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Bombs found near site of world’s worst attack on the press Wednesday, 23 November 2011 08:56
WE NEVER FORGET! Religious pray at the Press Freedom Monument in Cagayan de Oro City in southern Philippines for the 33 journalists killed in the Ampatuan Massacre two years ago today. The massacre was world’s worst single attack on the media. (Froilan Gallardo/Special to Peninsula Online)
By BenCyrus G. Ellorin and AFP
SUBIC (2nd update): Victims of the worst attack on members of the press worldwide and the worst political massacre in post dictatorship Philippines may be far from resting in peace as the wheels of justice rolls excruciatingly slow and conflict resolution elusive.
As relatives, friends and colleagues of 57 people killed and one missing in the massacre in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao province in southern Philippines, were remembering their loved ones in a solemn ceremony, security forces discovered and diffused two improvised explosive devices (IED) on a road leading to the site.
Authorities clarified that the small explosion heard near the site was a result of the disarming procedure on one of the bombs.
"There are only two IEDs found, and the explosion was actually part of the disarming procedure on one of the explosives," Director Felicisimo Khu Jr., chief of the Directorate for Integrated Police Operations in Western Mindanao told the media.
A concrete marker bearing the names of the dead was unveiled today by relatives, friends and colleagues of the 58 victims at the hill where the massacre occurred.
Among those present in today’s remembrance was Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu who lost his wife, a pregnant sister and other relatives in the massacre. Mangudadatu eventually won the post in the election held after the massacre.
Maguindanao is located in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao where government is holding on and off peace negotiations with Muslim rebels demanding recognition of the Muslim minority’s right to self-determination.
Two years ago, gunmen allegedly led by Ampatuan town former mayor Andal Ampatuan Jnr. waylaid a convoy of their rival from the Mangudadatu family, as they travelled to file their candidacy for regional election.
The convoy was led to a hilltop clearing and mowed by automatic machine gun fire. The victims, some still alive were buried along with their cars in a hastily dug mass grave.
Ampatuan Jnr allegedly led the killings because he wanted to stop the rival political candidate, Esmael Mangudadatu, from challenging him in elections.
Of the 57 dead, 32 were journalists who covered the event which was historical in a sense that another family would have finally challenged the Ampatuan warlords. Another journalist who was with the convoy Reynaldo Momay remains missing.
While key leaders of the Ampatuan clan, including Andal Snr. A former governor of Maguindanao, are accused of orchestrating the killings have been charged, their trial is still in its early stages and prosecutors fear it could take years before anyone is punished for the crime.
The patriarch of the Ampatuans, Andal Sr. is now facing another criminal case. This time as co accused in the Election Sabotage case being faced by former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. This case has resulted in the arrest of the former president, who owing to her health is now detained in posh hospital in Manila.
Philippine politics is well known for its violence, but the events of November 23, 2009, in a remote farming area of the southern province of Maguindanao shocked the world.
Andal Ampatuan Jnr's father and namesake was at the time governor of Maguindanao and had been planning to install his son as successor.
Ampatuan Snr had ruled Maguindanao for nearly a decade, building a reputation over that time as a feared warlord who used a private army of a few thousand men to ensure he and his relatives won elections.
He ruled the province with the support of then-president Gloria Arroyo, who helped fund and legitimise his private army so it could be used as a proxy force against Muslim rebels.
Ampatuan Snr and Jnr are among 64 people who are on trial in Manila, with a total of 93 suspects having been arrested but another 100 are on the run.
A day ahead of the two-year anniversary, human rights watchdog Amnesty International said the pressure was on President Benigno Aquino's government to speed up the "very slow wheels of justice" in the case.
"The government has to show that it has the ability to render justice in a massacre that constituted the world's worst ever attack on journalists and the world's worst ever election related single incident," it said.
Government prosecutor Nena Santos, who is handling the case, said her team was trying its best but the huge number of suspects and the stalling tactics of the defence lawyers had slowed proceedings.
Even on less complex cases the Philippine justice system is notoriously slow, with a trial taking an average six years to complete, according to government data.
Victims’ relatives are pinning their hopes on Aquino, who won elections last year in a landslide after promising to end the culture of impunity that has allowed so many powerful people in the Philippines to get away with crimes.
Government employee Ellver Cablitas, whose wife, radio broadcaster Marites, was one of those murdered, said he was looking to Aquino to keep his campaign promises.
"His advocacy was change, that those who are guilty must be punished so that is what he should deliver to us," Cablitas told AFP.
On Tuesday relatives of some of those killed sued the then-president Gloria Arroyo for arming and supporting the alleged murderers.
Once a global inspiration for non-violent revolutions when peaceful street protests deposed strongman Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, Philippine democracy is one a roller-coaster the past 25 years as it struggles with impunity especially when it comes to corruption and human rights violations and protracted armed challenge from communist rebels and Muslim minority in the south.
Economic stagnation characterized by high unemployment rate reaching more than 30 percent have driven about a tenth of its almost 100 million people to work abroad. The Peninsula