Ampatuan cop sees victims' photos for first time, expresses regret

MANILA, Philippines - A ranking police official accused of being involved in the 2009 Ampatuan massacre seemed to express regret after seeing a slide show of the victims’ bullet-riddled bodies for the first time during a court hearing Thursday.

Chief Inspector Sukarno Dicay, head of the Maguindanao police at the time of the massacre, took note of the way the women were slaughtered.

“The women were pitiful. We did not have the slightest idea that they will be killed that way. If only we knew,” Dicay said as he drew on a newly lit cigarette near the restroom inside the Quezon City Jail Annex in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City.

Dicay was part of a group of police and militiamen who intercepted the victims’ convoy, which carried the relatives and supporters of then Buluan vice mayor Esmael Mangudadatu and 32 media persons. 

Last Thursday, Dicay and his co-accused saw for the first time the victims’ photographs as prosecution lawyer Prima Quinsayas and coroner Chief Inspector Raymond Cabiling discussed before Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes the victims’ cause of death. 

Cabiling told the court that based on the victims’ wounds, they suffered a “violent” death. Most of them sustained several gunshot wounds, inflicted by high-powered guns, before they were buried in makeshift graves in the hilly portion of Sitio Masalay, Ampatuan town.

In the photographs, the victims were hardly recognizable, with their bodies soiled and soaked in blood.

“Nakakapukaw yung mga litrato (The photos were shocking),” Dicay said. Asked why he didn’t bother to stop the killings, he sucked on his cigarette again and replied in Filipino, “If we did, we would also be in the photos they are showing.”

Dicay, a reported former trusted man of the Ampatuans, declined to give more details into what happened on Nov. 23, 2009. “Let’s just wait for my testimony – if they will allow me to testify in court – because I will tell all. Let’s not preempt it,” he said.

At least 12 prominent members of the Ampatuan clan are accused in the case, including their patriarch Andal Sr., and sons Andal Jr. (former Datu Unsay mayor) and Zaldy (former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao governor).

Six of them have been arrested but only Andal Jr. is undergoing trial, while the rest have yet to be arraigned.