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CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – After a decade of waiting, justice may be in the offing for the scores of victims of the Ampatuan massacre.
Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes is set to hand down her decision at 9 a.m. at the Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig on Thursday (December 19).
Reyes’ decision will be the long-awaited verdict on the Ampatuan massacre described as the most gruesome election-related violence in Philippine history.
Judge Reyes, a Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) judge handling the case, informed the public that the verdict will be out on December 19 in an order dated November 29.
The decision will be handed down after 10 years of trial involving 58 victims.
The principal accused, Datu Andal “Unsay” Ampatuan, Jr. is now in jail but Zaldy Ampatuan is in the hospital after earlier suffering from a stroke.
Their younger brother and also a principal accused, Datu Sajid Islam Ampatuan, is out on an P11.6 million bail and is currently serving as mayor of Shariff Saydona Mustapha.
They are accused of masterminding a heinous massacre on November 23, 2009, where 58 people were shot to their deaths and buried in a shallow grave with their mangled cars in Sitio Masalay in Ampatuan, Maguindanao.
Of the 58 victims, 32 were journalists who covered the filing of candidacy of then Maguindanao governor aspirant Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu.
It is the single deadliest attack on journalists in the world and worst election-related violence in Philippine history.
Clan patriarch Andal Ampatuan Sr, the alleged brains behind the execution, died on July 17, 2015 due to heart attack while in jail.
Two crucial state witnesses, former Vice Mayor Sukarno Badal and house helper Lakmodin Saliao, point to the three Ampatuan brothers as having attended meetings to plan the massacre.
All three brothers have alibis that they were somewhere else during the meetings.
The testimony of Badal said he saw Andal Jr. in the massacre scene and shooting the victims himself.
It was also reported that the wife of Mangudadatu was able to call her husband during a confrontation with Mayor Andal Jr. and identified him as the leader of the group that stopped their convoy, after which the phone conversation was cut short and the massacre happened.
The Ampatuan brothers have questioned the lack of trace evidence presented during trial, like ballistics report and DNA report.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) has been in the forefront in the gruesome case in crying out for justice.
