MANILA - An election-related massacre in the southern Philippines represents
the latest blow to the country's faltering democracy and President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo's enduring inability to enforce the rule of law at the
provincial level.
Latest reports say 39 people were killed on Monday in the central Mindanao
province of Maguindanao, reportedly by henchmen of a political warlord, after a
group of 44 journalists, civilians, supporters and relatives of a local village
chief were waylaid by some 100 heavily armed men. Some of the victims were
reportedly mutilated and beheaded.
Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner said that, based on initial
reports, the convoy was led by the wife and
lawyers of Filipino Muslim village chief Ishmael Toto Mangudadatu, of Buluan
town, who was en route to a nearby town to file his certificate of candidacy
for provincial governor at next May's elections.
Mangudadatu, who survived the attack, was poised to challenge the governorship
against a scion of the Ampatuan family, one of Arroyo's staunchest political
allies in Mindanao. Brawner said that the bodies of 21 of the 44 kidnapped
victims, including the wife of Mangudadatu, were recovered by troops of the
army's 601st Infantry Brigade in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao.
The spokesman said that of the bodies recovered, 13 were women and eight were
men, and that some corpses showed "signs of mutilation". "The victims were
unarmed, helpless civilians and mostly were female," he said.
National police chief Jesus Verzosa told Agence France-Presse that another 17
bodies were pulled from a shallow grave in the area of the killings, on a
hillside in the remote farming village of Saniag, raising the death toll
overall to 39.
Media groups said that at least 12 journalists were among those killed.
Brawner said that the military was verifying reports that those who allegedly
carried out the massacre were henchmen of the Ampatuan political clan. They
allegedly included members of the Maguindanao provincial police, police
volunteers, and government militiamen.
The unprecedented killings are the first major poll-related violence in the
run-up to the May 10, 2010, national elections. They underscore Arroyo's
failure to stem political violence in far-flung and often lawless provincial
areas during her eight years in office.
Mangudadatu told a live broadcast interview on Monday that he believed the
massacre was politically motivated and heaped the blame on his family's bitter
political rival, the Ampatuan clan.
"Never in the history of journalism have the news media suffered such a heavy
loss of life in one day," the France-based press freedom advocacy group,
Reporters Without Borders, said in a statement.
Television station UNTV confirmed that four of their employees were among those
abducted and killed. "We are shocked and sad," UNTV station manager Jay Sonza
said.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) condemned the
massacre, saying it was troubling that the alleged abductors were led by a
politician and a police officer. "Taking someone hostage [who is] about to file
a certificate of candidacy is, by itself, a brazen challenge to efforts to
strengthen our admittedly fragile democracy," it said in a statement.
"And, if true that a local government official and a police officer are
involved, then it says a lot about how far the government has gone to eradicate
the warlord politics that continues to reign over many of our provinces, very
often the poorest and most underdeveloped," it said.
NUJP urged the government to move to "ensure swift justice on the perpetrators,
no matter who they are". Former NUJP chair Inday Espina-Varona likened the
incident to "a spear thrust in the heart of our fragile democracy".
"Let us grieve not just for our media colleagues ... Let us grieve most for
democracy, for election-related violence violates our people's right to an
enlightened choice of leaders. Election-related violence prevents people from
asking tough questions of prospective leaders; that violence is almost always
aimed at subverting a people's free will," she added.
Varona said most chilling was that, according to military reports, the alleged
perpetrators were not just the town mayor and men of a neighboring village, but
also involved the local police force, paramilitary forces and senior police
officials.
"The government must without question bring those responsible for this massacre
to justice, not just the killers but also the masterminds, whoever they are,"
she said.
Arroyo ordered the military and police to immediately pursue the perpetrators
of the massacre and declared a state of emergency for Maguindanao and Sultan
Kudarat provinces and Cotabato City.
"No effort will be spared to bring justice to the victims and hold the
perpetrators accountable to the full limit of the law," she said. "A civilized
society has no place for this kind of violence."
The presidential adviser for Mindanao, Secretary Jesus Dureza, earlier
suggested to Arroyo that both political clans should be disarmed. "Anything
less will not work," he said.
"This is a gruesome massacre of civilians unequalled in recent history. Even
women and working media men were not spared. I grieve for those killed while
doing their job," Dureza, a veteran journalist and Arroyo's former press
secretary, said.
The National Press Club (NPC) and the Alyansa ng Filipinong Mamamahayag
(Alliance of Filipino Journalists) also denounced the killing of the
journalists. "The incident came as a humiliating slap on the face of efforts to
put an end to the culture of impunity that has caused the deaths of scores of
journalists," they said in a joint statement.
NPC president Benny Antiporda said that the harshest of punishments should be
leveled against the suspects, regardless of their political and personal
standing. The NPC has joined the Department of Justice's Task Force 211, a
special unit created to look into the stubbornly high number of unresolved
media killings across the country, and plans to launch "indignation rallies" to
protest violence against the media.
Reporters Without Borders said it had often condemned the culture of impunity
and violence in the Philippines, especially in Mindanao. "This time, the
frenzied violence of thugs working for corrupt politicians has resulted in an
incomprehensible bloodbath," it said.
Al Labita has worked as a journalist for over 30 years, including as a
regional bureau chief and foreign editor for the Philippine News Agency. He has
worked as a Manila correspondent for several major local publications and wire
agencies in Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
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