MEDIA advocates and families of the 32 slain journalists continue to demand "full justice" 14 years after the "worst massacre of journalists in history," known as the Ampatuan Massacre, occurred in Maguindanao province in the southern Philippines.
“Despite 14 years passing since the tragic events of November 23, 2009, the killers of journalists remain at large and justice continues to be denied,” said the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the largest global union federation of journalists' trade unions in the world.
The federation called on the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration and authorities to "end the suffering for the families of those killed."
At least 58 people, including the 32 media practitioners, were shot and buried in a mass grave after their convoy was attacked while traveling to Shariff Aguak town in Maguindanao to register the candidacy documents for Buluan town vice mayor Esmail “Toto” Mangudadatu.
“Despite sustained international and national pressure and countless campaigns, the families of the murdered civilians still await full justice from a protracted, legal process and a failure of investigators to locate all the accused,” IFJ said in a statement.
As years went by, media advocates documented how several key prosecution witnesses “have been murdered, some of the accused have died.”
“[A total of] 83 of more than 200 suspects still remain at large,” IFJ added
In December 2019, a Quezon City Regional Trial Court convicted Datu Andal Ampatuan Jr., his brothers Andal Ampatuan Jr. and Zaldy Ampatuan, and 24 other principal suspects guilty beyond reasonable doubt on 57 counts of murder.
“The three brothers, identified as the key orchestrators of the bloody massacre, were given the maximum sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole. To date, only 44 of the 200 massacre suspects have been successfully convicted,” IFJ said.
The National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) maintained that 14 years after the killings, the country “remains a dangerous place to be a journalist.”
“Although the 2009 massacre has faded from the headlines, the media community has not forgotten and we join them in calling for an end to impunity for crimes against journalists,” it said.
According to NUJP, suspects remain unaccounted for and convictions were only handed down for 57 of the 58 murders.
Critically, the court failed to consider the murder of photojournalist Reynaldo Momay, whose remains have yet to be found.
On November 20, media group Freedom for Media, Freedom for All coalition, which includes the Philippine Press Institute, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, MindaNews and the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, held a memorial for the massacre victims.
“The December 2019 decision convicting 28 of the principal accused of murder and 15 others as accessories is only partial justice until the convictions are final and the families receive compensation for the cruel loss of their loved ones,” said Emily Lopez, president of Justice NOW!, the organization of families of the victims of the 2009 Ampatuan Massacre.
<b>Media attacks continue</b>
Grace Morales, who lost her husband and sister who both worked for a publication, hoped that the massacre “will not happen again because it is not easy to lose a loved one.”
“We also hope that the compensation associated with the decision in 2019 will be granted to us who are left behind. Once again, we call for the Ampatuan Massacre case to end once and for all,” Morales said in Filipino.
On November 5 this year, Misamis Occidental radio anchor Juan Jumalon became the latest victim of media killing.
Earlier this November, the IFJ marked the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, urging United Nations (UN) member states to "protect the rights of journalists and highlighted the urgent need for a binding convention to protect media professionals.”
Meanwhile, Paul Gutierrez, executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS), called on the journalists who were victims of threats and harassment to "formalize their complaints with the proper authority or inform the PTFoMS directly of such incident to make appropriate action and assistance.”
“To claim that the state of the Philippine media remains ‘bad’ or ‘dangerous’ without offering any data that can be validated by competent authorities should be treated with caution,” Gutierrez reminded his media colleagues.
“And while we encourage anyone to denounce any incident of media killing or any senseless killing for that matter, to deliberately omit the effort exerted by the government to solve them is telling only half of the story,” the official said earlier.
PTFoMS has only documented over 10 reports, all of which have been acted upon immediately, according to Gutierrez. (SunStar Philippines)