Kin of Maguindanao massacre victims hit drug problem
MAGUINDANAO – Several individuals who attended the seventh anniversary of the Maguindanao massacre last Wednesday talked lengthily about the narcotics problem plaguing the country.
Among them was Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, who lost his wife Genalyn in the incident.
Mangudadatu said the principal suspects would not have mercilessly killed the victims, including his wife, if they were not high on drugs.
The incident, which left 58 people dead, 32 of them journalists, was the country’s worst election-related violence ever, which happened almost six months before the May 2010 synchronized local and national elections.
Close relatives of the massacre suspects, among them incumbent local executives, have since been asserting the culprits were at the time using methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu), distributed conveniently by drug rings in the province.
Genalyn was on her way to the old provincial capitol in Shariff Aguak to file for then Buluan vice mayor Mangudadatu his candidacy for provincial governor during the 2010 elections when she and her companions were flagged down in Barangay Masalay in Ampatuan town by gunmen led by Andal Ampatuan Jr., an aspirant for the same elective post.
The convoy of the massacre victims was herded to a hinterland in Sitio Salman, west of Barangay Masalay, where the killers felled them one after another using assault rifles and K-3 machineguns.
Mangudadatu was to challenge then the candidacy for governor of Ampatuan, scion of the once feared clan that ruled the province with absolute intolerance for political opposition.
Ampatuan was arrested and detained four days after the incident, denying him the chance to pursue his bid for the gubernatorial post of Maguindanao.
“The proliferation of shabu in Maguindanao at that time was unhampered because no one from among our provincial leaders lifted a finger to address the problem,” said a municipal councilor who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Also present in the commemoration of the massacre was lawyer Nena Santos, a counsel to the families of the victims.
Mangudadatu and Santos separately told reporters they are optimistic the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221, which is litigating the massacre case, can hand down a verdict within the term of President Duterte.
No fewer than 10 witnesses to the massacre have either been killed or have mysteriously disappeared in the past seven years.
A suspect-turned-state witness, Sukarno Badal, who personally saw how the victims were slaughtered, told reporters last year he had lingering illnesses and was worried he might die waiting for a decision on the case.
“If I am gone, all the affidavits I executed will become weak. The case must proceed while I am still around to talk openly in the court about what I saw that day,” Badal then said.
Badal had also lamented the mysterious disappearance of his relatives and the murder of two more in attacks he believes were related to his having volunteered to testify in court.
Mangudadatu said the slow progress in the case has not weakened his resolve to continue his clan’s quest for justice.
“I lost my wife and my two sisters, Farina and Eden, in that incident. Even so, we never took the law into our hands. We never resorted to retaliations even if our family comes from an ancient Maguindanaon noble warrior clan,” he said.
Among those yearning for a speedy resolution of the case is the now 83-year-old retired government university professor Marino Ridao Sr., who had served as councilor in Cotabato City for three consecutive terms.
Ridao, who lost his son Anthony in the massacre, said he wants to see a verdict before he dies. He is the oldest among relatives of those killed in the incident.
His slain son was not among the people the Ampatuans allegedly plotted to kill. Anthony was riding a car that tried to overtake the convoy of the victims, but got caught in the middle of the long line of vehicles the suspects stopped at a stretch of highway in Barangay Masalay.