A MEMBER of the House minority bloc on Friday welcomed the move of Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales to seize the assets of the late Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr. totaling almost P55 million for being ill-gotten.
“This is indispensable for the payment of reparations of the victims,” said Kabayan party-list Rep. Harry Roque of the P54,965,526.88 in assets ordered to be seized.
Roque served as counsel for the families of 15 victims of the Nov. 23, 2009 Maguindanao Massacre in which the late Maguindanao patriarch was implicated as the brains behind the carnage.
Roque was hopeful the action of the Ombudsman was “not a case of it being too late the hero.”
“We’re hoping against hope the assets have not been dissipated beyond recovery by the Ampatuans,” Roque said.
“If only for the fact that the Office of the Ombudsman took this long to resolve the matter, the news would have been absolutely perfect,” he added.
In 2010, Roque’s clients initiated a complaint with the Ombudsman for plunder and forfeiture of the assets of the Ampatuan clan, whose key members are being tried for the murders that claimed the lives of 58 victims, including 32 journalists and media workers.
The complaints filed by Roque’s clients were based on a series of special audits made by the Commission on Audit of the coffers of the Provincial Government of Maguindanao, which detailed anomalies involving nearly P3 billion.
The Ampatuans had ruled the province for years, with key members holding important government officials in all levels of the local government.
In a 20-page joint resolution released Wednesday, a panel of investigators said that based on the former governor’s income tax returns his declared income in 2001 was only P304,721.91 but this ballooned to P1.19 million in 2003 and P1.6 million in 2008.
Meanwhile, in his statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth for 2000, Ampatuan claimed his total assets were worth no more than P6.22 million. This went up to to P10.83 million in 2001, when he was elected as governor of Maguindanao.
He remained in the position until 2010.
But the panel noted that in 2002, his assets skyrocketed to P26.25 million and inched further up in 2007 with declared assets worth P26.705 million.
According to the panel, Ampatuan did not declare 15 real estate properties in the cities of Cotabato and Davao. The real estate properties have a total declared value of P55,134,283.10.
It recommended the filing of a forfeiture case against his assets before the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan.
The clan patriarch died in prison in 2015.
Under Republict Act 1379, assets found to be manifestly out of proportion to the salary and other lawful income of a public official or employee are considered unexplained wealth.
The Maguindanao Massacre was dubbed as the worst election-related violence in Philippine history and the worst single attack on free expression.
Roque earlier urged Quezon City Regional Trial Vourt Branch 221 presiding judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes, who presides over the Maguindanao Massacre trial, not to allow any further delay by the defense so that the families of victims might soon see convictions in the celebrated multiple murder case.