Freddie Aguilar to lead concert for Maguindanao massacre victims

By: Julie S. Alipala - 10 years ago

Freddie Aguilar INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines — Filipino music icon Freddie Aguilar will be jamming with journalists on the eve of the fifth-year-commemoration of the Maguindanao massacre where 58 people, 32 of them media workers, were killed.

“There will be singing, which will be our way of sending a message to the government that we are still asking for justice,” Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone.

Mangudadatu said they have chosen some journalists “with good voices” to sing their own compositions.

He said Freddie Aguilar was invited “to jam with the journalists.”

“We also invited Pilita Corrales and Freestyle,” he added.

The “concert” will be held on the night of November 22 in Buluan town. The day after, five years after the massacre in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao, Mangudadatu will visit the massacre site with Justice Secretary Leila de Lima.

Among those killed in the carnage were Mangudadatu’s wife and relatives, who were on their way to Shariff Aguak town to file his certificate of candidacy for governor. They were blocked allegedly by members of the Ampatuan clan and their armed followers, and brought to a secluded place in the village of Salman where they were killed.

Governor Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) said five years “is too long enough to render justice for the families and relatives of slain journalists and other civilians.”

“I pray that before I leave ARMM, there will be a resolution of the case. There has to be a conviction,” Hataman told the Inquirer by phone.

As a result of the peace talks between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the ARMM will be replaced by a new political entity, the Bangsamoro autonomous government.

Mangudadatu expressed his hope for a conviction of the primary accused before the dissolution of ARMM.

“We hope that after the presentation of all the evidence by the defense, we could expect conviction, a decision from the judge,” he said.

More than a hundred men are now in jail and being tried for their alleged involvement in the massacre.