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200 years not, but 20-year Ampatuan trial possible
When Sen. Joker Arroyo commented that the trial of the Ampatuan clan and their supporters could take two centuries due to the large number of accused individuals – 196 so far, many people scoffed at the figure.
Indeed, it might not take 200 years, but at the rate of two witnesses per month, it could possibly take up to 20 years to hear the testimonies of all 169 witnesses from the prosecution and 320 witnesses from the defense panel indicated in the pre-trial order from the Quezon City Regional Trial Court.
In the past two months, the prosecution has presented five witnesses: longtime Ampatuan house help Lakmodin Saliao; construction worker Norodin Mauyag; corn farmer Abdul Esmael Abubakar; and policemen suspects Inspector Rex Ariel Diongon and PO1 Rainer Ebus.
All of them have testified that the massacre of 57 people in the province of Maguindanao on Nov. 23, 2009 – considered the worst political violence in Philippine history – was planned and carried out by the Ampatuans and their band of armed supporters.
Prime suspect Andal Ampatuan Jr. and 195 others – his powerful father and several other relatives, policemen, and militiamen – are facing 57 counts of murder for what the prosecution claims was a conspiracy.
Veteran litigation lawyer Rene Saguisag, a colleague of Arroyo during the term of President Corazon Aquino, believes that the trial might stretch for several years, but not two centuries as opined by Arroyo.
"[The trial will take] a long time, just because so many accused are involved. The trial will take years. And the appeals -- many more years," Saguisag said in an email to GMANews.TV.
196 - Individuals charged in the massacre in Maguindanao. Originally 197, the number of accused went down after the Quezon City court struck off PO1 Johann Draper from the list for lack of evidence.
114 - Suspects who remain at large as of posting time, each with either a P250,000 or P300,000 bounty.
82 - Arrested suspects detained at the Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City, the Custodial Center at Camp Crame in Quezon City, and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group headquarters in Cotabato City.
62 - Policemen belonging either to the 15th Regional Mobile Group, 1507th Police Provincial Mobile Group, or 1508th PPMG who were charged with grave misconduct before the National Police Commission and preventively suspended in April.
28 - Accused individuals carrying the surname 'Ampatuan.' Of these, 12 are prominent members of the clan, including prime suspect Andal Ampatuan Jr.
57 - Counts of murder slapped against the suspects in the Maguindanao massacre, corresponding to the number of victims, before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 under Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes.
58 - Total number of victims if Reynaldo "Bebong" Momay, a photojournalist for the Tacurong City-based Midland Review, is included. Authorities have excluded him from the official count because only his dentures have been found and his body has not been located.
32 - Journalists killed in the massacre, making the Philippines the most dangerous place in the world for journalists, according to the International Federation of Journalists.
28 - Widows, widowers, and common law wives left behind by the journalists killed in the carnage.
89 - Children of the slain journalists who became either fatherless or motherless as a result of the killings. Several groups are sending them to school; the 14-year-old daughter of Manila Bulletin's Alejandro "Bong" Reblando is a scholar of the Chicago Journalists Association.
7 million - Estimated total amount (in pesos) of financial assistance extended by the government to the families of the victims, according to the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.
28 million - Amount (in pesos) of reward money offered by the government for any information that will lead to the arrest of the remaining fugitives.
320 - Witnesses that the defense plans to present in court including Gilberto Teodoro, Jesus Dureza, Leila de Lima, Raul Gonzalez, and Prospero Pichay,. The defense also has 59 other "reserved" witnesses.
169 - Witnesses that the prosecution plans to present in court, in addition to 60 other "reserved" witnesses.
130 - Estimated number of motions filed so far since the hearings began in January. Most have been resolved and only around 20 are pending, according to the prosecution.
20 - Prosecution lawyers, both private and public, representing families of the 57 massacre victims.
13 - Defense lawyers representing the 15 accused individuals undergoing trial so far.
7 - Number of times Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes has been asked by either the prosecution or defense to inhibit herself from the case for alleged bias. She has junked five of them.
0 - Number of convicted individuals, one year after the massacre happened.
References: Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, Philippine National Police, Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, defense and prosecution camps.
- MARK D. MERUEÑAS, GMANews.TV
Private prosecutor Nena Santos, who represents Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, is satisfied with the progress of the case. Mangudadatu lost his wife and several relatives, who were on their way to file his candidacy for governor when they were ambushed, in the massacre.
"Okay naman kasi ang mga ruling ni Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes," Santos told GMANews.TV. “Kung ma-arraign lang silang lahat, isang swoop lang iyan tuluy-tuloy na ang kaso."
Only 15 on trial
As of this writing, 82 suspects have been arrested and 40 have been arraigned, but only 15 are undergoing trial as a result of various legal maneuvers. More than 100 suspects remain at large.
Clan patriarch Andal Sr. is one of the detained suspects who have yet to be arraigned, as he has a pending motion questioning the charges against him.
His son and co-accused, the suspended governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Zaldy Ampatuan, is also in detention but has not been arraigned. His counsel, Redemberto Villanueva, says Zaldy was not in Maguindanao when the massacre was planned and executed.
In January, the court started the trial but it was derailed by the petition for bail by Andal Jr. The bail hearing that followed was indefinitely suspended due to a plethora of subsequent motions, pushing back the proceedings to September.
Santos said the "patsane-tsane" (incremental) manner of arraignment has also delayed the proceedings, along with more than 130 motions filed mostly by the defense.
One major addition to the caseload of the judge is the motion of the prosecution seeking the removal of several policemen-suspects and Mohamad Sangki from the list of accused in preparation for their conversion into state witnesses.
Most of the legal motions have been resolved, but Santos expects a deluge of additional ones as more suspects are arrested and brought to court. "Ang problema lang is how to fast-track the resolutions of motions," she said.
Defense strategies
Unlike the prosecution panel, which has consolidated its strategy, defense lawyers are pursuing various options for different clients.
Aside from seeking bail, Andal Jr's lawyer Sigfrid Fortun has proposed that both camps be required to present at least two witnesses per hearing day to speed up the process, a suggestion the judge has approved.
Meanwhile, Zaldy had earlier sought a separate trial of his case to speed up its resolution. "If you join the (main) trial, you will be included in the delay of the trial," his counsel Villanueva told GMANews.TV.
Villanueva has blamed the prosecution for contributing to the delay through its "shotgun approach" of charging individuals en masse.
"A more speedy remedy will happen if the prosecution will say who should be on trial and who should not be, so there would be less evidence to present," Villanueva said.
Meanwhile, the camp of the accused policemen wants to be excluded from the conspiracy angle, even though the suspects had admitted manning the checkpoint before the massacre occurred.
"The fact that they were there [at the checkpoint] doesn't mean they are aware of the conspiracy. A PO1 will just follow the order of the superior. That's the hierarchy in the police," said Marlon Pagaduan, lawyer for suspects belonging to the 1507th Provincial Police Mobile Group.
More than 60 local and regional policemen who were alleged to have set up the various checkpoints leading to Shariff Aguak where the victims' convoy was headed are facing both criminal and administrative charges.
"The theory there is that if you did something out of fear then you are not acting on your own volition. And in order to be convicted for conspiracy it must be established that you acted on your own volition and you know the consequences of your act and you were not forced to do that act," Pagaduan added.
Biweekly hearings in December
Two weeks ago, Judge Solis-Reyes decided to consolidate all proceedings connected to the case into one trial to expedite the hearings.
In December, the court will be hearing the case twice a week, raising the possibility that the bail hearings will end by mid-month.
Pagaduan said the judge’s resolution on the petition for bail of Andal Jr. would be crucial. "Iyon ang clue mo rin. Kung ang evidence of guilt is strong, magkukumahog na naman ang defense," he said.
A Social Weather Station survey in September showed that public satisfaction on the government's efforts to solve the Maguindanao massacre had gone down since December 2009.
Mangudadatu’s counsel Santos believes the defense panel wants the trial delayed to "make the public forget," which her camp is avoiding at all cost. “For a case like this that has lasted for almost a year, the tendency of the interest of the public is to wane," she said.
On the other side of the fence, Pagaduan is optimistic his policemen-clients will be proven innocent. "I believe, just like everyone else thinks, that justice will prevail in the end," he says. – with reports from Sophia Dedace / YA, GMANews.TV
MAGUINDANAO MASSACRE ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL:
It might not take 200 years, but at the rate of two witnesses per month, it could take up to 20 years to hear the testimonies of all 169 witnesses from the prosecution and 320 witnesses from the defense panel indicated in the pre-trial order from the Quezon City Regional Trial Court.
Women left behind by victims of the Ampatuan Massacre travel regularly to Manila yearning for justice, while sharing the struggle to go on with their lives. The new government gives them hope, consoling these survivors with the thought that gone is the old administration allied with the Ampatuans. Article with podcasts of the interviews.
He escaped death last year, but to this day, death continues to haunt local journalist Aquiles Zonio.
A blindfolded, shirtless man being strangled and beaten to death, a dismembered body being unearthed from a shallow grave, a teary-eyed woman who lost her husband to a mass killing are few of the video images circulated in the media for the Maguindanao massacre anniversary.
Maguindanao Governor Esmael "Toto" Mangudadatu knows better than almost anyone that the era of the Ampatuan clan is hardly over in Maguindanao. Last October 16, Mangudadatu sat down for a rare one-on-one interview with GMA News and Public Affairs reporter Rhea Santos. The full video and transcript are available here.
To help readers trace the history of this case, GMANews.TV presents this chronological grid of many of our reports and news videos about the heinous Maguindanao massacre and its aftermath.
GMANews.TV offers the following interactive map and timeline of the Ampatuan Massacre perpetrated on November 23, 2009 against more than 50 unarmed civilians - 57 at last count - many of them women, 30 of them journalists.
