By Raïssa Robles
In journalism, you’re not supposed to start your stories with questions.
But in the case of the 2009 massacre of 57 people in Ampatuan, Maguindanao, I think the questions are the story itself.
I don’t have the answers to these questions two years after the bloodbath.
Maybe Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the former President of the Strong Republic, can answer these questions in court where relatives of 15 victims have filed a 15-million-peso civil suit against her.
For starters, why did she declare early on that the Ampatuans were suspected rebels instead of suspected murderers?
Was that a way to nab them?
Or perhaps to get them off the hook through the clever use of the “Hernandez doctrine”? This is based on a landmark Supreme Court decision which states that crimes like multiple murder are absorbed into the crime of rebellion. A rebel cannot be tried for murder and at the same time for rebellion.
Therefore, if the rebellion case is dismissed, the “rebel” cannot anymore be tried for any murder he committed while in the act of rebellion.
Now what does this have to do with the Ampatuans, you may ask.
The carnage in Maguindanao took place on November 23, 2009. On November 26, 2009, presidential peace adviser Jesus Dureza obtained physical custody of Andal Ampatuan Jr., the alleged leader of the band of killers – after negotiating with the father, Andal Sr.
A week later on December 4, President Arroyo signed Proclamation No. 1959 placing Maguindanao province under Martial Law and suspending thewrit of habeas corpus there.
The move was only revealed publicly by then Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita the next day Dec 5 in a press conference.
Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera, who was also present, justified Martial Law saying:
It was a looming and in fact it was already practically an overthrow of government. The courts were not functioning in Maguindanao.
However, she contradicted herself by adding that:
There were arrests and there were witnesses that came up and the appropriate charges were filed for multiple murder.
Because if the courts weren’t functioning, how were the charges filed?
The next day Dec 6, Andal Ampatuan Sr and another son, Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Governor Zaldy Ampatuan were detained by the authorities.
FOCAP gets exclusive briefing
The Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) strongly opposes the imposition of martial law in Maguindanao province.
Several groups, including respected legal experts, have questioned its constitutionality before the Supreme Court.
While FOCAP has called for the swift arrest and prosecution of suspects in the November 23 massacre, it considers the martial law declaration a very dangerous precedent.
Proclamation 1959 sends a chilling reminder of the Philippine authorities’ failure to eradicate longstanding threats to law and order, including the existence of political warlords and private armies, which have attacked civilians and journalists in the past.
The FOCAP – born in the dark days of Ferdinand Marcos’s martial rule as a vanguard of press freedom – urges President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to immediately recall Proclamation 1959 and fully restore civil liberties in all areas placed under martial rule.
The Philippine government should go after the perpetrators of the Maguindanao massacre using the full force of the legal and democratic instruments at its disposal.
This strongly-worded statement was issued a day after eight senior government, military and police officials had briefed FOCAP:
- Presidential spokesman and Press Secretary Cerge Remonde
- Interior and Local Governments Secretary Ronaldo Puno
- Acting Justice Secretary Agnes Devandera
- Armed Forces deputy chief of staff for operations Major General Gaudencio S. Pangilinan
- Armed Forces spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner
- Philippine National Police Director General Jesus Versoza
- Philippine National Police spokesman Senior Superintendent Leonardo Espina
- Philippine National Police Director for Operations Andres Caro II
In that standing-room-only presscon of Dec 7, the officials collectively justified turning the Ampatuans into rebels instead of the alleged monsters who murdered in broad daylight 57 people, mainly journalists. And then tried to bury the bodies.
Interior and Local Governments Secretary Ronaldo Puno was very exact and all-knowing as to the date when the Ampatuans and their followers suddenly turned into rebels – November 26, 2009 – after Andal Ampatuan Jr. was turned over to the government without handcuffs.
Justice Secretary Devanadera, who was seated beside him, agreed.
Puno told us:
On November 26, when action was being taken against suspects on multiple murder – apparently all these forces (rostered policemen and various kinds of civilian militia men) switched their allegiance to their family (the Ampatuans).
He said that instead of defending the Constituiton and the Republic of the Philippines, “they now become instruments of violating the law of land, no longer following the chain of command.”
He added:
This was really the incipient rebellion at that time. On Nov 26 we told the secretary of justice (Devanadera) a condition of rebellion already existed.
Listening to Puno et al left a lot of us stupefied.
Jim Gomez of Associated Press asked Devanadera to elaborate on the charges filed against the Ampatuans. [NOTE: I haven't mastered yet how to take videos. I didn’t see the bottle at the left-hand corner, but come to think of it, it was probably the most transparent thing that day. ]
Here’s what Devanadera said:
Personally, I had a problem reconciling the evidence the officials presented with the idea that precisely on November 26, thousands of Ampatuan followers suddenly switched allegiance from the Republic of the Philippines to the Ampatuans. And that made even the Ampatuans rebels.
It was also clear that all that firepower was not amassed in a week but probably took months and even years, I said.
And so I asked Puno: Was it possible no switching of allegiance from the Republic to the Ampatuans took place (and therefore there was no rebellion) because the civilian militia men called CVOs and SCAAs were never really loyal to the Republic but only to the Ampatuans who caused them to be hired in the first place?
General Pangilinan answered but unfortunately you can only hear him but not see him on the video. To listen to the general’s reply, please watch this video I’ve uploaded on YouTube -
The authorities elaborated on the “rebel” theme. They described the Ampatuan followers as in “offensive” and “defensive” positions. But the only firefight they could point to – to justify the Martial Law declaration – happened Sunday night of December 6 for ten minutes – and nearly 48 hours after Martial Law was imposed.
Such a brief firefight is nothing compared to those battles with the MILF and the Abu Sayyaf which last an entire day or days. And yet Martial Law was never imposed for those.
How a 10-minute “firefight” could have been used to justify imposing Martial Law – when this happened nearly two days after Martial Law was imposed – boggles the mind.
A bit of context
Before Martial Law was imposed in Maguindanao, the Ampatuans were known worldwide as the prime suspects in the deliberate liquidation of 57 people, mainly journalists. This has set a world record for the worst one-day killing of media men in peace time, while covering a democratic exercise.
To understand how stupefied many of us at FOCAP were at the sudden declaration of Martial Law to catch the Ampatuans, let me give this background.
For many FOCAP members, Filipino rebels are just a phone call away. It is at times easier for us to reach by mobile phone a communist or Muslim rebel leader than a high government official.
And for those covering rebels since 1987, the Ampatuans have never been in our radar. In fact, top officials of the Moro National Liberation Front used to tell me they felt very aggrieved that the Muslim autonomy they had won with the blood of their warriors was handed on a silver platter by Mrs Arroyo to an Ampatuan, whose clan had continuously opposed them during the Marcos dictatorship.
If the Ampatuans were indeed rebels, they seemed to be a different species altogether. By being suspected of killing journalists en masse just before launching their rebellion, they had ensured that the media would boycott and even be hostile towards them. What strange rebels indeed.
Our years of covering and writing about the Muslim and communist insurgencies have taught us that rebels don’t as a rule liquidate journalists because it is not in their creed and not to their advantage.
Even the Abu Sayyaf, branded terrorist by the United States and the European Union, have merely held hostage and robbed members of FOCAP and other journalists who come to cover them. They have yet to behead a reporter deliberately, knock on wood.
Many FOCAP members who regularly take the red-eye flight to central Mindanao to cover the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) know the reputation of the Ampatuans. They are the king of the hill, the warlords, the overlords, the one whose 15-car speeding convoy you avoid on the highway if you don’t want your car to end up like a pretzel.
Foreign and local journalists take their life in their hands whenever they cover in the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Do you know that Manila’s insurance firms have attached a permanent rider to their life and accident insurance products that says – death due to non-natural causes is not covered if this occurs in the ARMM area?
It is perhaps in this context that one can better appreciate the emotional outburst of veteran FOCAP member Tress Martelino-Reyes, correspondent for the Japanese news agency Nikkei during the government’s December 7, 2009 exclusive briefing for FOCAP on the massacre. Tress is not a parachute journalist. She once reported for the broadsheet Manila Chronicle.
To understand why she mentioned the phrase “sitting on their ass,” listen to this exchange between her and Secretary Puno as she asks how the Ampatuans ended up with such a huge armory:
FOCAP member Charmaine Deogracias ofNHK also wanted to know when the Ampatuans became a rebel group:
The government had justified Martial Law by saying it feared an outbreak of violence between the Ampatuan and Mangudadatu clans. It had described both clans as “well-armed”.
Police Director General Jesus Versoza (second on the right in the video) and Police spokesman Senior Superintendent Leonardo Espina dazzled us with an enumeration of the wide array of high-powered weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition they had seized from the Ampatuans’ huge warehouses and palatial homes.
Seeing how well-armed the Ampatuans were, Karl Wilson of Agence France Presse naturally wanted to know if the Mangudadatus had been disarmed as well by the government.
Judge by Puno’s answer whether this has happened.
FOCAP member Dana Batnag of Jiji Press also wanted to know whether the acts of the Ampatuans met the legal definition of rebellion. Dana is a law student at the University of the Philippines College of Law and was once a reporter for The Manila Chronicle.
The Revised Penal Code defines rebellion as “rising publicly and taking arms against the Government for the purpose of removing allegiance from said Government the territory of the Repulic of the Philipines or any part thereof…or depriving the Chief Executive or the Legislature, wholly or partially, of any of their powers or prerogatives.”
Based on our personal experience as reporters, rebellion is being committed by Muslim separatists trying to secede; by communist rebels trying to violently overthrow government; and by soldier rebels trying to unseat the Philippine president.
So what did the Ampatuans try to do to merit such a label, Dana wanted to know.
Click on video below to listen to the government’s explanation.
I asked if authorities had all the while been looking “the other way” while the Ampatuans amassed all those arms and ammo:
FOCAP members were also intrigued to find out who was the leader of the firefights between government forces and Ampatuan loyalists.
Jim Gomez of AP also wanted to know what method the authorities were using to round up the rest of the suspects.
After the briefing, I tried to ransack my mind, trying to compare the Ampatuan rebels with all the other rebels I had encountered. They did not fit any of the current mould.
Rebels usually secrete documents laying out their ideology and plans. I remember that when the Magdalo group first burst into the picture, the president’s national security adviser Victor Corpuz briefed FOCAP extensively on the Magdalo’s ideology, using computer diskettes they found.
All that ransacking the government did inside the various Ampatuan mansions failed to turn up a single piece of paper outlining the Ampatuan rebel ideology. I sure would like to hear the Ampatuan ideology, or does this consist only of using a chainsaw and a backhoe?
If the Ampatuans had turned rebels on November 26, why did Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao Governor Zaldy Ampatuan hold a press conference three days later to appeal to media and the presidential palace to treat him fairly? That would have been the perfect time to launch their rebellion.
Personally, I believe the Arroyo government imposed Martial Law and suspended the writ of habeas corpus so it could arrest the Ampatuans and brand them rebels.
Justice secretary Agnes Devanadera herself stated as much before FOCAP when asked by Manny Mogato of Reuters for an update on the massacre:
Without Martial Law, the Ampatuans are just suspected monsters and mass murderers.
Manny also asked if the government might investigate the Ampatuans if they diverted any funds coming from the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) and Japan’s JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) to buying their illegal armory. Here’s Puno’s reply
Days later, Malacañang Palace backtracked on the matter.
What continues to bother the hell out of me was what Arroyo’s deputy spokeswoman Lorelei Fajardo said:
If we will see later on that the Ampatuans are found guilty based on the investigation, then whether ally or not they will not be given special treatment and they should be punished… but it doesn’t mean that we are no longer friends with them if they are guilty. I think that should be treated separately.
Perhaps, all along, Arroyo and the Ampatuans are kindred spirits.
[Update:
A month after being taken into custody, Andal Jr. was arraigned in court in January 2010.
In March 2010, the court dismissed rebellion charges against Andal Sr, his son Zaldy and five other relatives.
On April 17, 2010, then acting Justice Secretary Alberto Agradropped the multiple murder charges against Zaldy Ampatuan.
But public outcry forced Agra to reinstate the multiple murder charges against Zaldy Ampatuan the following month.
Mrs Arroyo stepped down from the presidency in July 2010 with only Andal Jr. being arraigned in court.
It would take 11 months into the Aquino presidency or June 2011, before Andal Sr.was arraigned in court.
In July 2011, Zaldy Ampatuan suddenly announced that his family had helped Mrs Arroyo cheat in the 2004 and 2007 elections. He offered to become a state witness against Arroyo's electoral fraud case. He has not been arraigned for the Ampatuan massacre to this day. ]
31 Responses to “Part 2: Why did GMA treat Ampatuans as rebels, not suspected mass killers?”
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GMA declared martial in Maguindanao so that she can control the situation there. Remember, there was an instance where the troops who raided the warehouses of the Ampatuan, they didn’t found only guns and ammo, but ballots, which were eventually burned! Those ballots could have been written with the name of FernandoPoe Jr, as the choice for President of the people of ARMM!
So after the destruction of those ballots, no more evidence about the cheating in 2004 and 2007 elections. And GMA let go of the Ampatuans like garbage!
Look at those GMA puppets, Puno, Devanadera and Versoza. They were trying their best to make people as fools! Hats-off to Puno, an in-born liar, he can look at you straight to the eye while still committing lies. Devanadera (with her clown smiles), it really speaks volumes, akala nya madadaan nya sa ngiti.! Pero pinagloloko lang nila ung audience with their non-sense answers or reasoning. Dapat sa mga ito i-lifestyle check. These crooks must not enjoy the fruits of their corrupt practices during GMA’s time.
How in the world could the Ampatuans be declared as rebels when they are best buddies of GMA,especially during an election? Reason why they are labelled as such was that GMA was saving the skins of the Ampatuans, while at the same time, her admin must show that they filed charges against them. GMA must be scared to death at that time, that is if she filed non-bailable charge of murder, the Ampatuans will spill the beans on how they cheated for her and exposed her fake or stolen presidency. People Power will eventually be turned against her, which she kept clinging from Day One!
It is only now I really got a good grasp of the declaration of martial law in Maguindanao, thank you for writing it direct to the point.
Can you imagine if Gloria was able to fly last week we would all be relegated to a waiting game which everone knows will take forever until she finds a friendly admiistration, now that she is well as certified to by her doctors in court (Lambino and Topacio are virtual liars, they shoukd be censured!) let her face all the charges including the Maguindanao massacre!
Thank you for reading.
Medyo off-topic, but still about Gloria – what has happened to Rigoberto Tiglao, who used to be a student activist but seems to have morphed into a die-hard tuta of Gloria? Was he bought? Is he a rich man now?
He is now AMBASSADOR.
am i not understanding this correctly? i had the same thought when the rebellion charges were being considered then– how can they be considered rebels when the ampatuans were clearly active members of GMA’s political party, even on the day of the massacre?
it makes my skin crawl how some people think they are clean for merely being cogs in the evil machine– devanadera, m gutierrez, vezosa, lambino, etc. any decent person will at least step away. i really don’t know how they can look their family/friends in the eye and proudly say they serve the country.
Thanks Raissa – this piece is wonderfully written… sorry to say but naka-karma na si GMA…. She would sacrifice the nation for the Ampatuans! Where is her soul? But of course to cover up the widespread cheating by the Arroyo administration in the 2004 and 2007 elections. God bless her (GMA’s) soul!!!
cant get better than this! its an excellent reporting.
miriam santiago opposed the ML while ted locsin defended it.
in justifying the military rule, locsin even said, “Look at the bodies, look at the arms stockpiles.”
Rebels and suspected Mass killers?
If arroyo treat them as such, then thats good… At least as a REBELS is already proven guilty… And must punish by arroyo…but they did not ….while SUSPECTED MASS KILLER has yet to be proven… and thats the duty of aquino to prove yet……If aquino is superman he can punish them as a rebel and mass killer….. Hitting three bird in one stone… hitting arroyo, ampatuan, and miltary who supplied ammunition… ok ba mga chang at chong….
Unfortunately, the rebellion charges have long been dismissed by the court.
hay,ganon… eh di arroyo na lang bugbugin at kurutin….
When towed together then asked to fall in line in a pageant before an audience, Indifference of the Authorities makes all crimes in the world puny.
Mr. William Esposo in his Philstar column today said that our race is over entertained yet under informed. That assumption can contend for the crown tightly held by “indifference of the authorities.” This is not only exclusive to our country though. We rather be entertained than face reality. I hope it is not human nature…I really do…I don’t know..
What is sad, both crimes will scratch each other’s back.
I hope more people will read you, not to be inundated (which is by the way many of us are prone to) but rather to have more options in this reality that we are in.
Your tenacity to bring truth closer to where it should be is really remarkable. Keep it up Ma’m.
Thank you.
YOu can help me by bring the truth wider to your friends, relatives and co-workers.
Unas, the primary witness against GMA for election sabotage was implicated as one of the perpetrators of the massacre being the confidant of Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr who in turn was being accused as the mastermind of the massacre and was presented as the primary witness of GMA that she did not commit election sabotage. The other accused, Zaldy Ampatuan, exposed the cheatings. Who among them is the lesser evil to be believed by the courts? The rest of the witnesses were Comelec officials with evidences admitting to tampering the election results, 12-0, favoring GMA senatorial candidates. Slam dunk against GMA or “he says, she says” case? The massacre was the beginning of the Karma on the Arroyos.
Will GMA appointed SC justices favor their benefactor or search their souls to restore the integrity of the country in the eyes of the rest of the world? Basically, magistrates decision is reduced to their moral conscience, their only choice is “the devil is in the greater evil”!
it is sad that the country elects dictators ( or allows cheats to become dictators) and never seems able to move forward and focus on the priorities.
too many in gov/politics are still of the old days and therefore part of the problem.
only a new breed with no ties or allegiances can move the country forward.
incestuous politics is always doomed from the outset and they enjoy the gossip/intrigue and playground antics.
to an outsider it is both amusing in its banality and sad in its consequences
Raissa..
This is very brilliant example of journalism… Way to Go! it puts light to the dark spots that HORN-Y and all the little devil’s alter ego can not see…
The next worst Philippine President next to Marcos is Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. nuf said.
This goes to show how Gloria government mold this Ampatuan family into a ‘MONSTER and KILLER’ ….
it’s sad that you did not have this piece published in the major dailies. more people should know these things.
You can help by sending it to everyone you know
i do through FB… and i will continue doing so…
This move of GMA and her minions at shown above is never about justice being rendered to the victims of the AMPATUAN MASSACRE. These moves are all about securing any possibility for the AMPATUAN’s to use GMA’s complicity in the electoral cheating in Maguindanao as a leverage in obtaining concessions for the clan in connection with the massacre. All those at these press briefing should be held accountable for attempted coverup for the massacre and for the the election cheating in maguindanao as ACCOMPLICES AFTER THE FACT.
Based sa timeline mo yung mga pangyayari ngayun kay GMA particularly yung electoral sabatoage ay directly connected sa epekto ng Maguindanao Massacre. The souls of our lost brothers and sisters in Maguindanao are spearheading the quest for Justice. God moves in Mysterious ways. They did not die in vain after all.
this shows how wit the devil lady is..
nakapanglulumo, na nakapanggagalit, nakapang-iinis.
pag ka intinde ko pag rebels ay may amnestiya ,heheheh ,utakan lang nama yan ,para madaling makalusot sa kaso!
Tumpak.