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TODAY, 57 months after the Ampatuan Massacre, justice has yet to be had for 58 people who were murdered on a hilltop in the village of Masalay in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao province.
Exactly 57 months ago today, armed men believed to be under orders from some members of the Ampatuan family, brutally killed the victims who were on their way to deliver the certificate of candidacy of Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu who challenged the Ampatuans for the governorship of Maguindanao province.
Thirty-two of the victims were journalists and media workers.
The multiple murder cases against more than 100 accused – including some members of the Ampatuan clan that were identified as the alleged masterminds – have dragged on for years. Lately, private prosecutors made public their disagreement with the decision of public prosecutors to rest the case against 28 of the co-accused. Some families of the victims have also confirmed attempts by the Ampatuan family to pay them millions of pesos in exchange for withdrawing from the case.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has called the Ampatuan Massacre as the single deadliest attack against journalists. The International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) has declared November 23 as the International Day to End Impunity – a day that IFEX has dedicated not only to the victims of the massacre but all those who have been targeted for “exercising their right to freedom of expression, and to shed light on the issue of impunity.”
PCIJ’s Julius D. Mariveles and Cong B. Corrales read their poems in this slideshow of photos taken by Mariveles in 2010 at the massacre site during the first year commemoration.
Mariveles’ poem written in Hiligaynon is titled “Lima Ka Napulo kag Walo,” 58 in the local language, and talks about the slow grind of the wheels of justice. Corrales’ “Ang Pinakamadilim na Tanghali” or “The Darkest Noon describes the Ampatuan Massacre.
Today, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines is leading the commemoration rites at the NCCP Grounds, Quezon Avenue, EDSA. Those who want to attend are requested to wear black.
By Julius D. Mariveles
LOCAL GOVERNMENT officials in Negros Occidental who were the first to issue a statement of support for President Benigno S. Aquino III over the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program are now bucking calls for a second term for the Chief Executive.
“It would be like turning his back on his mother,” Murcia town Mayor Andrew Montelibano said, as he pointed out that Freedom Constitution drafted during the term of then President Corazon C. Aquino specifically prohibits extensions beyond a six-year term. Montelibano was one of 37 officials in the vote-rich province who were the first to issue a statement supporting Aquino three days before he delivered his State of the Nation Address last month amid the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
But while they were enthusiastic in backing Aquino over the DAP, they are not keen on supporting calls for the President to linger six more years in Malacañang.
Even the Yellow Army in Negros is not yet marching out in support of Aquino over this issue.
“I want him to have a second term if allowed by the Constitution but I am not in favor of amending it,” lawyer Joel Dojillo told the PCIJ. Dojillo, one of the early volunteers during the campaign for Aquino’s presidency in 2010, said he is not disillusioned amid the issues against the chief executive but would not comment when asked if he thinks Aquino deserves a second term.
Montelibano’s cousin, EB Maglona town mayor David Albert Lacson, said the Constitution is clear on the term limits for a president although Congress can change that provision.
Lacson, president of the local chapter of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines, said Aquino is doing a “good job” but “it’s difficult to talk about extending his term because there are other priorities that we should face.” The LMP-Negros Occidental chapter is also set to meet this week to discuss the issue, he added.
LOCAL OFFICIALS in Negros Occidental backed Aquino on the DAP but bucked calls for another term for the Chief Executive | Malacañang Photo Bureau
Fourth District Cong. Jeffrey Ferrer, meanwhile, said talks about Aquino’s second terms remain “speculative” since there is no proposal yet submitted to Congress to amend the Constitutional provision on term limits. Ferrer, a member of the United Negros Alliance, said he is open to changing the economic provisions but not those related to term limits. “It will not be acceptable to the public,” he added.
Ferrer ran and won against the candidate handpicked by Aquino’s uncle, Marcos crony and businessman Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr., in the fourth district where Cojuangco has been based since his return to the country in the 1990s.
Former Negros Occidental Gov. Rafael Coscolluela, on the other hand, said he is not in favor of a second term for Aquino as he added that he is against plans to change the Constitution if only to allow Aquino to seek the presidency again. Coscolluela, who was appointed as one of the officers-in-charge in the province by former President Aquino after People Power I, is one of the Negros Federalists who is campaigning for a shift to a federal form of government from a presidential one.
Another Aquino campaigner, now Bacolod Mayor Monico Puentevella, sent the PCIJ this answer: “No…all of the above!” when asked if he is backing the term extension move and the Charter change. Puentevella, a close ally of then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, campaigned for Aquino during the last elections and has as his candidates for councilors several members of the ruling Liberal Party.
Bago City Mayor Ramon Torres, meanwhile, said Aquino is “okay as President” but for him to seek a term extension “all depends on the provisions of the Constitution, which prohibits it.”
Section 4, Article 7 of the Constitution says that the President of the Philippines “shall not be eligible for any re-election.”
The July statement of support of local government officials in the province was led by the Governor Alfredo Marañon, Jr. who was able to gather 21 mayors, 11 board members, and two local business leaders in backing Aquino following the decision of the Supreme Court declaring some portions of the DAP as unconstitutional.
Marañon ran and won against a candidate supported by Liberal Party Negros Occidental chairman, Third District Cong. Abelardo Benitez. The governor, however, also campaigned for Aquino during the 2010 elections. Aquino also mentioned Marañon in his recent SONA.
“We are expressing our full support to His Excellency, President Benigno S. Aquino III, in his resolve to appeal the decision of the Supreme Court declaring the DAP as unconstitutional. With due respect to the High Court, we believe that their decision on the DAP failed to take into account the realities of the budget process. The decision will expectedly hinder the country’s growth as it will compel the government to undergo the same lengthy process before it can make use of public savings to address the urgent needs,” the joint statement reads in part.
THE WORD “memory” traces its roots to the Latin word “memoria” and “memor,” meaning “mindful” or “remembering.”
It is defined as the human mind’s ability to “encode, sort, retain, and subsequently recall information and past experiences in the human brain.” The website human-memory.net also said that memory can be “be thought of in general terms as the use of past experience to affect or influence current behavior.”
Sociologists also talk about “collective memory” – coined by the sociologist Maurice Halbwachs (“The Collective Memory”), which is defined as a construction of created narratives and traditions to give people a sense of community to understand an event or a “social phenomena.”
The declaration by President Ferdinand Marcos of Martial Law in the Philippines on September 21, 1972 is a social phenomena. The debate over his role and how society should judge the Marcoses who are still in power was renewed recently.
Some say that the country was better off under Marcos. They say we need need an iron fist for the Philippines to progress. Others believe that those who have not experienced or seen the horrors of Martial Law are the only ones who would favor it.
Some say, however, that the lack of understanding about Martial Law, especially those belonging to the young generation, is because the nation lack of a sense of history, a collective memory. Not much sense is made of the past, the horrors, sufferings, and hardships under Martial Law.
The most prominent victim of Martial Law was then Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., an opposition solon who was imprisoned by Marcos. He was placed in solitary confinement for more than seven years, suffered a heart attack, and was sent to the United States for treatment.
He returned August 21, 1983 and was gunned down on the tarmac of what was then the Manila International Airport that was renamed in his honor several years after his wife, Corazon Aquino, assumed the presidency through a military-backed people’s uprising in February 1986.
It was not only Aquino who suffered under the dictatorship. At least 9,000 more were imprisoned, tortured, and killed during what is now being called as the darkest days in Philippine history based on the records that TFD holds it in its files.
This is the collective memory that the Task Force Detainees want Filipinos to have to point the nation in the right direction.
This video short by PCIJ deputy producer Cong Corrales tells us about this museum as the death anniversary of Ninoy Aquino nears.
Indeed, as the movie says, without memories, there would only be “the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.”
Cong B. Corrales
THE ARREST of former major general Jovito Palparan will bolster the cases filed against the ex-military official accused of a string of alleged human rights violations.
The arrest came three years after Judge Teodora Gonzales of the Regional Trial Court Branch 14 in Malolos, Bulacan issued a warrant for Palparan on serious illegal detention and kidnapping charges of students Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan.
National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) Secretary General Edre Olalia told the PCIJ in a phone interview that while the arrest has been long overdue, it will certainly bolster their case.
“From my own experience and based on the law, even one eyewitness can secure a conviction,” said Olalia. He said they have already presented three eyewitnesses who testified about Palparan’s involvement in the kidnapping and torture of Empeño and Cadapan.
CHECKMATE: General Jovito Palparan
“We have presented (a farmer, a security guard and a barangay official) who have seen Empeño and Cadapan at one time when they were abducted. The three positively identified Palparan. They were able to live to tell their stories because they were able to escape their abductors,” said Olalia.
“We have a previously scheduled hearing on the case on Monday (August 18),” Olalia said.
He added that with the arrest of Palparan Gonzales may decide separately for the two co-accused of Palparan, Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado Jr. and S/Sgt. Edgardo Osorio, or “wait for Palparan for a joint resolution on the case.”
Olalia said that the fourth accused, M/Sgt. Rizal Hilario, is still at large.
“He must be treated no different than any other in jail where he will be detained while awaiting trial,” he said.
When asked on the possibility that some government officials had helped in hiding Palparan, Olalia said that they will file cases against these officials for “accessory and obstruction of justice.”
“We will file cases. They should be held accountable. (But) it is incumbent on the Justice Department to file cases against these officials as soon as they find out who these officials are,” he said.
Even before Palparan’s arrest, Olalia added that relatives of the victims and human rights defenders were mulling the filing of another case for violation of the Anti-Disappearance law against Palparan.
Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay agrees that the arrest of Palparan is “long overdue.” She claimed that Palparan got help from government officials and that his lawyer knew where he was hiding all this time.
“Those who helped him evade arrest should be held accountable,” Palabay said.
According to the records of the Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights (Karapatan), Palparan has committed some 332 human rights violations—extrajudicial killings, forced disappearance, frustrated murders and torture—in three areas he was deployed from May 2001 to September 11, 2006. The breakdown of the human rights violations are as follows:
Extrajudicial Killings
Enforced Disappearances
Frustrated Murders
Torture
“Among those killed under Palparan are human rights defenders Eden Marcellana and peasant leader Eddie Gumanoy in Southern Tagalog; UCCP Pastor Edison Lapuz, Leyte; Atty. Fedelito Dacut, Leyte; Supreme Bishop Alberto Ramento of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente,” Karapatan’s statement on their website reads.
Karapatan also said that from 2005 to 2006 alone, under Palparan—who was then the commanding officer of the 24th Infantry Battalion of the 7th Infantry Division—there were “71 victims of extrajudicial killings, 14 victims of frustrated killing, and five incidents of massacre.”
Diag| Memory: Current usage: 59 MB
Diag| Memory: Peak usage: 85 MB