Mangudadatu to hold office in Sultan Kudarat

SULTAN KUDARAT, Ma­guindanao , Philippines  – Elders of the Mastura and Mangudadatu clans will not allow Maguindanao’s new governor and vice governor to hold office at the capitol in Shariff Aguak town to de-escalate the tension between the two of them and the Ampatuan clan.

The mayor here, Hadji Tucao Mastura, said the political animosity between his nephew, the 39-year-old Dustin Mastura, now vice governor of Maguindanao, and Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, 42, will only worsen if they will take over the provincial capitol, which is in Shariff Aguak, the hometown of the Ampatuans.

“In our culture, town halls and capitols are also regarded as our torogan (seat of royalty) from where we discharge our function as leaders of our communities. Out of respect, we will avoid hurting the datus in Shariff Aguak by not letting the new governor and vice governor hold office there, said Mastura, provincial chairman of the Liberal party.

Mastura said elders of the Mangudadatu family, among them Datu Pax, who is a congressman in Sultan Kudarat, a component province of Administrative Region 12, have also prodded Mangudadatu to hold office at the old capitol at the Simuay District here.

Mangudadatu said he will heed the consensus of the senior members of the Mastura and Mangudadatu clans.

“We are for the restoration of normalcy in the province. We shall have the old capitol in Sultan Kudarat rehabilitated so that we can use it as our provincial operations center,” Mangudadatu said.

Mastura said Vice Gov. Mastura, whose patriarch, Datu Michael, is senior member of the peace panel of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, is not opposed to such plan.

“We don’t need a plush, very expensive provincial capitol. We need a simple site which we can convert into a springboard for our peace and development efforts for Maguindanao,” Mastura said.

Neutral ground

Contemporary Maguindanaon historians said the Simuay District here is the most ideal site as seat of a Mangudadatu-led provincial government due to its centuries-old historical value to Moro communities in the province.

“It was in that area where the 16th century Moro warrior Sultan Kudarat forged alliances with royal clans from what are now North Cotabato, Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and Bukidnon to bolster his struggle to drive away the Spaniards from mainland Mindanao,” said Islamic preacher Gandawali Samsudin, 80.

The Masturas, the Mangudadatus and even Cotabato City’s outgoing three-term mayor, Muslimin Sema, and his relatives, are 17th generation descendants of Kudarat. 

For members of the Catholic community, among them Oblate priests involved in various peace-building projects in far-flung Muslim communities, the old provincial capitol here is a “neutral ground” and the most ideal place where the new governor and vice governor can both hold office.

“By letting them hold office there, we can avoid any escalation of political hostility between them and the Ampatuans,” said Oblate missionary Eliseo Mercado, Jr., director of the foreign-assisted Institute on Autonomy and Governance.

Mercado, author of several reading materials and books on the Mindanao peace process, said they are also elated with the post-proclamation statement of Mangudadatu that he will let the judiciary litigate freely all the Ampatuans implicated in the Nov. 23 massacre of 57 people in Ampatuan municipality and that he would not resort to vendetta retaliations to exact justice for his relatives that perished in the carnage.

“We’re also glad that he had promised not to persecute the Ampatuans that were not in any way involved in the massacre. With guidance from their elders in the Mastura and Mangudadatu families, we’re pretty sure we will have normalcy in Maguindanao soon,” Mercado said.

Among those that perished in the massacre were Mangudadatu’ wife, Jenalyn, and two siblings, who, along with their companions, 31 of them journalists, were on their way to the provincial capitol to file his certificate of candidacy when gunmen, allegedly led by his supposed rival, now detained Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., flagged them down, herded into a nearby hill and there mowed them down with assault rifles and Minimi 5.56 caliber machineguns.