Journalists' widows seek remedy before Asean

RELATIVES of 14 journalists slain in Maguindanao filed on Wednesday a complaint against the government for failing to prevent the November 23 massacre before an international human rights body.

Accompanied by lawyers Harry Roque and Pete Prinsipe of Center for International Law (CIL), the widows filed the 23-page complaint before the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, an international human rights body based in Jakarta and composed of advocates from Asean member-countries.

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The complaint, which was sent to the rights body via e-mail and registered mail, sought the first international reprieve to ensure that perpetrators of the brutal killings are brought to justice.

“The acts committed in the slaughter of civilians by State agents belong to this class of gross human rights violations for which the State must answer,” an excerpt from the complaint read.

Roque referred to the January 28 testimony of Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael "Toto" Mangudadatu wherein he said that then Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro and Land and Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) chairman Prospero Pichay warned him of the "violent nature" of the Ampatuans" if he challenges Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. for the gubernatorial post.

The Ampatuan clan was accused of masterminding and directly participating in the worst political violence in Philippine history.

The complaint also accused the government for arming the Ampatuans, supposedly to neutralize the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), but was later used for establishing "its own paramilitary units."

It furthered that seeming lax treatment of the government on the case is due to the political indebtedness of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to the Ampatuans, whom it said delivered the votes for her in the 2004 presidential elections and for her senatorial bets in the 2007 midterm vote.

Complainants also scored the military and police for conniving with the accused Ampatuans to carry out the massacre, to which President Arroyo, as Commander-in-Chief has full control.

“Clearly, all of those responsible for the carnage are agents of the Philippine State; as such, their acts in connection with the 23 November 2009 Maguindanao massacre are attributable under international law to the Republic of the Philippines, herein represented by its head of state, Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,” it said.

Roque believed that the global attention given to the case is enough to pressure the government to act swiftly on the multiple murder trial.

Lawyer Rommel Bagares, executive director of CIL, mulls the filing of appropriate charges once the complaint will be acted on the group's favor.

“Our next move is that we will say the government is negligent. Subsequently we’ll file the charges,” Bagares told reporters in an interview at the Philippine National Police (PNP) headquarters in Camp Crame, where the multiple murder trial of Ampatuan Jr. was held.

Asean or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, groups together Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

In October 24 last year, the leaders of the 10-member Asean adopted the Cha-am Hua Hin (Thailand) Declaration on the Inauguration of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and pledged US$200,000 for the first year of operation to this new Asean body.

Palace reaction

But Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita is confident that the charges linking Malacañang to the Maguindanano massacre would not prosper, saying the administration has done what it can especially in the campaign against private armies and loose firearms.

According to Ermita, the widows are free to do what they want as long as it is within the law, including charging the administration.

He said it is very easy to make accusations but it is difficult to prove them. “Let everybody file their charges and support it with enough evidences and witnesses. But I don’t think it will fly because alam naman natin the government did everything it can. Remember it’s the job of the government to preserve order and have security and safety of its citizens.”

The Palace official reiterated that the civilian armed volunteers were initially commissioned by government not to create private armies but to help in the peace and order situation in Mindanao.

“I think it’s not correct to say that Palace knew the existence of private armies and did not do something about it. That is the very reason why, just to take full control of the situation, the President had issued a proclamation and for that matter it’s still continuing, the state of emergency,” he said, citing that Martial Law was even raised in Maguindanao from December 4 to 12. (Virgil Lopez/JMR/Sunnex)