TODAY, December 2, 2011, the six-month freeze order the Court of Appeals issued – on petition of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) – on the 597 bank accounts, 142 firearms, 132 motor vehicles, and 113 houses and lots in the names of 27 members of the Ampatuan clan and their associates expired.
We have also learned that it was only yesterday, December 1, when the AMLC filed through the Office of the Solicitor General, a petition for civil forfeiture with a prayer for a new freeze order with the Manila regional trial court. As of the close of office hours, we have not received confirmation from the OSG, the AMLC, or the trial court if the freeze order, or provisional asset protection order (PAPO), had been issued.
We view with great alarm the unwarranted delay and apparent lack of attention and negligence that the AMLC and the OSG had accorded this case.
A week ahead of today’s expiry of the appellate court’s freeze order, we called government attention to this grave matter – the possibility that the Ampatuans could take advantage of the delay to retake control of their enormous unexplained wealth to put pressure to bear on their trial for the Maguindanao massacre of Nov. 23, 2009, which claimed the lives of 58 persons, including 32 media workers.
The Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists, Inc. (FFFJ) and the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) urge all concerned government agencies, but especially AMLC, to take whatever steps are necessary to correct this anomaly.
President Benigno Aquino III earlier said his administration would do everything to expedite the Massacre case and assure the victims justice at the soonest. AMLC’s apparent lack of urgency in extending the freezing of the Ampatuan assets will be interpreted as reflective of the Aquino government’s own lack of enthusiasm.
Twenty-eight Ampatuans are among the accused in the Maguindanao Massacre. The outcome of the trial is crucial to the Philippine press and media. Unless credibly concluded, it will encourage further killings by demonstrating that the culture of impunity that has encouraged the killing of political activists, environmental advocates, members of the clergy, human rights workers, journalists and others who have antagonized local power groups, criminal syndicates and state security forces will continue.
The return of their bank accounts, firearms and other resources constitutes a formidable advantage for the Ampatuans. It is imperative that this advantage be denied them to level the legal playing field and to help credibly conclude the trial of the accused in the Ampatuan Massacre.
With the edge that the lapse of the freeze order has restored to the Ampatuans, the trial will send all the wrong messages to the would-be killers of journalists, political activists, etc., as well as to society as a whole: that the killings can continue and that it is impossible to obtain justice in a society whose government institutions are unable to perform their mandated tasks, in this case the AMLC entrusted with the task of enforcing banking laws, which among others require banks to report “suspicious transactions” to the AMLC.
The AMLC filed its request for the freezing of the multibillion assets and hundreds of bank accounts of the Ampatuans only last May—a full 18 months after the Massacre, during the investigation of which the existence of these billions and other assets was discovered, and in fact amply reported in the media. But the freeze order it eventually obtained from the Court of Appeals has been allowed to lapse on December 2, 2011.
The FFFJ and the NUJP are appalled by this default, and demands that the AMLC explain why it failed, in the first place, to note the money trail evident in the number of Ampatuan bank accounts, and why it allowed the freeze order to lapse. Is this the result of sheer inefficiency and incompetence, or a deliberate attempt to ignore the hundreds of Ampatuan bank accounts whose existence alone should have aroused suspicion? Or it is not so much a case of incompetence and inefficiency as a case of sheer partisanship, in which case the AMLC must be subjected to the closest public and legislative scrutiny.
The November 23 Movement and the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines released a series of public service announcements in commemoration of the first year anniversary of the Ampatuan Massacre.
The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility is a member of the November 23 Movement, which was organized to call for an independent investigation of the killing of 58 persons including 32 journalists and media workers in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao last November 23, 2009. Other members of the movement are: the BusinessWorld, the Center for Community Journalism and Development, the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, Davao Today, the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists, MindaNews, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project, the Philippine Press Institute, Pinoy Weekly, the People’s Journal, the Southeast Asia Press Alliance and VERA Files.
Statement of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility in commemoration of the first anniversary of the Ampatuan Massacre
THE 2009 Ampatuan Massacre of 58 men and women including 32 journalists was a reminder and a warning to both the Philippine press and the entire country.
The Philippines is officially a democracy, but the pockets of warlord power that have been allowed to flourish in at least a hundred localities mock that claim. In places like Maguindanao, private armies decide elections and also wield the power of life or death over the men and women under warlord rule.
In those places, the Massacre also demonstrated, the power of the written and spoken word that many assume protect journalists and media workers is already meaningless. The 32 journalists and media workers killed who had accompanied the wife and kin of the then candidate for Maguindanao governor in filing his certificate of candidacy were supposed to protect the group, despite the fact that before the massacre, 81 journalists had been killed in the line of duty since 1986.
A statement by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) on the sixth month of the November 23 massacre of 32 journalists and media workers
THE ELECTION of the new President and the formation of a new administration cast the sixth month anniversary of the 23 November 2009 Massacre in a more auspicious light. Or so the undersigned media and journalist associations would like to hope.
Engaged in the battle against impunity for years, we urge the president-elect, as soon as he is proclaimed, to commit himself and his government to take the necessary steps to shift government policy from the dire neglect and indifference that has allowed so many journalist killings to go unpunished. These require a range of actions to address the poor capacity of the police to investigate cases and preserve forensic evidence, the failure to arrest and detain suspects who have political patrons, and the paucity of resources for witness protection and speedy trials. All of these and more have encouraged the killing of journalists since 1986 to continue.
We call on the newly appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to follow his predecessor in supporting the prosecution of the Maguindanao murder suspects. In line with this, we would like to see current officials and those who will be appointed by the new president to assure the quick resumption of proceedings against the principal suspects and the swift arrest of those still at large.
As outrageous as the Massacre was, the case against the suspected killers and masterminds has not progressed as much as the families of the victims, the media community, and concerned citizens have every right to expect. The president-elect’s call for the resumption of the trial would address an immediate and pressing need.
The state prosecutors who opposed the dropping of the charges against two members of the Ampatuan clan also need and deserve presidential support. The justice system, thanks to these prosecutors, had initially moved with unwonted speed on the charge of multiple murders. Various journalist and media advocacy groups made it possible for private prosecutors to help hasten the identification of suspects and the preparation of witnesses.
But the trial of 197 accused persons, among whom are leading members of the Ampatuan clan, has been twice postponed due to various technicalities, among them four motions for the presiding judge to inhibit herself from hearing the case.
The accused are entitled to every legal recourse to defend themselves. But the April 16 decision by the acting Secretary of Justice Alberto Agra to exclude two Ampatuan clan members from the multiple murder charges was viewed by many journalists and lawyers as favoring a powerful family allied with the Arroyo administration.
Agra eventually reversed himself in the wake of protests by the media, civil society, and his own prosecutors, in a telling demonstration of the indispensable role of citizen militancy in the quest for justice. But his earlier decision makes it difficult to remove doubts over the capacity of the justice system to resolve the case to the satisfaction of the families of the victims, the press community and the Filipino people
These doubts were inevitable, given the Arroyos’ expressed hostility toward critical journalists and her administration’s consistent failure to address with stronger measures the killing of journalists and media workers, as the number of victims spiked dramatically during her nine- year watch.
Outrage over the Arroyo government’s policy toward media have raised hopes that the electoral victory of a candidate who would protect and enhance press freedom along with strategies to improve law enforcement and the justice system would launch a campaign against impunity that will at least reduce the number of journalists slain in the line of duty. As a candidate, Senator Benigno Aquino, III, had announced his intention to hold the Arroyo regime to account for, among others, violations of the Constitution. Such intent would make his administration’s authentic commitment to press freedom logical and necessary.
Justice officials may and should proceed with the trial even without a call from the new president. But a presidential statement will be heard by advocates of press freedom and media defense activists around the world as a signal that under a new leadership, the culture of impunity in the Philippines may come to an end.
Revised statement of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility and the Southeast Asian Press Alliance on the 100th day of the Ampatuan Massacre
A hundred days have passed since the massacre of 32 journalists and media workers in Maguindanao, Southern Philippines, together with 26 others. The principal suspect has been indicted. But the petition for bail of the alleged mastermind has been the subject of several postponements, in a portent of things to come that’s not encouraging for the demand for justice for the victims.
The urgent demand for justice is in danger of foundering on the shoals of the technicalities that-together with police collusion at the local levels in the killing of journalists, overworked prosecutors who fear for their safety, and the involvement of local officials and warlords-constitute the many weaknesses of the Philippine justice system. Equally distressing is the information, relayed by one of the private lawyers helping prosecute the case, that witnesses are being bought if not threatened, and that relatives are being offered amounts that few mortals in the Philippine community setting can refuse in exchange for withdrawing their complaints.
Add public indifference and resignation, and the mass media’s own short attention span and susceptibility to the lure of reporting those events that help boost ratings and circulations to these problems and issues, and we have the potential for the massacre’s not only going unpunished, but even forgotten.
Forgetfulness is among the worst vices of a people whom the media have failed to provide information crucial to their lives. And yet, forgetfulness is the sure guarantee for the repetition of such atrocities as the Ampatuan massacre, the human rights violations that continue to haunt this country, and the constant peril of authoritarian rule. Only by remembering the past can we prevent its repetition.
The media are among the institutions crucial to the fostering of the imperative of keeping in the public mind the need for justice in the Ampatuan massacre and for the making of a culture of remembrance. But the public as a whole needs to support the campaign to keep the Ampatuan massacre in the national agenda as an issue that needs resolution. As we enter the fourth month since that atrocity, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility and the Southeast Asian Press Alliance renew their pledge never to forget and to continue to remind the Philippine public and the international community that the pro-active engagement of a militant people and a truly free and responsible press can prevent the many crimes and atrocities that haunt this country, among them the killing of journalists, from going unpunished and even repeated.
This special section provides updates on the ongoing trial of the Ampatuans and other accused for the murder of at least 57 persons, including 32 journalists. The Ampatuan town massacre is the bloodiest single incident in the history of Philippine media.
