Freeze order on Ampatuan assets expires

Joint statement of the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists Inc. and the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines on the Expiry of the Freeze Order on the Assets of the Ampatuans
2 December 2011

Today, December 2, 2011, the six-month freeze order the Court of Appeals issued – on petition of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) – on the 597 bank accounts, 142 firearms, 132 motor vehicles, and 113 houses and lots in the names of 27 members of the Ampatuan clan and their associates expired.

We have also learned that it was only yesterday, December 1, when the AMLC filed through the Office of the Solicitor General, a petition for civil forfeiture with a prayer for a new freeze order with the Manila regional trial court. As of the close of office hours, we have not received confirmation from the OSG, the AMLC, or the trial court if the freeze order, or provisional asset protection order (PAPO), had been issued.

We view with great alarm the unwarranted delay and apparent lack of attention and negligence that the AMLC and the OSG had accorded this case.

A week ahead of today’s expiry of the appellate court’s freeze order, we called government attention to this grave matter – the possibility that the Ampatuans could take advantage of the delay to retake control of their enormous unexplained wealth to put pressure to bear on their trial for the Maguindanao massacre of Nov. 23, 2009, which claimed the lives of 58 persons, including 32 media workers.

The Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists, Inc. (FFFJ) and the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) urge all concerned government agencies, but especially AMLC, to take whatever steps are necessary to correct this anomaly.

President Benigno Aquino III earlier said his administration would do everything to expedite the Massacre case and assure the victims justice at the soonest. AMLC’s apparent lack of urgency in extending the freezing of the Ampatuan assets will be interpreted as reflective of the Aquino government’s own lack of enthusiasm.

Twenty-eight Ampatuans are among the accused in the Maguindanao Massacre. The outcome of the trial is crucial to the Philippine press and media. Unless credibly concluded, it will encourage further killings by demonstrating that the culture of impunity that has encouraged the killing of political activists, environmental advocates, members of the clergy, human rights workers, journalists and others who have antagonized local power groups, criminal syndicates and state security forces will continue.

The return of their bank accounts, firearms and other resources constitutes a formidable advantage for the Ampatuans. It is imperative that this advantage be denied them to level the legal playing field and to help credibly conclude the trial of the accused in the Ampatuan Massacre.

With the edge that the lapse of the freeze order has restored to the Ampatuans, the trial will send all the wrong messages to the would-be killers of journalists, political activists, etc., as well as to society as a whole: that the killings can continue and that it is impossible to obtain justice in a society whose government institutions are unable to perform their mandated tasks, in this case the AMLC entrusted with the task of enforcing banking laws, which among others require banks to report “suspicious transactions” to the AMLC.

The AMLC filed its request for the freezing of the multibillion assets and hundreds of bank accounts of the Ampatuans only last May—a full 18 months after the Massacre, during the investigation of which the existence of these billions and other assets was discovered, and in fact amply reported in the media. But the freeze order it eventually obtained from the Court of Appeals has been allowed to lapse on December 2, 2011.

The FFFJ and the NUJP are appalled by this default, and demands that the AMLC explain why it failed, in the first place, to note the money trail evident in the number of Ampatuan bank accounts, and why it allowed the freeze order to lapse. Is this the result of sheer inefficiency and incompetence, or a deliberate attempt to ignore the hundreds of Ampatuan bank accounts whose existence alone should have aroused suspicion? Or it is not so much a case of incompetence and inefficiency as a case of sheer partisanship, in which case the AMLC must be subjected to the closest public and legislative scrutiny.

SIGNATORIES:

Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists:
Center for Community Journalism and Development
Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility
Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng PIlipinas
Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
Philippine Press Institute

and the

National Union of Journalists of the Philippines