“Maguindanao massacre trial could take 55,000 years,” a front page headline screamed for the intended shock effect. In simple arithmetic on convoluted logic, private prosecutor Harry Roque computed 196 defendants facing 57 cases each equals 11,172 cases, times 5 years trial per case equals 55,000 years. Stop the salivating — defendants and lawyers may not live for 20 more years. The criminal cases will die with the accused.
To be fair, Roque has recommended the trimming down of defendants to 35 (from 196) to hurry up the judicial process by “focus(ing) on those who were primarily responsible for the planning and killing two years ago of 57 people, mostly (32) media workers.” Still, he estimates the slow legal procedures to take some 20 years.
On Nov. 23, 2009, a group of about 100 gunmen allegedly led by Andal Ampatuan, Jr.stopped a convoy of cars with relatives and supporters of rival political candidate Esmael Mangudadatu, their lawyers and journalists, then massacred the group of 57, pushed their cars down a ravine, and attempted to bury the bodies with the use of a huge tractor-shovel.
Ampatuan, Jr.’s father and namesake, Andal Ampatuan, Sr., was at the time governor of Maguindanao and had been planning to install his son as successor. The Ampatuan family had ruled Maguindanao for nearly a decade. The political dynasty had a private army of a few thousand men to ensure power and repeatedly win elections for the round-robin political installation of the Ampatuan sons. Ampatuan, Sr. was reportedly supported by then-president Gloria Arroyo, who they say helped fund and legitimize his private army so it could be used as a proxy force against Moro separatist rebels.
Father and son Ampatuan, Sr. and Jr. are among 196 who are on trial in Manila, with a total of 93 suspects having been arrested.Originally filed with a Cotabato court, the Ampatuan cases had to be re-raffled because Judge Luisito Cortez of Branch 84 refused to handle them for fear of his life, he claimed. Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of Branch 221 of the Quezon City Trial Court is now handling the controversial multiple-murder cases.
On Nov. 18, 2011, at the height of the controversial attempt of former president Gloria Arroyo to leave the country for reported medical treatment, a joint Commission on Elections and Department of Justice committee formally filed a charge of electoral sabotage against her, Andal Ampatuan, Sr. (as former Maguindanao Governor) and ex-Comelec official Lintang Bedol at the Pasay City Regional Trial court Branch 112.The charges were based on allegations that Arroyo conspired with officials to tamper with results of 2007 congressional polls to favor her candidates in Maguindanao.
The electoral case filed against Arroyo et al. triggered a hold departure order that made moot and academic, and superseded, the earlier Supreme Court Temporary Restraining Order to allow her to leave on the reason that there were yet no filings on the looming plunder charges against her. To Ampatuan, Sr. the electoral case is a small addition to the list of criminal charges earlier filed against him.
Of course, Arroyo, head propped up by iron posts on a neck brace sitting on her shoulders, plaintively denied any wrongdoing, not for plunder, cheating or lying, not for bribery or mulcting-she is clean and pure. Her legal spokesman Raul Lambino said Friday the cases against her have been fabricated.Arroyo lawyer Ferdinand Tapacio exploded at the “indecent haste” that the electoral fraud case was filed, and lashed at what he said was the government’s “emerging pattern of persecution.”
For the relatives and friends of the victims of the Maguindanao massacre, the two-year slow grind of the wheels of justice is understandably infuriating and frustrating. In a seemingly smaller but equally angering experience, those cheated in the elections allegedly tampered by Arroyo and the Ampatuan clique have been deprived of their right to serve for the past two wasted years. But the unknowing victims are really the Filipino people who do not feel enough anger because these crimes do not directly affect them, and they wait and watch how these atrocious affronts on life and liberties will play out. Tingnan natin (Let’s see) — the non-confrontational common folk might say.
At a conference in Beirut this year, a network of human rights and free speech groups with representatives on all five continents declared November 23 as “International Day to end Impunity.” Impunity, which literally means “to escape punishment,” is used to describe “situations in which serious crimes can be committed in the knowledge that they will not be investigated or brought to trial. When criminals or corrupt authorities can intimidate, assault or murder their opponents without fear of prosecution, they are said to do so with impunity.
The global campaign seeks to raise public awareness of threats against journalists and human rights defenders around the world on account of the work they do. “Impunity is a chronic failure by states, judiciary and law enforcement agencies to bring perpetrators to justice. It is perceived to be even more damaging than the deaths themselves since it encourages more killing when perpetrators are neither arrested nor prosecuted,” voices at the conference said.
That the Maguindanao massacre anniversary has been chosen as landmark case for impunity somehow slaps Filipinos for the lack of equivalent passion for the freedoms transgressed in this most blatant, most criminal violence against the direct victims and the national psyche.
It has been embarrassingly pointed out by others (foreigners) that “the trial, which is currently underway has been hampered by strategic lawyering — time consuming technicalities, complicated interventions — and has been recently overshadowed by a leading defendant’s offer to disclose inside information about electoral fraud in the province, and about kickbacks from government projects. This contempt for the legal process is one of the hallmarks of countries in which a culture of impunity is well established.”
In June, 2011, the Huffington Post reported an “Impunity Index” of the deadliest countries for journalists, documenting places “where journalists are slain and killers go free.” The Philipines is number 3, next to Somalia (Iraq is Number 1) and higher by two notches over Colombia.
Let’s prove this notoriety wrong.
ahcylagan@yahoo.com
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