Exactly a year ago today history’s worst single massacre of journalists shook the Philippines: 32 journalists were killed in one brutal frenzy. Will the killers ever be punished?
After a thorough inspection of the creaky wheels of justice in the islands, our colleagues at the Committee to Protect Justice have their doubts. Yes, the new Philippine President, Benigno S. Aquino, has promised to push the case and reverse the pattern of impunity that has made his country the third most dangerous in the world for journalists. The real question is whether he or anyone else can make that happen, given the fragile state of Philippine democracy.
Much of the country, including southern Maguindanao Province where the slaughter took place, is lawless territory. More accurately, the law is manipulated by warlords using police and militias to administer their own rules, often with the tacit consent of the central government. In this case, the ruling clan of Maguindanao has been the Ampatuan family, allies of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
The Apatuans have long been powers in the province. According to a new report by Human Rights Watch, the clan has been implicated in dozens of previous killings, dating back decades, for which they have never been charged. Victims included traitors to the Apatuan organization, political enemies and their relatives, public officials and people whose land the clan coveted, the report said.
The victims of last year’s massacre were backers of a rival politician, Esmail Mangadadatu, a one-time Ampatuan ally who had broken with the clan. His family members and supporters were going to the provincial capital to file papers letting him run for provincial governor against an Ampatuan candidate. Despite rampant rumors that an ambush was being planned, local police refused protection. To ensure their safety Mangadadatu’s people had invited 32 reporters to come along. The party was ambushed anyway, and all 57, including the journalists, were gunned down and buried in shallow pits. In the year since, according to CPJ’s investigation, 196 suspects have been identified. The alleged leader of the plot, Andal Ampatuan Jr., mayor of the town of Ampatuan and son of the clan’s patriarch, has been put on trial for one murder, along with 18 co-defendants. (He has denied any responsibility.) Another 47 suspects are in custody but have not been charged, while 130 remain at large. One indication of the difficulty facing the prosecutors: Sixteen of Ampatuan’s co-defendants are police officers. The problems don’t stop there. Bribes have allegedly been offered to some of the victims’ family members to stop pursuing the case. Nancy Dela Cruz, the mother of slain reporter Gina Dela Cruz, told CPJ she had been approached by people who said they represented the Ampatuans and offered her 3 million pesos ($68,000) in return for her signature on a blank piece of paper. She didn’t make the deal, she said, because “we want justice, not money.” Witness-tampering has also been charged. According to prosecutors in the case, at least one government witness has reported being offered 5 million pesos ($113,000) to drop his planned testimony. After the vice mayor of Ampatuan, Rasul Sangki, testified that he saw Ampal Ampatuan, his boss, fire the first shot in the massacre, the vice mayor’s house came under mortar fire. Another potential witness, Suwaib Upham, who said he had been one of the gunmen, died under circumstances that remain unclear, just before enrolling in a witness-protection program.
Compounding the problems are investigative gaffes and forensic gaps in the evidence. Bodies were recovered with backhoes, for instance, all but guaranteeing that evidence would be destroyed. Much of the physical evidence was contaminated by military officers at the scene. Investigators failed to wear gloves, and some bodies seem to have been looted. Many bodies were reportedly returned to their families before they were X-rayed to retrieve embedded bullets.
There have also been serious failures of cooperation among local authorities. For many months, the military and police refused to turn over to prosecutors weapons confiscated from the Ampatuans after the massacre. After a lawyer for Manguidadatu located independent witnesses for the inquest, local police filed a report identifying the witnesses as suspects. And last spring President Arroyo’s justice secretary, Alberto Agra, touched off a firestorm when he suddenly ordered that two ranking Ampatuan clan members be dropped from the list of suspects. After three weeks of protests Agra reversed his order.
This case has been notorious enough that the central government in Manila can’t simply let it slide. It is encouraging that several high-ranking members of the Ampatuan clan remain in custody, though they haven’t been charged. But 130 suspects have never been arrested, though some are said to be openly on view in their neighborhoods.
Defense lawyers are using every stalling tactic they know to drag out the proceedings in hopes of deterring witnesses and exhausting the financial resources of victims’ families. Some analysts predict that it will take years to finish the prosecution. And President Aquino has predicted that it will take time to reverse the culture of impunity. He did not say how much time.
CPJ has called for more action on every front to push the Maguindanao cases through the courts, including reform of rules that allow defense attorneys to stall cases with duplicative, harassing and irrelevant motions. The OPC’s Freedom of the Press Committee applauds CPJ’s dedication to this cause. We only hope that the new Philippine government will follow through.