Rewards for missing Maguindanao massacre suspects proposed

MAGUINDANAO --- Two prominent security councils will request Malacañang to put up bounties for principal suspects in the November 23, 2009 Maguindanao massacre still at large.Among the suspects who have not been served yet with arrest warrants are two grandsons of the former governor of Maguindanao, the late Andal Ampatuan, Sr., the alleged mastermind of the massacre.Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, chairman of the provincial peace and order council, said he will tap the support of lawyers to help the PPOC study how to put up rewards and where to secure needed funds.The inter-agency Maguindanao PPOC is comprised of representatives from the police, the military and the provincial prosecutor’s office. President Rodrigo Duterte has extensive knowledge on the intricacies of the massacre case. He can surely do something to raise rewards for the suspects who are still out there, Mangudadatu said.Mangudadatu revealed his plan on Thursday at the sideline of the commemorationat Sitio Salman in Barangay Masalay in Ampatuan municipalityof the eighth year since the killings. The government must put these suspects behind bars now because there are talks spreading around about their having aligned with leaders of local Islamic State-inspired militants, Mangudadatu said.Mangudadatu said he is optimistic Malacañang will put up bounties for the two grandsons of the late patriarch of the Ampatuan clan, who died of liver cancer while in detention in connection with the massacre.He said the president has been supportive, even while mayor yet of Davao City, of what is for the Mangudadatu clan an uphill struggle to win justice for all victims of the carnage.Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, who attended Thursday’s event at the site of the massacre, said the ARMM regional peace and order council will help Mangudadatu in his bid to raise bounties for elusive suspects in the atrocity.Hataman said his regional local government secretary, lawyer Kirby Abdullah, can also initiate a study on its viability.Hataman said local government units in Maguindanao, meantime, should help locate the massacre suspects reportedly hiding in towns in the second district of the province.Hataman and Mangudadatu separately urged Major Gen. Arnel Dela Vega of the Army’s 6thInfantry Division to take advantage of the expanded military powers under the Mindanao-wide martial law by mounting extensive intelligence operations to find the missing high-profile massacre suspects.Duterte placed Mindanao under martial law on May 23 after combined Maute and Abu Sayyaf militants laid siege to Marawi City, sparking a conflict that lasted until October 23.Dela Vega and representatives from the Army’s 601st, 602nd, 603rdand 1stMechanized Brigades, all under 6thID, were also present in Thursday’s activity at Barangay Masalay.Hataman said he will instruct Chief Supt. Graciano Mijares, director of PRO-ARMM, to mobilize police intelligence units that can work with local officials in probing on the exact locations now of the suspects wanted for the Maguindanao massacre.Mangudadatu, who lost a wife, Genalyn, in the massacre, said he has been continuously struggling to quell the seemingly undying emotions of his relatives over the incident. We belong to a brave noble Moro clan that fought the Spaniards, the Americans and the Japanese and that massacre was a big insult to our clan honor yet none from us resorted to retaliation. I’m thankful to my relatives for agreeing to fight for justice the legal way, through the court, he said.Besides his spouse, Mangudadatu also lost two sisters and several relatives in the killings, which left 32 journalists dead.Jergin, daughter of Saksi tabloid correspondent Gina Dela Cruz, said life became so hard for her and her siblings, Jergiselie, 15, and Jergilyn, 16, after their mother’s demise in the massacre. My grandmother, Nancy, has to invent stories to create the impression that my siblings were selling shabu just for the Department of Social Welfare and Development to put them in a facility for minor law offenders where there is free food, Jergin said.She said she was angered by her grandmother’s move at first, but realized it was for the good of Jergiselie and Jergilyn. They have gone to the extent of begging for food from neighbors just to survive. My grandmother, who died on September 9 last year, did something good for them, Jergin added.