician from running for governor of southern Maguindanao province.
The employee, Lakmudin Saliao, said Andal Ampatuan Junior told his father the easy thing to do would be to "kill them all."
Andal Junior is the main suspect in last November's massacre in Maguindanao and he is one of nearly 200 people, including his father, linked to the crime.
The Ampatuan family had ruled the southern province for nearly a decade. Andal Junior was a local mayor who was also running for governor of Maguindanao at the time of the massacre.
Among those killed were several relatives of the rival politician, including his wife and sisters.
Many of the suspects remain at large.
Saliao testified that Andal Junior was waiting for the convoy on the day of the massacre and received instructions from his father by phone. He said the elder Ampatuan wanted to spare the lives of the journalists traveling in the convoy, but that his son insisted they be killed so there would be no witnesses.
Media watchdog groups say this is the deadliest single attack on reporters in the world. (AFP, AP and Reuters)
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Witness Implicates Prominent Family in Philippine Massacre
Monday, July 12, 2010
Ampatuan Bungalows In Davao City
An unfinished bungalow owned by the Ampatuan family in the southern Filipino city of Davao. The clan’s patriarch Andal Ampatuan and his sons, including the regional governor of the Muslim autonomous region, are currently detained in Manila after authorities linked them to the massacre of dozens of people, among them at least 32 journalists, in Maguindanao province on November 23, 2009. The powerful clan denies all accusations against them.(Mindanao Examiner Photo Service)Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Ampatuan 'jail party' earns ire of victims' kin: ABS-CBN
MANILA, Philippines - Relatives of some of the victims in the November 23 massacre in Ampatuan, Maguindanao on Tuesday urged president-elect Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III to appoint a new secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government following news that suspects in the massacre were allowed to throw a party inside Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City.
In a statement, relatives of 14 victims in the massacre condemned reports that the Ampatuans were allowed to throw a party for guests including children inside the maximum security prison last Saturday.
Atty. Harry Roque, who represents the 14 victims, said "the special treatment" lavished on the Ampatuans started after authorities refused a petition to transfer the suspects to the Quezon City Jail.
There are currently 6 members of the Ampatuan family detained at Camp Bagong Diwa: Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr.; his father, Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr.; his brother, suspended Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan; and relatives Mamasapano Mayor Akmad Ampatuan, former acting Maguindanao Gov. Sajid Ampatuan, and Shariff Aguak Mayor Anwar Ampatuan.
"It has become apparent that it is these special detention facilities that breed the kind of VIP treatment that they have been getting," Roque said.
A news report earlier said the Ampatuans ordered fastfood and played loud music for guests during a party inside the prison last Saturday.
Roque said that aside from the party, the warden of the Taguig Detention Center also allowed Andal Jr., the main suspect in the massacre that killed 57 people, to conduct a press conference right inside the jail last April.
"Enough is enough. Our victims now call on incoming President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III to appoint only a Secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government who can promise an end to the special treatment accorded to the Ampatuans and that they should hence be detained in the Quezon City Jail where they rightfully belong. This Secretary, whoever he or she maybe, should also promise that all will be done to prevent the flight of any of them from the Quezon City jail," the lawyer said.
He added that the new DILG secretary should ensure that Ampatuans' "happy days" are now over after their last party.
Roque said he will file a motion to cite the jail warden and other officials for contempt of court. He said he will also file separate administrative and criminal charges against them for dereliction of duty.
Roque said it was not true that all inmates are "entitled to hold lavish parties in jail."
"This privilege is accorded only to the rich and powerful. The decision to allow them to hold a party is not only a gross insult to the victims of the country’s worse massacre, it also sends the message that those who massacre, when they are rich and with political connections, can have lavish party even as they are already under detention for the possible commission of a heinous crimes. This is a tried and tested formula for impunity of the kind that we precisely have in this country," he said. (ABS-CBN)
Link: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/regions/06/08/10/ampatuan-jail-party-earns-ire-victims-kin
Friday, April 16, 2010
Feared clan members accused in Maguindanao massacre brought to Manila
The five were all members of the powerful Ampatuan clan, including its patriarch Andal Sr, the governor of Maguindanao province; and his sons – Zaldy Ampatuan, the governor of the Muslim autonomous region; Sajid Ampatuan, Akmad Ampatuan Sr, the vice governor of Maguindanao, and Anwar Ampatuan, the mayor of Shariff Aguak town in Maguindanao.
They were herded in a tightly guarded prison in Taguig City where Andal Ampatuan Jr, the mayor of Datu Unsay town, also accused in the brutal murders, is locked up.
The young Ampatuan is accused of leading the November 23 killings of 57 people, including at least 32 journalists who accompanied a political caravan of a rival clan, the Mangudadatus.
The caravan was traveling when it was stopped by more than 100 gunmen in Shariff Aguak town and killed and buried its passengers in two mass graves in nearby town of Ampatuan. Among those killed were the wife and sister of Esmael Mangudadatu who is running for governor in next month’s polls.
The Ampatuan clan, a strong political ally of Arroyo, denied all the charges against them and blamed Moro rebels for the massacre, an allegation strongly rejected by authorities. (Mindanao Examiner)
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Escaped Ampatuan ally captured in Mindanao
DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Mar. 24, 2010) – Philippine authorities captured Wednesday a former provincial police chief accused of illegally selling weapons to members of a political clan implicated in the brutal slayings of 57 people last year in Mindanao.
Chief Superintendent Josefino Cataluña, the regional police chief, said they captured Piang Adam in Davao City. Adam previously headed the police force in Maguindanao province where the massacre occurred.
“Long surveillance and intelligence operations led to the capture of Piang Adam, who is also facing charges of illegal possession. He is now under our custody,” Cataluña told the Mindanao Examiner.
Adam was first arrested in December last year on charges of illegal possession of firearms in his home in Sultan Kudarat, but escaped in February.
Police said he is also facing other criminal charges, including falsification of public documents.
Adam is an ally of jailed Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr, the clan’s patriarch, who was implicated in the November 23 massacre of 57 people, among them were at least 32 journalists accompanying the political caravan of rival Esmael Mangudadatu, the vice mayor of Buluan town.
Other accused in the slayings were his sons - Zaldy Ampatuan, the regional governor of the Muslim autonomous region; Andal Ampatuan, the mayor of Datu Unsay town and other clan members who are also in jail. (Mindanao Examiner)
Monday, March 15, 2010
Worlds apart: The Ampatuans and cry for justice for murdered journalists in Mindanao
Maguindanao Governor Datu Andal Ampatuan Sr, left, sits at a thatched hut with relatives and family members inside the military’s Eastern Mindanao Command in Davao City in the southern Philippines. The man, Datu Andal Ampatuan Sr., is facing rebellion charges, along with his sons, who were all accused in the mass murder of 57 people, at least 30 of them journalists accompanying a political caravan of rival Esmael Mangudadatu, the vice mayor of Buluan town in Maguindanao province in Mindanao.
The Ampatuans and the Mangudadatus are no ordinary men—they belong to powerful and wealthy Muslim clans that have ruled the province for the past decade or so.
The 70-year-old Andal, the governor of Maguindanao, is being held by the military at a hospital inside the base in Davao City after his blood pressure shot up and his diabetes, among other illnesses, prevented him from being put in jail instead.
“I am a little okay now, but my arthritis is still a big problem. I could hardly walk and this is the only place inside the military base that I am allowed because it is in this small corner that I can smell and feel the cold breeze of the sea,” the clan’s patriarch said. Relatives who were visiting him listened. They nodded their heads and some just stared at the old man as if they wanted to cry because of what had become of him.
They seemed to pity him so much that they swear justice would be served.
The former strongman of Maguindanao and those who surrounded him did not speak about the massacre of November 23, 2009. They just spoke about his health condition and praised the military nurses and doctors for taking care of the old man.
“The nurses and the doctors are taking care of Datu Andal and we appreciate it so much,” said a relative and Ampatuan agreed. “Yes, that is true. The military is taking care of me and I have nothing to say, but [we] wanted to thank the nurses and doctors and others who are helping me get well,” Ampatuan said.
He was arrested in December last year and together with his sons Datu Zaldy Ampatuan, the governor of the five-province Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao; Datu Andal Ampatuan Jr, the mayor of Datu Unsay town who was tagged by authorities as the alleged mastermind of the November 23 massacre in Maguindanao’s Ampatuan town.
Zaldy Ampatuan and his two brothers are locked up in jail in General Santos City and, like their father, facing rebellion charges. Andal Ampatuan Jr. is in the custody of the National Bureau of Investigation in Manila and facing multiple murder charges after being implicated by witnesses in the killings.
Among those murdered were the wife, sister and relatives of Mangudadatu, who is running for governor in Maguindanao in the May 10 elections. The Ampatuans denied all accusations against them and insisted that they were innocent.
Supporters of the politicians, many of them from Shariff Aguak, the hometown of Ampatuan Sr., continue to send him letters, some from children whose families he had supported financially and telling him to be strong and firm and always pray to God for him to overcome all problems besetting the clan.
Back home, volunteers take turns in cleaning his mansion. His servants say that he is innocent. “I am always in tears. I always pray that no harm shall befall Datu Andal and the others. They are kind people. My heart aches every time we hear bad things about them because they are all good people, good masters,” said 28-year-old Sandra Lakim, who volunteers her services along with a few dozen others in cleaning the old man’s sprawling mansion.
Villagers said Ampatuan Sr. should be freed immediately.
“Datu Andal should be released by the military and also his sons and others they arrested. They are all innocent. Now we are scared here. The rebels may attack our town and steal our cattle. There is looting every day and hooded men barge in houses and steal our things,” said Mustapha, a farmer in Shariff Aguak, the capital town of Maguindanao and a former stronghold of the Ampatuan clan.
But for the victims of the massacre, justice is just as elusive. They cry for justice and the slow progress of the investigation of the gruesome murders is also “killing” them slowly.
“We are crying for justice. Where is justice? They killed innocent people and they should pay for their crimes. We will not stop until justice is served,” said Myrna Reblando, whose husband Alejandro Reblando, a veteran journalist, was among those killed in the massacre.
Myrna added that the slow progress of the cases against the suspects in the murders is putting a heavy toll on the families of the slain journalists who are seeking justice.
“We are not rich. We don’t even know where to get our next meal. I am only praying to God to give us the strength so we may continue to carry on with this fight. Justice is all we ask for,” she said. Her daughter stopped going to school after the death of her husband.
Myrna now has to struggle to support a big family in Mindanao and the only means of livelihood for her is a small Internet café, which is being managed by her two sons and the boyfriend of her daughter.
Outside the Internet shop hangs a huge photo of the murdered journalist that reminds the family of the elusive justice they are seeking. (Mindanao Examiner)
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Filipinos rejoice Manny Pacquiao's victory over Joshua Clottey
Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan Sr, right, and soldiers and relatives and family members watch inside the hospital of the military's Eastern Mindanao Command headquarters in Davao City in Mindanao on Sunday, March 14, 2010 the telecast fight of boxing champion Manny Pacquiao, who won over Joshua Clottey, of Ghana. Pacquiao retains his World Boxing Organization Welterweight title at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. (Mindanao Examiner Photo)As usual, roadside eateries and restaurants and cinemas were filled with Pacquiao’s fans in Davao City for the 12-round bout against Ghana’s Clottey. “He is the best, perhaps the greatest boxer ever, Manny is truly our hero. He brings pride to the Philippines,” said Peter Cataquis, who watched the fight at a local cinema with his friends.
Pacquiao dominated almost all rounds against the burly Clottey, who was able to score more on the 3rd round with hooks and jabs landing on the Filipino boxer’s face. But every time Pacquiao’s unleashed his barrage of punches, his fans back home cheered wildly.
Even soldiers in Davao city enjoyed the telecast fight. “Manny is the man and Clottey is gone. We have the best boxer and Manny will always be the greatest, the Filipino boxing legend,” an army private said.
Soldiers filled living quarters in the military’s Eastern Mindanao Command in Davao City and watched Pacquiao defeat Clottey.
Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan Sr, who was accused of rebellion in connection with the killings of 57 people in his province last year, also watched the fight on a huge white screen inside the base’s hospital where he is under medical care.
Ampatuan, surrounded by relatives and family members who visited him, was with other soldiers and patients in the hospital. A staunch supporter of Pacquiao, Ampatuan watched silently and occasionally would smile.
“The old man is doing well and his health is okay. He just needs to maintain his diet and avoid cigarettes,” one hospital staff said. (Mindanao Examiner)