High-powered bullet shattered journalist's skull

MANILA, Philippines –  A bullet from a high-powered firearm shattered journalist Napoleon Salaysay’s skull, reducing it to “small fragments,” a police medico-legal officer said during yesterday’s continuation of the “Maguindanao massacre” multiple murder trial yesterday at the Quezon City regional trial court.

Dr. Felino Brunia Jr. said based on the autopsy on Salaysay, a journalist based in Cotabato City, the bullet caused a “comminuted fracture of the skull” and an “extensive laceration” of Salaysay’s brain.

When asked what he meant by these terms, Brunia told the court that Salaysay’s “skull was reduced into small fragments.”

Brunia said Salaysay sustained a total of six gunshot wounds that went through his body. Many of the wounds were in his extremities, particularly his thighs.

Another victim, Anthony Ridao, was not part of the convoy of people who accompanied a wife and relatives of then Buluan vice mayor Esmael Mangudadatu to file his certificate of candidacy for Maguindanao governor.

Lawyer Nena Santos – who represents Mangudadatu, who is now Maguindanao governor – said Ridao was driving his Tamaraw FX and overtook vehicles in front of him that were part of the convoy. In the end, Ridao became an incidental victim and was among those killed in Ampatuan town.

According to Brunia, Ridao sustained six gunshot wounds, and all of them fatal. One bullet fractured Ridao’s jaw and another tore through his lungs.

Santos said that when Ridao’s Tamaraw FX was exhumed from the bottom of the mass grave, the supplies of fish and vegetable that Ridao brought with him on his way to the office were still on board.

Brunia also discussed his autopsy findings on the remains of Mangudadatu’s cousin, Meriam Calimbol, whose cause of death was a gunshot wound to her head. He said a bullet entered the upper part of Calimbol’s nose and went through the left part of her jaw. The bullet then entered the area near Calimbol’s left collarbone and went through the back of her left arm.