Ampatuan kin asks SC to probe judge for abuses

The Supreme Court. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

A Maguindanao town mayor has asked the Supreme Court to investigate alleged abuses committed by a Cotabato City Regional Trial Court judge who ordered her and members of the influential Ampatuan political family arrested for the murder of their uncle in 2013.

In a five-page letter to Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez dated April 6, Datu Unsay town Mayor Bai Reshal Santiago Ampatuan accused Judge George Jabido of “meddling in political affairs” in the province and committing injustice and irregularities with regards to the case.

“This is also for the purpose of bringing to your attention the irregular acts of Judge Jabido and allowing his court to be desecrated and used for partisan political activity stretching down to the office of the prosecutor,” she said.

Ampatuan’s husband Andal Jr. is among the 200 suspects jailed and being tried for the 2009 Maguindanao massacre, wherein 58 people were killed, including 34 journalists who were accompanying the wife of current Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu to file the latter’s certificate of candidacy.

Ampatuan herself is included in the list of 50 new suspects in the massacre who had been summoned by the Department of Justice for a preliminary investigation.

Marquez told reporters he had read the letter and would check on Ampatuan’s claims.

“Yes [I have read the letter] and we are now verifying the status [of the case],” he said.

Ampatuan said she was forced to seek the help of Marquez “in desperation and frustration.”

According to the mayor, she and her vice mayor, her niece Bai Janine Julhaila Ampatuan Mamalapat, were charged by government prosecutors before the court, using allegedly false and inconsistent testimony, for the murder of their uncle Abdullah “Doro” Ampatuan.

The judge “did not study judiciously the records of the case; otherwise he could have found that there is no probable cause to issue the warrants of arrest,” she said.

The court issued the arrest warrants against her and her niece last February. They then filed for a motion for reconsideration which has remained unresolved up till now, Ampatuan recounted.

Ampatuan said she and her niece could not have been present in her father-in-law’s house to plan the murder sometime in July 2013, as claimed by the witness. She said she and her niece were visiting their jailed relatives in Taguig City.

The mayor accused Mangudadatu’s camp of being behind the allegedly politically motivated charges against her and other members of the family. She said this was in preparation for the 2016 elections. She added that if she and her vice mayor were arrested, a councilor belonging to Mangudadatu’s camp would become the acting mayor.

Ampatuan said this had happened in neighboring Shariff Aguak town, where the wife of her husband’s brother Zaldy, Zahara Upam Ampatuan, has remained in hiding after being ordered arrested by Judge Jabido last year for an allegedly false murder charge. As result, the vice mayor, a Mangudadatu ally, became the acting mayor.

Mangudadatu and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima both said it was the Ampatuans who were the ones conducting political offensive by claiming political persecution after more members of their family were included in the new batch of suspects in the massacre.