Drugs possibly emboldened Maguindanao massacre perpetrators

MAGUINDANAO --- The narcotics problem plaguing the country was a serious topic among groups that gathered Wednesday to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the infamous Maguindanao massacre in Ampatuan municipality.Among those who talked lengthily on allegations on being hooked to drugs of the principal suspects in the carnage wasMaguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, who lost his wife, Genalyn, in the incident. They would not have mercilessly killed the victims if they were not high on drugs. My wife was hit with bullets more than a dozen times. She was even shot in the breast and in her genitals with a deadly automatic weapon possibly while lying on the ground bleeding helplessly, Mangudadatu said.The incident, which left 58 people dead, 32 of them journalists, was the country’s worst election-related violence ever, which happened almost six months before the May 2010 synchronized local and national elections.Close relatives of the massacre suspects, among them incumbent local executives, have since been asserting the culprits were using methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu) then, distributed conveniently by drug rings in the province at that time.Genalyn was on her way to the old provincial capitol in Shariff Aguak to file for Mangudadatu, then a vice mayor of Buluan, his candidacy for provincial governor during the 2010 elections when she and her companions were flagged down at Barangay Masalay in Ampatuan town by gunmen led by Andal Ampatuan, Jr., an aspirant for the same elective post.The convoy of the massacre victims was herded to a hinterland in Sitio Salman west of Barangay Masalay where their killers felled them one after another using assault rifles and K-3 machineguns.Mangudadatu was to challenge then the candidacy for governor of Ampatuan, Jr., scion of the once feared Ampatuan clan ruling the province at that time with absolute intolerance for political opposition.Ampatuan, Jr. was arrested and detained four days after the incident, denying him the chance to pursue his bid for the gubernatorial post of Maguindanao. The proliferation of shabu in Maguindanao at that time was unhampered because no one from among our provincial leaders lifted a finger to address the problem, said a municipal councilor who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.Also present in the Wednesday commemoration of the seventh anniversary of the massacre was lawyer Nena Santos, a counsel to the families of the massacre victims.Mangudadatu and Santos separately told reporters they are optimistic the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221, which is litigating the massacre case, can hand down a verdict within the term of President Rodrigo Duterte.No fewer than ten witnesses to the massacre have either been killed or have mysteriously disappeared in the past seven years.A suspect-turned state witness, Sukarno Badal, who personally saw how the victims were slaughtered, told reporters last year he already has lingering illnesses and is worried he might die waiting for a decision on the case. If I am gone, all the affidavits I executed will become weak. The case must proceed while I am still around to talk openly in the court about what I saw that day, Badal then said.Badal had also lamented on the mysterious disappearance of his relatives and the murder of two more in attacks he believed were related to his having volunteered to testify in court.Mangudadatu said the slow progress in the case has not weakened his resolve to continue his clan’s quest for justice. I lost my wife and my two sisters, Farina and Eden, in that incident. Even so, we never took the law into our hands. We never resorted to retaliations even if our family comes from an ancient Maguindanaon noble warrior clan, he said.Among those yearning for a speedy resolution of the case is the now 83-year-old retired government university professor Marino Ridao, Sr., who had served as councilor in Cotabato City for three consecutive terms. Ridao, who lost his son, Anthony, in the massacre, said he wants to see a verdict before his life will end. Heis the oldest among relatives of those killed in the incident.His slain son was not among the people the Ampatuans allegedly plotted to kill. Anthonywas riding a car that tried to overtake the convoy of the victims, but got caught in the middle of the long line of vehicles the suspects stopped at a stretch of a highway in Barangay Masalay.Only 17 from the 32 families of the journalists who perished in the incident remained aggressive in prosecuting the culprits, three of them children of Ampatuan, Sr., who died of liver cancer more than a year ago while detained for his role in the mass killings.