Backhoe driver arrested

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – After more than three years in hiding, one of the key players in the infamous Maguindanao massacre was finally bagged by authorities yesterday.

Combined police and military operatives arrested Bong Andal, said to be the operator of the backhoe that dug the common graves for the 58 people massacred in Maguindanao on Nov. 23, 2009.

Andal was caught in an entrapment operation by combined police and Army operatives in Barangay Kapinpilan, Midsayap, North Cotabato at around 10 a.m. yesterday, police said.

Andal was an employee of the Maguindanao provincial government at the time alleged members of the Ampatuan clan and their private militia slaughtered 58 people in Ampatuan town.

The police Criminal Intelligence and Detection Group (CIDG) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), however, declined to give further details on how Andal was arrested in Midsayap town.

But the Army’s 40th Infantry Battalion said several villagers helped by providing the local government of Midsayap with information on the presence of Andal in Barangay Kapinpilan.

Andal had not been accounted for since the day of the massacre.

Initial reports said Andal did not resist arrest when he was shown three separate warrants for his arrest issued by the Regional Trial Court Branch 221 in Quezon City.

The Army’s 6th Infantry Division confirmed the arrest of Andal and said the suspect was immediately placed under the custody of the CIDG-ARMM.

Andal’s arrest came a day after the commemoration of the third anniversary of the Maguindanao massacre, as the government was still hunting down 91 more suspects.

A total of 196 people, led by former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr., have been implicated in the massacre.

At least 58 were killed, including 32 members of the media, on Nov. 23, 2009 when around a hundred armed men stopped a convoy on its way to file the candidacy of now Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu.

The victims were systematically murdered and buried in shallow pits or dumped in grasslands near a remote highway in Sitio Masalay, Ampatuan town.

Andal was tagged as the backhoe operator that buried the victims in their shallow graves.

The armed men, including Andal, managed to bury only about half of the bodies and escaped after sensing that soldiers and lawmen had started closing in.

Several leaders of the Ampatuan clan are now detained and being prosecuted for allegedly masterminding the carnage.