DAVAO CITY? Among the presidential candidates, only former Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro handled the Maguindanao crisis well.

This was what Amina Rasul, convenor of the Philippine Council for Islam and Democracy (PCID), said yesterday.

Rasul told Inquirer that the statement of her mother, former senator Santanina Rasul, was correct when she said that at the height of the Maguindanao crisis, it was only Teodoro who was very visible.

?All the (candidates) issued statements later on but only Gibo (Teodoro) went there (to Maguindanao),? Rasul said by phone.

Teodoro accompanied Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu in filing his certificate of candidacy for the Maguindanao gubernatorial race at the Commission on Elections office in Shariff Aguak, a known stronghold of the Ampatuans.

Former senator Rasul, addressing a roundtable discussion of Muslim intellectuals and civic leaders from the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, said all the presidential candidates were silent at first on the massacre except Teodoro.

The ARMM forum was organized by Rasul?s ?Magbassa Kita Foundation? and daughter Amina?s PCID.

The former senator was quoted at an interview after the forum as saying Teodoro?s move to initiate expulsion proceedings against the Ampatuans after the mass murder showed he was ?compelled by moral outrage? to act immediately.

The elder Rasul was the first female Muslim senator who now heads intellectual and civil society groups in Mindanao.