Mangudadatu to shake hands with Ampatuan Sr?

Update: Ampatuan Sr. and 126 others charged with murder.

Someone very much involved in the 2010 elections said Buluan vice Mayor Ismael “Toto” Mangudadatu is agreeable to shaking hands with the patriarch of the Ampatuan clan for the sake of peace in Maguindanao.

Mangudadatu’s wife, Jenalyn, his sister, and some relatives were among the more than 57 killed in the Nov. 23 massacre allegedly perpetrated by the Mangudadatus in a fierce rivalry for the control of the province, the second poorest in the country. Thirty of those killed were journalists, who accompanied Mangudadatus’ wife who was to file her husband’s certificate of candidacy for mayor.

Andal Ampatuan, Jr, mayor of Datu Unsay in Maguindanao , has been identified by witnesses as the one who led the massacre. He has been charged with several counts of murder and is detained at the National Bureau of Investigation.

Ampatuan Sr. is in a military hospital in Davao City; his sons Datu Zaldy, Datu Anwar and Datu Sajid are detained in General Santos City with his son-in-law Datu Akmad Ampatuan Sr., husband of eldest daughter Rebecca.

The source said the much- hyped discovery of the Ampatuan’s arsenal, is just a small portion of the clan’s formidable arsenal which have remained intact. “They are still a force to reckon with and they can make trouble if they want to,” he said.

Maguindanao is notoriously known as “reservoir of votes’ and vote bank in past elections.
You know, you dpeosit cash and you withdraw votes depending on the amount you paid. You want half a million votes? No problem.

The Ampatuans capability to deliver any number of votes even if they exceeded the number of registered voters has been proven in the 2004 and 2007 elections.

In the “Hello Garci” tapes, Gloria Arroyo was heard discussing with Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano how to manipulate votes in Maguindanao in her favor in the 2004 elections. It was apparently to offset the massive lead posted by Fernando Poe Jr in Luzon. In 2007, the administration’s Team Unity dominated the winner’s list in the province with Chavit Singson topping the list initially but overtaken by Juan Miguel Zubiri in the special election, which clinched for him the 12th slot over Koko Pimentel.

The November 23 massacre, which has shocked the world and put the Philippines as the most dangerous place for journalists, worse than Iraq, has not dampened the Ampatuan’s desire for political control in the province.

A report by Carol Arguillas of Mindanews said Ampatuan Sr lead the long list of candidates running for elective position in the 2010 elections.

***

197 charged with murder over Maguindanao massacre
Agence France-Presse, INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines—A former close ally of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and 196 other people were on Tuesday charged with murder over an election-linked massacre that horrified the nation, prosecutors said.

Andal Ampatuan Sr., the head of a Muslim clan and the former governor of Maguindanao province where the slaughter of 57 people occurred last year, was among those charged, according to papers filed in a Manila court.

In total, 197 people were charged, including other senior clan members, local government officials and policemen who allegedly helped organize the killings, as well as thugs accused of abducting and shooting the victims.

“The confluence of events before and immediately after the commission of the offense leads us to no other inference than that respondents Andal U. Ampatuan, Sr., Datu Zaldy “Puti” U. Ampatuan, Datu Akmad “Tato” Ampatuan, Sr., Datu Norodin Ampatuan, and Datu Jimmy Ampatuan connived with the actual perpetrators,” prosecutors said in a lengthy report outlining their case against the group.

“There is direct evidence that these respondents agreed to commit the crime,” said the prosecutors led by Senior State Prosecutors Leo Dacera. “All the conspirators are answerable as co-principals regardless of the extent or degree of their participation.”

However, only 11 of those charged are in custody, with most of the others still on the run nearly three months after the November 23 killings, according to police.

“The rest are still at large, but our evidence against them is strong,” said Senior Superintendent Benito Estipona, operations chief with the national police force’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

Those charged on Tuesday were in addition to Ampatuan Sr.’s son and namesake, who is already standing trial for murder after being accused of orchestrating the killings. He has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors alleged at Ampatuan Jr.’s trial that he and about 100 of his gunmen abducted and killed the victims to stop a rival, Esmael Mangudadatu, from running against him for the post of Maguindanao governor in May elections.

Mangudadatu’s wife and pregnant sister, as well as at least 30 journalists travelling with them, were among the 57 killed.

Mangudadatu had sent his relatives to an election office to register his candidacy, but did not go himself after being warned the Ampatuans intended to stop him.

Ampatuan Sr. had been the governor of Maguindanao for most of the past decade, and was a close ally of Arroyo who delivered crucial votes for her in the 2004 presidential election.

Ampatuan Sr. and Jr., as well as other clan members, had been members of Arroyo’s ruling coalition until they were expelled over the massacre, even though they had fearsome reputations as warlords.

Arroyo’s government had supplied the Ampatuans with weapons and allowed them to run their own private armies in Maguindanao as part of a controversial strategy to contain a Muslim separatist rebellion in the southern Philippines.

The prosecutors’ case, as outlined in the report released to the media, made it clear they believed the Ampatuan family had planned the massacre well in advance.

“From the witnesses presented by complainants, it can be deduced that the commission of the crime was planned deliberately by the perpetrators and that, until its consummation, there was an inexorable resolve to kill,” they said.

“There was also a considerable period of time that gave said assailants the opportunity to reflect and meditate on their intended acts.

“However, despite such period of time during which they could have withdrawn from their sinister plot, they still decided to consummate the crime.”

Among those charged on Tuesday was Zaldy Ampatuan, another son of the patriarch who until the killings was governor of a Muslim autonomous area in the southern Philippines that includes Maguindanao province.

The government had already charged Andal Ampatuan Sr. and Zaldy Ampatuan with rebellion after it briefly imposed martial law in Maguindanao to stop the clan members from resisting arrest and fighting back. Tetch Torres, INQUIRER.net