Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu. AP FILE PHOTO
A mayor in Maguindanao province has asked Justice Secretary Leila de Lima not to allow her agency to be used in bringing “politically motivated” criminal charges against innocent members of the Ampatuan clan.
In a letter dated March 31 and received by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on April 1, Datu Unsay town Mayor Reshal Santiago Ampatuan urged De Lima to investigate the alleged abuses committed by Maguindanao Gov. Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu against his political rivals in the province.
“Since we [have] been duly elected by the constituents, Governor Toto has resorted to using his power to unseat all those who oppose him so that he [can] replace them with his own trusted men,” Ampatuan said.
“Yes, we know that Governor Toto has lost some of his family members in the November 2009 incident but he shouldn’t use the tragedy as a license to commit abuses and persecute all those whom he thinks are against him,” she said.
Leading members of the Ampatuan family, together with their supporters, are jailed in Taguig City while undergoing trial for the Nov. 23, 2009, massacre of 58 people, including 34 journalists, in Maguindanao.
Ampatuan said members of the clan like her who had nothing to do with the crime and were elected to local government positions were being politically harassed by the Mangudadatu camp through the filing of fabricated cases.
Suspicious cases
Being members of the opposition, she said she and her relatives could not help being suspicious about the cases, especially because the 2016 elections were fast approaching.
“No doubt the cases are politically motivated. I am asking for your help because I feel that your department is being used by the governor for his own interests. I call on you, a mother like me, to help me so that the injustice taking place in Maguindanao would cease,” Ampatuan said.
The mayor said several alleged henchmen of Mangudadatu burned the house of her husband, Andal Jr., one of the detained massacre suspects, in June last year.
It turned out, however, that a member of the Ampatuan family was implicated in the arson and was ordered arrested.
State witness
The suspect, Kagui Akmad Baganian Ampatuan, a former mayor of Datu Salibo town, was recently accepted by the DOJ as a state witness in the massacre case.
Mayor Ampatuan also cited the murder case filed against another relative, Shariff Aguak Mayor Zahara Ampatuan. Akmad’s son is a principal witness in the case.
The Datu Unsay mayor said Mangudadatu influenced the prosecutor and judge to pursue the charge against Zahara Ampatuan.
“Zahara, a mother [of] several children, was forced to hide from [the] authorities despite her ailment not because she was guilty of the allegations against her but [because she was afraid she would go] to jail despite her innocence,” Ampatuan said.
She said she and her vice mayor, Janine Julhaya Mamalapat, who is her niece, were also being implicated in the death of another relative, Abdullah Ampatuan.
‘Lies, fabrication’
She said the issuance of an arrest warrant against her, which she is challenging, hurt her and her children because the case against her was based on “lies and fabrication.”
She said she could not even attend the graduation of three of her young children and could not tend to three others who were ailing.
Reshal Santiago Ampatuan and Zahara Ampatuan are among the 50 new massacre suspects being subjected to a preliminary investigation by the DOJ.