By ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat.com

MANILA — The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) described as a “weird statement” the allegation by Ampatuan massacre suspect Andal Ampatuan Jr. that its fighters under Commander Ameril Ombra Cato were the ones behind the carnage.

Mohagher Iqbal, chairman of the MILF’s negotiating panel in its peace negotiations with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP), said the MILF cannot be the ones to have perpetrated the massacre.

“The MILF has no presence there, the place is near the checkpoints of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Citizen Armed Forces Geographical Unit (Cafgu), and is also near the Army station,” Iqbal said in a phone interview with Bulatlat. “So how could they accuse the MILF of having a hand in the massacre?”

“And we wouldn’t do such a thing,” Iqbal added. “We would never do such a thing. That is way too much. That is an act of animals, not of humans.”

Ampatuan, who is the incumbent mayor of Datu Unsay, in Maguindanao, surrendered to authorities on Nov. 26 after being tagged as one of the prime suspects in the massacre which, as of the latest count, has claimed 57 lives – including 30 journalists and two lawyers. He was flown to Manila that same day and placed under the custody of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

At the NBI headquarters, Ampatuan denied having a hand in the massacre, pointing instead to the MILF’s Cato, whose group was one of the MILF units in Central Mindanao that figured in clashes with the military in mid-2008, especially after the botched signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD) between the GRP and the MILF.

“It’s so easy to accuse someone,” Ampatuan told reporters in a brief interview. “There should be evidence. I’m innocent. The culprits are with the MILF’s Ombra Cato. They are terrorists.”

At early morning on Nov. 23, about 100 armed men waylaid a convoy led by Genalyn Tiamzon-Mangudadatu, wife of Buluan Vice-Mayor and gubernatorial aspirant Esmael Mangudadatu. Joining the convoy were supporters of the Mangudadatus, mostly women, at least 30 journalists, and two other women. Genalyn was to lead the filing of her husband’s certificate of candidacy.

Genalyn was able to call her husband to inform him that their convoy had been stopped by armed men. Before her call was cut off, she was also able to tell her husband that the younger Ampatuan was among the 100 armed men, and that he had slapped her.

The bodies of those who joined the convoy were discovered in different graves over the next few days. “The Ampatuans and the Mangudadatus used to be political allies,” Iqbal said. “They are also linked by intermarriage.”

Indeed, the Mangudadatus supported the elder Ampatuan’s bid for Maguindanao’s gubernatorial seat in 2001.

The two clans, however, had a falling out a few years later when the Mangudadatus opposed the formation of Adam, a municipality that was to be carved out from territory they controlled. The rivalry that ensued was further cemented by Esmael’s decision to run for governor.

Iqbal is convinced the Ampatuans are behind the massacre. “They did that to create fear, and to eliminate all opposition,” he said.

Ampatuan’s father, the governor of Maguindanao, employs at least 200 “civilian volunteer organization” (CVO) members.

Arroyo’s Executive Order No. 546, issued in July 2006, allows local government units and the PNP to deputize barangay tanods (village watchmen) as “force multipliers” in the counter-“insurgency” campaign. EO 546 has given local officials the leeway to have their private armies, which are banned by the Constitution, legalized into what are called CVOs.

The sons and other relatives of the elder Ampatuan are also reported to be maintaining armed men for their “personal” protection.

The Ampatuans, a known political warlord clan in Maguindanao, are known to be staunch allies of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Maguindanao played a crucial role in delivering votes to Arroyo during the elections of 2004 and 2007.

In the controversial “Hello Garci” recordings, the man suspected to be then-Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) told the woman whose voice sounds like Arroyo’s that she would not be having “much of a problem” in Maguindanao. This was the same series of recorded phone conversations in which the woman who sounds like Arroyo instructed the man believed to be Garcillano to rig the 2004 presidential polls and secure for her a victory of “more than 1M” over the late actor Fernando Poe Jr., Arroyo’s closest rival.

The said phone conversations supposedly took place during the counting period. Arroyo went on to win over Poe by more than a million votes.

In Maguindanao, Arroyo got 193,938 votes over Poe’s 59,892. Poe received not more than a handful of votes in Shariff Aguak, the provincial capital, and most other towns of Maguindanao. He even scored zero in Ampatuan and Datu Piang.

During the 2007 senatorial and local elections, the administration’s Team Unity obtained a 12-0 victory over the Genuine Opposition in Maguindanao, with the votes for Team Unity amounting to more than the number of registered voters in the province.

That the Ampatuans are the prime suspects in the massacre of Nov. 23 is apparently not reason enough for Arroyo to sever her ties with them. “It doesn’t mean that they are no longer our friends, if ever they indeed committed the crime,” Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Lorelei Fajardo told reporters during a press briefing on Nov. 27. (Bulatlat.com)

Salungguhit: Slow, slow grind of justice

Continuing Injustice: A story of the widow of the Ampatuan Massacre

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