The Philippine judicial system is caught in the crunch of an avenging lynch mob and the backlash of the reign of terror of the warlord Ampatuan clan, accused in the massacre of 57 people in Maguindanao. This tension has frayed the edges of the judicial system.

The brutality of the Nov. 23 slaughter has aroused so much anger that when Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., the main suspect, appeared at the justice department for preliminary investigation, a group of journalists broke through his security cordon and attacked him.

They shouted invectives at Ampatuan, and shoved photographs of the mutilated bodies of massacre victims at his face. “Here are the people you killed,” the group said. They were demonstrating their anger over the slaughter of at least 30 journalists who covered the convoy of the supporters of Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu.

Mangudadatu’s wife and two sisters were among those killed while on their way to the provincial capital to file his certificate of candidacy for governor of Maguindanao, running against Ampatuan.

Ampatuan faces multiple murder, as well as separate rebellion charges, together with his father, Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr., and three brothers, including Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), a region the clan has controlled since 2001 under the patronage and protection of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The attack on Ampatuan Jr. is unprecedented in criminal trials in Philippine judicial history. The violence took an ironic twist in that Ampatuan Jr. was saved from being lynched by state protection after the government took extraordinary measures to secure witnesses, prosecutors and judges against threats on their lives from minions of the Ampatuans.

So fearsome is the reputation of the Ampatuans that a judge to whom the murder cases were initially raffled off, Judge Luisito Cortez of Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 84, declined, invoking a heavy workload and a possible threat to the life of his staff and family.

Ampatuan Jr. was detained in Manila and the case was transferred to Metro Manila from Cotabato City, where judges, prosecutors and witnesses were deemed vulnerable to threats and pressure from the cohorts of the Ampatuan clan, whose members held nearly all the elected positions in their virtual feudal fiefdoms in Maguindanao and the ARMM.

Cortez was promptly replaced by Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of Quezon City RTC Branch 221. She was immediately given round-the-clock police protection.

The extraordinary security measures were taken in response to the challenge to the central government by the Ampatuan warlords who had built up a heavily armed force of at least 2,000 men to make them feared in their region as untouchables.

Maguindanao residents have cowered in fear over the killings of more than 200 people since 2001 even before the Nov. 23 massacre.

Ampatuan Republic

Because of their political power, their arsenals in their properties and mansions and fleets of cars and even armored vehicles, the Ampatuans were called in their region as rulers known as the “Ampatuan Republic.”

The central government was so shamed and embarrassed by their sway of power that since 200l, there had been a vacuum of power and presence of the Philippine Republic in the Ampatuan enclaves.

The Ampatuans’ word was law, the laws of the Republic were ignored, killings were rampant, and the army and police could not enforce the authority of the central government.

This power vacuum led to the Nov. 23 massacre, and its brutality forced the government to resort to emergency powers, topped by the declaration at first of a state of emergency leading up to the proclamation of martial law in the province on Dec. 4 on the grounds of rebellion.

The reason martial law was widely accepted by the public, despite criticism that there was no rebellion to justify it, was that it required extraordinary powers to crush the warlords. The massacre was the catalyst of the conflict between central government authority and that of the Ampatuans.

Who runs the country, the Philippine government or the Ampatuan Republic? is one way of putting the issue. With this issue, the public’s primacy concern was to crush the Ampatuan monster, while addressing the dangers of martial law administration after the clan had been destroyed.

Besides, the scope of this martial law is limited to Maguindanao and there are constitutional constraints Congress can use in the exercise of its oversight powers of review under the 1987 Constitution to check abuses of martial law powers.

Whether or not there was a rebellion to justify Proclamation 1959 became moot when the President rescinded martial law after eight days.

‘Shock and awe’

That there were no reports of abuse by the army and the national police in their arrests without warrants, raids on the Ampatuan premises and the seizure of hidden arms caches helped moderate public objections and calm fears that martial law would be used to cancel the elections next year and to perpetuate Ms Arroyo in power.

If it had not been for the police actions under martial law, the evidence of abuse of power, the unexplained assets and killings since 2001 could not have been uncovered. If it had not been for these raids and arrests, the horrifying remains of the atrocities of the massacres could not have surfaced.

Although the legal grounds for Proclamation 1959 have remained unsettled, at least the “shock and awe” impact of martial law has set in motion the criminal prosecution of the Ampatuans for multiple murder.

At least, the state has stamped its presence and reasserted its authority over monsters it has created. One aspect of martial law 2009 that requires deeper examination is: How did the state abandon its power to regional warlords? What compromises and tradeoffs were involved that made the state a captive of provincial warlords?