The Department of Justice will study options to protect the claim for damages of the relatives of 58 people killed in the Maguindanao massacre, which they cannot receive pending a final decision from the Supreme Court.
The Quezon City Regional Trial Court on Thursday ordered several members of the Ampatuan clan who were found guilty of perpetrating the mass murder to pay millions of pesos in damages to the victims’ families.
Senior Deputy State Prosecutor Richard Fadullon said, however, the victims’ families cannot claim this amount until the Supreme Court upholds the verdict, which could take up to 24 months if the verdict is contested by the accused.
He also noted that it is typical for the accused in other cases to sell or transfer their real estate and other properties so these could not be used to settle the damages.
Fadullon said they would study seeking a preliminary writ of attachment, which prevents one from disposing of properties.
“The prosecution team will see if there’s a way to try and protect and ensure that the properties will not be transferred,” he said.
Judge Jocelyn Solis Reyes on Thursday found guilty 43 people, including brothers Zaldy and Andal “Unsay” Ampatuan Jr., 14 police officers and a member of the Ampatuan militia.
Some 53 defendants were acquitted, while 80 accused remain at large.
A private prosecutor for some of the victims, Harry Roque, said they would search for assets and seek to have them frozen.
Under the court’s ruling, each of the 57 victims is entitled to about P1 million in damages, he said.
“Not that it is enough to compensate for the loss of life but I think it is a reasonable compensation to be given to the family given the gruesome manner they were killed,” he said on the news program ANC Headstart.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology said Friday that most of those acquitted in the Maguindanao massacre case are now free.
BJMP Spokesperson Chief Inspector Xavier Solda said 42 have been released, but four others would remain in detention because they have pending cases.
Reyes’s 761-page decision said the court found no sufficient basis to connect Datu Sajid Islam Ampatuan, son of Andal Ampatuan Sr., to the massacre 10 years ago. Although he had attended meetings in which members of the clan discussed the plot to kill then gubernatorial aspirant and now congressman Esmael Mangudadatu, he said nothing to encourage his brothers to push through with the plan.
Sajid’s brothers Datu Andal “Unsay” Jr., Zaldy, former Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao governor, and Anwar Sr. and 25 others were found guilty of 57 counts of murder and sentenced to 40 years without parole. Their father, himself a primary accused, died in detention in 2015.
In exonerating Sajid, Reyes noted that no eyewitness said Sajid was present at the crime scene in the hilly portion of Sitio Masalay in Ampatuan, Maguindanao on Nov. 23, 2009, when 58 people were slaughtered.
In his defense, Sajid claimed that he was with his wife, who was filing her own candidacy in another place, at the time of the massacre.
In an interview with the ANC news channel, Roque said Sajid Islam knew that he would be absolved of the multiple counts of murder since the Court of Appeals had already granted him bail.
He said Sajid Islam did not even bother to appear during the promulgation.
“The temerity of the guy. He is really proud. He was certain he could get away with it,” Roque said.
“But I’m sure karma will run after him.”
In her decision, Reyes said several of the female victims were raped before they were shot dead, as evidenced by the semen found on their bodies.
These included Mangudadatu’s supporter Rahima Palawan, journalist Leah Dalmacio, and passerby Cecil Lechonsito.
The wife of Mangudadatu, Bai Genalin or Gigi, suffered 17 gunshot wounds inflicted with a high-powered firearm. The court found that Datu Andal “Unsay” Ampatuan Jr. shot her between her legs.
“From the various gunshot wounds, it is evident that the victim died in a cruel, brutal and treacherous manner. The shots were intended to kill her, and she suffered the most painful death,” the judge wrote.
Mangudadatu’s sister Bai Eden, was also shot in her genitals.
Senator Imee Marcos said the “unimaginable… brutality and inhumanity” of the attacks gave impetus to efforts to reinstate the death penalty.
“The scope of the Revised Penal Code at present does not fathom the horror suffered by the relatives of the brutally murdered victims, specially of the Mangudadatu family and the orphaned children of scores of journalists,” Marcos said.
Marcos opposed the death penalty as a congresswoman, adding that she had even constantly argued with her mom on the issue.
“But the law is an organic, living thing that must respond to our extraordinary times,” she said,
In related developments:
• Senator Panfilo Lacson said justice delayed was not necessarily justice denied in the Maguindanao case, which took 10 years to try, given the number of respondents in the case. He said Reyes, the judge, has “immensely contributed to a renewed trust and confidence” that people have in the administration of justice.
• Journalists on Friday said the ruling in favor of the victims of Maguindanao massacre is not yet over.
“We still have an unfinished business,” said Malou Mangahas, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism director. She said government must consider the security concerns of the victims’ families since 80 other suspects still remained at large. She added that the state prosecutors have failed to file a civil case against the Ampatuans and to preserve their assets.
• The Canadian government on Friday hailed as a success the conviction of several key suspects in the 2009 Maguindanao massacre, which resulted in the deaths of 58 people, including 32 media workers. “The conviction of those primarily responsible for this dreadful incident is an important moment in the fight against impunity and political violence,” the Canadian embassy in Manila said in a statement. With PNA