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PHILIPPINES: Will Blood-soaked Election Change Maguindanao? – Part 2

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines, Dec 3 2009 (IPS) - "Young and old, whether you’re against them (the Ampatuans) or not, were (forcibly) taken from their homes and brought to a place somewhere in Maguindanao, where they were tortured and later killed," recounted a resident of Cotabato City—a major city bordering Maguindanao in southern Philippines— who declined to be named out of fear for his life.

He said he was not at the site of the explosion but he knew of some individuals who were picked up by armed men, then later killed. Others, who were also suspected of conniving with the perpetrators, remain missing to this day.

For days and weeks on end, dead bodies would be found at specific spots, at times floating on Rio Grande de Mindanao—the longest river in Mindanao, the second largest island group in the Philippines—and Tamontaka River, a major tributary of Rio Grande—at others dumped on abandoned lots while some of the other murdered victims were found hanging from trees.

Until today, the suspects remain at large, because witnesses to the 2003 carnage were too scared to testify against them.

"None of those I talked to was willing to come out in the open so the perpetrators were not charged and have remained scot-free," a police investigator assigned to the case had told IPS back in 2003.

The Ampatuans, who have been in power for more than a decade, are widely perceived to have ruled Maguindanao province like a fiefdom and are deemed untouchables. Their power has grown exponentially with their increased political alliances, notably with the administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who came to power in January 2001, after Joseph Estrada was ousted in a popular revolt over allegations of massive corruption.

The extremely powerful clan started to wield power in Maguindanao when Datu Andal Ampatuan, Sr., acknowledged patriarch of the clan, became governor of the province in 1998 under former President Estrada’s watch. Since then he has been re-elected to the same post twice unopposed. Many believe he would have run again for the same position if not for the Constitutional provision imposing term limits on elected officials. Andal Ampatuan, Jr., incumbent mayor of Datu Unsay, a town in the province, was thus reportedly groomed by the elder Ampatuan to succeed him when his term ends in 2010.

In 1998, during his first term as governor, the elder Ampatuan was believed to have lent his support to the national government’s campaign against the Moro International Liberation Front (MILF).

In 2000, government forces overran 47 MILF camps in Mindanao, mostly in Maguindanao, when Estrada declared an all-out war against the Muslim rebels.

The 2000 war destroyed the MILF’s stronghold in Barira, a town in northern Maguindanao, and displaced nearly one million people, based on data from the social welfare department and local media reports. In 2003, the government overran the MILF’s headquarters in Buliok, Maguindanao, where half a million people were displaced.

Hardly anyone has discounted the important role the Ampatuans played in ‘winning the war’ against the MILF—which has been fighting for the recognition of their right to self-determination—during those years.

Fast forward to 2004. As the Ampatuans tightened its grip on power—with several of the descendants holding local elective positions—Maguindanao and other provinces of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM)—a sub-region in Mindanao consisting of Muslim-dominated provinces, including Maguindanao—emerged as an administration bailiwick.

Arroyo was hounded by widespread allegations of cheating her way to the presidency, thanks to the wholesale cheating in the Ampatuan-ruled areas of Mindanao, where the ruling clan was rumored to have delivered the needed votes to her—allegedly through rigging—to ensure her victory against a formidable opponent, the late movie actor Fernando Poe Jr., who was extremely popular among Muslims. Yet in 2004, when local and national elections were held, Poe never got a single vote in Maguindanao.

Rumors of rigged votes in the Ampatuans’ bailiwick flew fast and thick yet again in the 2007 senatorial elections. The administration ticket got a 12-0 sweep in Maguindanao.

Through the years the Ampatuans have built their own private army, whose members hover around a thousand. The clan’s private goons, as they are known in and outside their political turf, operate under a cloak of civilian defense against terrorism, enlisted and armed no less by the military.

Chief Supt Felicisimo Khu, deputy director for operations of the Philippine National Police in Central Mindanao, said the 6th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army in Maguindanao provided the Ampatuans with a private army equipped with high-powered firearms on the pretext that it was part of the anti-terrorism campaign of the Arroyo government.

"The cozy ties between central government and local warlords blanket the Philippine countryside with a climate of fear born of a culture of impunity," said the NUJP.

In its September 2008 report titled "Amid the fighting, the clan rules in Maguindanao," the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism said, "political analysts trace the clan’s formidable clout to two main factors: guns and the blessings of Malacanang [the official residence of the President]."

It is therefore no surprise that the Ampatuans are feared and loathed in equal measures. Those who dare to challenge them in political contests are in not only for a shock but for a very real bloodbath. Reason enough why no sooner than Mangudadatu announced in July that he was running for governor than he started inviting death threats, solely attributed to the ruling clan and its patriarch—and no one else.

On Nov. 27, four days after the carnage, Mangudadatu, more resolute than ever to run for the gubernatorial post in Maguindanao, submitted his certificate of candidacy at the provincial election office in Shariff Aguak. This came about a day after Andal, Jr., yielded himself to authorities for investigation.

"I want to change the political landscape of Maguindanao, that’s why I’m running, no matter what," declared Mangudadatu.

Mangudadatu belongs to an equally powerful clan in Maguindanao that used to be allies of the Ampatuans. Sources say his family has not been entirely blameless over the long-drawn-out and uncertain state of affairs in Maguindanao, prompting others to be sceptical about the prospects for reform in the province after 2010, assuming he gets elected as governor.

Elections will not change the situation in Maguindanao, Catholic priest Orlando Quevedo, archbishop of the diocese of Cotabato, was quoted as saying in the local media.

"We have not tried to change this culture of political convenience and thus allowed a culture of impunity to endure through successive administrations. Elections have not and will not change this situation. We simply get more of the same," he said.