6 years after Maguindanao massacre: Aquino administration urged to expedite resolution of case

CEBU, Philippines - It has been exactly six years ago after the Maguindanao massacre, but victims and their families have yet to attain justice.

No one has been convicted for the gruesome killing of 58 innocent people, including 34 journalists in Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao, on November 22, 2009, which is considered the single deadliest event for journalists in history.

The Cebu Federation of Beat Journalists is asking President Benigno Aquino III to help ensure the speedy resolution of the case.

“We urge the authorities and the judiciary to expedite the resolution of the case to give the victims and their families’ justice,” CFBJ Pre-sident Elias Baquero said.

CFBJ is an umbrella organization of nine other media groups in Cebu namely the Regional Journalists in Cebu, City Hall Association of Reporters in Media, Capitol Association of Reporters in Tri-Media, Cebu Economic Journalists Association, Sports Correspondents, Defense and Police Corp. Reporters, Media Association for Life, Liberty, Equality and Truth, Media in Cebu South, Association of Reporters in Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu City for Integrity, Truth and Equality and LENS composed of Cebu’s photographers.

Baquero said to avoid a similar deplorable act by politicians and their supporters against the media and other civilians, the government and the court must act swiftly in bringing the perpetrators to justice.

Baquero hopes that the case would be resolved before Aquino’s term expires in 2016 as what the President vowed in his 2010 campaign to resolve the Maguindanao massacre.

With the slow-paced justice system, however, Baquero said attaining justice “is seems impossible now.”

“About seven months left of his term; it seems justice is still inaccessible. Wala pa’y makitang hustisya,” he said.

In a Rappler report, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno said the trial of the case is already expedited “at the maximum.” She added that the Supreme Court already directed Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes to focus on the case.

Then Justice Secretary Leila De Lima earlier expressed optimism that there will be some convictions made before June 2016, or before the Aquino administration ends.

Moreover, Baquero said CFBJ will ceaselessly condemn the brutal murder of the members of the media in Maguindanao.

“The Cebu Federation of Beat Journalists condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the massacre in Maguindanao,” read CFBJ resolution passed in 2009.

It can be recalled that they were en route to the Commission on Elections provincial office for the filing of the candidacy of then Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu who challenged Andal Ampatuan Jr. in the 2010 gubernatorial race, when armed men, allegedly working for the Ampatuans, ambushed and killed them.

The Ampatuan clan, the rival of the Mangudadatu family, was believed to have plotted the massacre to derail the candidacy of Mangudadatu.

Andal Ampatuan Sr., the patriarch of the powerful clan who was accused of being the mastermind of the massacre, died last July. He fell into a coma after suffering from a massive heart attack and had been battling liver cancer.  (FREEMAN)