How to Get Away with Massacre: Philippine Edition

("slow and (un)steady" by Danea Patricia Vilog, The Dapitan Post)

The Philippine justice system gives the peace a lot of Filipinos want, but it is the peaceful silence they render on the issues surrounding the country, particularly the Maguindanao massacre.

Three presidents later, the most evil slaughter of media workers in the country (so far) is slowly being buried down the soils of indifference of the Court—just like most of the cases filed.

Exactly eight years ago today, women who were usually exempted from brutalities and members of media who were expected to deter threats of attack were not enough to put off the bloodthirst that stemmed from political rivalry in Ampatuan, Maguindanao.

In the morning of November 23, 2009, Genalyn Mangudadatu was on her way to file the certificate of candidacy of her husband, Esmael Mangudadatu, who was going to run for provincial governor against Andal Ampatuan Jr., when she was brutally attacked and later on killed together with other women, media practitioners and even civilians—a total of 58 people.

The bloodbath has further revealed the foul system of governance in the country and the dynasties that continue to plague the bureaucracy. But the system’s immunity to what should have been a lesson, a turning point, is exposed in how the present government—both central and local—is still run by politicians whose last names served as their tickets to leadership.

History has proved to us what greed could do and yet, what happened eight years ago became another reiteration that was swept under the rug.

No one has paid the whopping debt that is owed to the families and friends of the victims. The unapologetic murderers are still roaming freely, with the primary suspect Andal Ampatuan Sr. dead in 2015.

The murder and the rebellion cases charged against the powerful Ampatuan clan have been carelessly passing around from judges who appear to could not even care less or, more so, do not have the courage to seek the significant matter that may only come from them in this case, in a democratic country.

When the murder cases have been transferred from the Cotabato City to Quezon City, one of the latter’s judges, Luisito Cortez, refused to even put a single foot on the area of the case when it was raffled off to him, reasoning out that his family “comes first”—a genuinely altruistic or a cowardly act, we will never know. But when someone chose to take on such responsibility, doesn’t that mean that individual should carry along with it the burden of insecurity with one’s life, all that comprise it? Talk about principles.

Several state witnesses have already surfaced over the years for the unholy event—one was Lakmudin Saliao, a house help of the Ampatuans, who testified that the Ampatuan clan was planning the massacre over dinner last Nov. 17, 2009, yet there is still so little progress with the endeavor of justice.

Is this—liberation of the guilty from what they deserve—really a political and social norm in this country?

To add salt to the wound, just last June 23, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court has dismissed multiple charges against three massacre suspects for lack of evidence. Their immediate release from detention was ordered. If only justice for the victims could be ordered just as immediately.

Numerous particulars have already been slapping the country how incompetent it is when it comes to upholding what is just and right, involving the Global Impunity Index of the American-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which ranked the country fifth worst in terms of impunity when it comes to killings of journalists.

The press freedom watchdog cited that an average of 42 were killed with total impunity over the past decade.

In the Maguindanao incident, out of the 58 butchered, 29 reporters were killed. Since then, the said massacre has been the single deadliest attack against media, according to CPJ.

And the Filipino public and government officials are getting away from it.

It is worrying to note that the president’s Chief Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo was once the defense lawyer of Ampatuan Jr. on the massacre case. He has even been quoted saying that the Ampatuans were innocent.

It is not a secret that the president himself is not a huge fan of the mainstream media. Last May 2016, he drew flak for saying that irresponsibility in reporting and corruption was the reason why journalists were killed, citing a broadcaster from Davao to prove his point.

“It’s not because you’re a journalist you’re exempted from assassination if you’re a son of a bitch,” he said.

Now, are we really that severely remorseless to our countrymen?

It seems like it is not just suspected drug dealers and users that are being targeted here anymore.

The numbers of dead bodies in this country are piling up, higher and higher than what we think. And, sadly and unfortunately, citizens are slowly going apathetic for it.

Are the streets really safer now? Or is safety only limited to the puppeteers of this government?