Various groups to commemorate 5th Maguindanao massacre anniversary

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - The two largest groups of reporters in Central Mindanao, provincial officials led by Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu and representatives from the police and military will jointly commemorate on Sunday the fifth anniversary of the Maguindanao Massacre.

The provincial government has organized an ecumenical prayer rite, to be officiated by Islamic clerics and Christian missionaries, at the scene of the Nov. 23, 2009 carnage at Sitio Salman in Barangay Masalay in Ampatuan town.

Mangudadatu and Major Gen. Edmundo Pangilinan, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, are to speak during the program.

They are both expected to talk about how the provincial peace and order council and the military are cooperating to sustain the solidarity now of Moro clans in the province, something ushered in by the massacre incident.

Officials of the 6th ID Press Corps and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Police Press Corps will join the event, also to be participated by representatives from Maguindanao’s “tri-people,” which is comprised of Moro, Christian and non-Islamic indigenous groups.

The two press organizations are Central Mindanao and ARMM’s most active blocs of “peace journalists” covering the security beats, the Mindanao peace process and the on-going socio-economic programs of international organizations helping push the diplomatic overture between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front forward.

Justice Secretary Leila Delima is expected to attend the program too, according to organizers.

Local officials and key members of the business communities in Central Mindanao are saddened by the slow litigation of the massacre case, but feels relieved somehow with the economic progress spreading around as a “providential” result of the massacre five years ago.

“These economic developments now setting in were something we didn’t expect to set in that fast,” said Bai Sandra Siang, chair of the influential Muslim Chamber of Kutawato, Inc.

Siang said many of their business contacts abroad got fascinated with Maguindanao's investment potentials after the massacre occured.

"As Muslims we believe in Qad'r (destiny) that sometimes, by Allah's design, we fall and fell great pain for us to rise as a better Muslim community next day," said Siang.

The stigma of the massacre still hounds the province amid the continuing improvements in the local business climate.

For local residents, it was the blood of the 58 people brutally killed on Nov. 23, 2009 at Barangay Masalay that caused the fall of the dreaded Ampatuan clan, which drew power from the illiteracy and grinding poverty besetting the local communities while at the helm of the provincial government.

According to traders and peace activists, it was the politically motivated massacre that fanned the curiosity of foreign investors on what opportunities the province can offer that many of them eventually came to put up vast Cavendish banana and oil palm plantations.

“This year’s celebration of the founding anniversary of the province and the commemoration of the 5th year of the massacre will be made unique with our `thanksgiving activities’ to show how the business atmosphere in Maguindanao improved in the past four years,” Mangudadatu said.

Malaysian Army Major Gen. Dato Abd Samad bin Hadji Yaakub, head of the International Monitoring Team (IMT), which helps enforce the ceasefire between the government and the MILF, had earlier said  there have been dramatic improvements in Maguindanao’s security and investment climate as a result of the Mindanao peace process.

The Ampatuans were bitterly at war with the MILF to the point that they even stockpiled firearms enough to arm a brigade-size Army contingent, which they intended to use in perpetuating political power in case the national government concedes the ARMM leadership to the rebel group under a peace deal.

The present provincial governor, Mangudadatu, now in his second term as Maguindanao’s elected chief executive, has been vocal about his support to the on-going government-MILF peace overture.

The governor and his 36 constituent-mayors have even unanimously endorsed the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law, the enabling measure, which is now in Congress, for the replacement of ARMM with an MILF-led Bangsamoro political entity..

“More foreign investors will come in if the good cooperation among local governments units, the MILF and the Armed Forces of the Philippines will continue,” said Samad of IMT, which is comprised of soldiers from Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Libya, and civilian conflict resolution experts from Norway, Japan and the European Union.

Ishak Mastura, chair of the ARMM's Regional Board of Investments, said Maguindanao got the “lion’s share” in the more than P3 billion investments the ARMM generated in the past 36 months.

Mastura even endorsed Maguindanao as a good investment destination in a video documentary presented by Mangudadatu to participants to the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asian Growth Area business leaders’ conference in Davao City early this month.