Before Martial Law was imposed in Maguindanao, the Ampatuans were known worldwide as the prime suspects in the deliberate liquidation of 57 people, 30 of  them journalists. This has set a world record for the worst one-day killing of media men in peace time, while covering a democratic exercise.

To understand how stupefied many of us at the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) were at the sudden declaration of Martial Law to catch the Ampatuans, let me give this background.

For many FOCAP members, Filipino rebels are just a phone call away. It is at times easier for us to reach by mobile phone a communist or Muslim rebel leader than a high government official.

And for those covering rebels since 1987, the Ampatuans have never been in our  radar. In fact, top officials of the Moro National Liberation Front used to tell me that they felt very aggrieved that the Muslim autonomy they had won with the blood of their warriors was handed on a silver platter by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to a member of the Ampatuan clan which had continuously opposed them during the Marcos dictatorship.

If the Ampatuans are indeed rebels, they seemed to be a different species altogether.By being suspected of killing journalists en masse just before launching their rebellion, they have ensured that the media will boycott and even be hostile towards them. What strange rebels indeed.

Our years of covering and writing about the Muslim and communist insurgencies have taught us that rebels don’t as a rule liquidate journalists because it is not in their creed and not to their advantage. Even the Abu Sayyaf, branded terrorist by the United States and the European Union, has merely held hostage and robbed members of FOCAP and other media men who came to cover them. It has yet to behead a reporter deliberately, knock on wood.

Many FOCAP members who regularly take the red-eye flight to central Mindanao to cover the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) know the reputation of the Ampatuans. They are the king of the hill, the warlords, the overlords, the one whose 15-car speeding convoy you avoid on the highway if you don’t want your car to end up like a pretzel.

Foreign and local journalists take their life in their hands whenever they cover in the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Do you know that Manila’s insurance firms have attached a permanent rider to life and accident insurance products that says – death due to non-natural causes is not covered if this occurs in the ARMM area?

It is perhaps in this context that one can better appreciate the emotional outburst during the December 7, 2009 briefing of veteran FOCAP member Tress Martelino-Reyes, correspondent for the Japanese news agency Nikkei. Tress is not a parachute journalist. She once reported for the broadsheet Manila Chronicle.

To understand why she mentioned the phrase “sitting on their ass,” listen to this exchange between her and Secretary Puno:

Some people have taken strong exception to the fact that FOCAP has issued a very strong political statement against the imposition of Martial Law in Maguindanao. Members of FOCAP are not elected by the people, one critic said.

True. But the press is a strange sort of animal in the Philippines, specifically protected by the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, which states: “No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press…”

I believe the press is protected only because it is an external mechanism intended to check state abuse. President Gloria   Macapagal-Arroyo has been trying mightily to revise this particular constitutional provision in order to defang the press and make it into the lapdog that it was during Marcos’ Martial Law.

The Ampatuan massacre has been condemned worldwide. Even in Manila, we feel its chilling effect. As political analyst Manolo Quezon indicated, it has ripped away a talisman that the press thought it had – a thin piece of paper wedged between two pieces of laminated  plastic called “the press card”.

If those who killed 30 journalists in one day can get away with it, this signals to others  how easy it would be to kill one or two or three.

We were all understandably very eager to know as much as we could how the Ampatuans suddenly became rebels. By the way, this should really qualify the Philippines in the Guinness Book of World Records as the country with the most number of simultaneous rebellions.

We were glad the presidential palace took the trouble to brief us. FOCAP Executive Director Gabby Tabuñar, former Manila correspondent for CBS News, ably steered the question and answer portion. Present in the briefing were the following:

1. Presidential spokesman and Press Secretary Cerge Remonde
2. Interior and Local overnments Secretary Ronaldo Puno
3. Acting Justice Secretary Agnes Devandera
4. Armed Forces deputy chief of staff for operations Major General Gaudencio S. Pangilinan
5. Armed Forces spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner
6. Philippine National Police Director General Jesus Versoza
7. Philippine National Police spokesman Senior Superintendent Leonardo Espina
8. Philippine National Police Director for Operations Andres Caro  II

To listen to Puno answer questions about this posed by Focap member Charmaine Deogracias of NHK, please click on this.

Police Director General Jesus Versoza (second on the right in the video) and Police spokesman Senior Superintendent Leonardo Espina also dazzled us with an enumeration of the wide array of high-powered weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition they had seized from the Ampatuans’ huge warehouses and palatial homes.

When the government imposed a state of emergency followed by Martial Law in the southern Philippine province of Maguindanao, the reason it gave was that it feared an outbreak of violence between the Ampatuan and Mangudadatu clans.

Authorities had described both clans as “well-armed”.  Seeing how well-armed the Ampatuans were, Karl Wilson of Agence France Presse  naturally wanted to know if the Mangudadatus had been disarmed as well by the government.

Judge by Puno’s answer whether this has happened.

FOCAP member Dana Batnag of Jiji Press also wanted to know whether the acts of  the Ampatuans met the legal definition of rebellion. Dana is a part-time law student at the University of the Philippines College of Law and was once a reporter for The Manila Chronicle.

The Revised Penal Code defines rebellion as “rising publicly and taking arms against the Government for the purpose of removing allegiance from said Government the territory of the Repulic of the Philipines or any part thereof…or depriving the Chief Executive or the Legislature, wholly or partially, of any of their powers or prerogatives.”

Based on our personal experience as reporters, rebellion is being committed by Muslim separatists trying to secede; by communist rebels trying to violently overthrow government; and by soldier rebels trying to unseat the Philippine president.

So what did the Ampatuans try to do to merit such a label, Dana wanted to know. Click on video below to listen to the government’s explanation.

I followed up Dana’s query by asking whether it was possible no rebellion took place because the tax-paid militia men were only ever loyal to the Ampatuans and never to the Philippine Republic. Armed Forces deputy chief of staff for operations Major General Gaudencio S. Pangilinan, seated off camera beside Gabby, gave the answer:

I also asked if authorities had all the while been looking “the other way” while the Ampatuans amassed all those arms and ammo:

FOCAP members were also intrigued to find out who was the leader of the firefights between government forces and Ampatuan loyalists.

Jim Gomez of Associated Press asked the security officials to elaborate on the charges filed against the Ampatuans.

Jim also wanted to know what method the authorities were using to round up the rest of the suspects.

After the briefing, I tried to ransack my mind, trying to compare the Ampatuan rebels with all the other rebels I had encountered. They did not fit any of the current moulds.

Rebels usually secrete documents laying out their ideology and plans. I remember that when the Magdalo group first burst into the picture, the president’s national security adviser Victor Corpuz briefed FOCAP extensively on the Magdalo’s ideology, using computer diskettes they found.

All that ransacking the government did inside the various Ampatuan mansions failed to turn up a single piece of paper outlining the Ampatuan rebel ideology. I sure would like to hear the Ampatuan ideology, or does this consist only of using a chainsaw and a backhoe?

If the Ampatuans had turned rebels on November 26, why did Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao Governor Zaldy Ampatuan hold a press conference three days later to appeal to media and the presidential palace to treat him fairly? That would have been the perfect time to launch their rebellion.

Personally, I believe the Arroyo government imposed Martial Law and suspended the writ of habeas corpus so it could arrest the Ampatuans and brand them rebels.

Justice secretary Agnes Devanadera herself stated as much before FOCAP when asked by Manny Mogato of Reuters for an update on the massacre:

Without Martial Law, the Ampatuans are just suspected monsters and mass murderers.

Manny also asked if the government might investigate the Ampatuans if they diverted any funds coming from the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) and Japan’s JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) to buying their illegal armory.  Here’s Puno’s reply -

Days later, Malacañang Palace backtracked on the matter. See GMAnews story.

What really bothers me is what Arroyo’s deputy spokeswoman Lorelei Fajardo said:

“If we will see later on that the Ampatuans are found guilty based on the investigation, then whether ally or not they will not be given special treatment and they should be punished… but it doesn’t mean that we are no longer friends with them if they are guilty. I think that should be treated separately” (My underscoring.)

It’s okay for the president to continue being friends with the Ampatuans even if they prove to be monsters?

The Philippine government may well be resorting to a rubber band lifting of Martial Law – gone today, here again tomorrow maybe.

Catholic prelates are breathing a sigh of relief, but I’m one of those who aren’t. To understand why, I’ve inserted below two video clips I’ve uploaded to YouTube.

The imposition of Martial Law has done untold damage to the body politic, in the same way that drastic brain surgery profoundly affects a human being.

Unknown to many, the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) to which I belong, strongly denounced President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s action on December 8 last week.

The Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) strongly opposes the imposition of martial law in Maguindanao province.

Several groups, including respected legal experts, have questioned its constitutionality before the Supreme Court.

While FOCAP has called for the swift arrest and prosecution of suspects in the November 23 massacre, it considers the martial law declaration a very dangerous precedent.

Proclamation 1959 sends a chilling reminder of the Philippine authorities’ failure to eradicate longstanding threats to law and order, including the existence of political warlords and private armies, which have attacked civilians and journalists in the past.

The FOCAP – born in the dark days of Ferdinand Marcos’s martial rule as a vanguard of press freedom – urges President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to immediately recall Proclamation 1959 and fully restore civil liberties in all areas placed under martial rule.

The Philippine government should go after the perpetrators of the Maguindanao massacre using the full force of the legal and democratic instruments at its disposal.

It was issued a day after cabinet, military and police officials briefed FOCAP on the issue. It was a highly skeptical foreign press corps that attended that December 7 meeting arranged by the presidential palace.

In that standing-room-only presscon, Arroyo-appointed officials justified turning the Ampatuans into rebels instead of the alleged monsters who murdered in daylight 57 political rivals and journalists last Nov. 23. And then tried to bury the bodies.

After the briefing, I approached Major General Gaudencio Pangilinan, the Armed Forces deputy chief of staff for operations, to ask for his contact numbers. “I don’t answer suicide questions,” he jokingly said before granting my request.

I could sympathize with the general who had to answer some very tough questions thrown by FOCAP members. From my experience interviewing them, some of the nation’s best and brightest are in uniform but have to toe the official line.

In the same manner, FOCAP, which was born during the darkest days of the Marcos dictatorship, has to remain true to its calling. FOCAP has built a reputation for barbecuing all those who appear before the it, all for the sake of ferreting out and reporting the truth. I am a proud member of Focap.

It is this reason, I guess, that has prompted President Arroyo to skip the traditional yearly president’s luncheon with us since 2006.

I have to hand it, though, to Ronaldo Puno and Agnes Devanadera, the Department of Interior and Local Governments secretary and the Department of Justice acting secretary, who faced us Monday last week. Puno is one tough political operator while Devanadera never lost her cool. Also present was my favorite presidential spokesman, Cerge Remonde, who always makes my day whenever he comes up with novel explanations for the president’s actions. (I especially like that one about the president’s boobs.)

That day, though, there was no light moment. We were talking about suspected mass murderers and how – in the blink of an eye – they became rebels.

Puno was very exact and all-knowing as to the date when the Ampatuans and their followers suddenly turned rebels – November 26, 2009 – after Andal Ampatuan Jr. was turned over to the government without handcuffs.

Justice Secretary Devanadera, who was seated beside him, agreed.

Puno told us:

“On November 26, when action was being taken against suspects on multiple murder – apparently all these forces (rostered policemen and various kinds of civilian militia men) switched their allegiance to their family,” the Ampatuans. He said that instead of defending the Constituiton and the Republic of the Philippines, “they now become instruments of violating the law of land, no longer following the chain of command.”

He added that “this was really the incipient rebellion at that time. On 26 we told the secretary of justice (Devanadera) a condition of rebellion already existed.”

I was stupefied by his statements. Personally, I had a problem reconciling the evidence presented by the authorities with the idea that precisely on November 26, thousands of Ampatuan followers suddenly switched allegiance from the Republic of the Philippines to the Ampatuans.

It was also clear that all that firepower was not amassed in a week but probably took months and even years, I said.

And so I asked: Was it possible that no switching of allegiance from the Philippine Republic to the Ampatuans took place (and therefore no rebellion) because the civilian militia men were never really loyal to the Republic but only to the Ampatuans who caused them to be hired in the first place?

General Pangilinan answered but unfortunately you can only hear him but not see him on the video. (I’m learning. Give me some time to master this. I didn’t see the bottle at the left-hand corner, but come to think of it, it was  probably the most transparent thing that day. ) To listen to General Pangilinan’s reply, please watch this video I’ve uploaded on YouTube -

I was aghast to see all that firepower in the hands of  politicians. I told Puno and the other officials that must have been amassed through months and even years. Were the Ampatuans actually preparing to turn rebels all these years, I asked them.

And did they know, given all their intelligence assets, that the Ampatuans were amassing arms?

Here’s their reply on YouTube.  Notice that the officials paused and looked at each other, as if waiting for the other to answer.

I had other questions but there was no time to ask the following:

• Why didn’t the Ampatuans use all that gizmo and ammo to prevent the arrest of their patriarch, Maguindanao governor Andal Sr., and Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) governor Zaldy Ampatuan on December 6 – or nine days after they had supposedly turned rebels?  Surely, the arrest of the most senior leaders could doom their rebellion. One would reasonably expect a rebel group with such formidable firepower not to give up without a fight. But remarkably, thousands of their followers merely melted away in the darkness after their masters had turned rebels.
• The authorities described Ampatuan followers as in “offensive” and “defensive” positions, but the only firefight they could elaborate on to FOCAP happened Sunday night of December 6 – or nearly 48 hours after Martial Law was imposed. A 10-minute firefight isn’t much if you compare it to those of the MILF and the Abu Sayyaf which last an entire day or days.  And Martial Law was never imposed for those.

How a 10-minute “firefight” could have been used as the justification, when it happened nearly two days after Martial Law was imposed, boggles the mind.

What worries me is wondering what their next reason would be to justify a reimposition of Martial Law.

Next – Part 2 will feature more YouTube video clips from the Malacanang Palace-sponsored FOCAP briefing and why Focap member Tress Martelino uttered the now famous words  “sitting on your ass.”

Citing the wrong law as the legal basis shows that this  martial law is so sloppily put together.  I fear the suspected murderers can get away with murder by exploiting precisely this sloppiness.

In this instance, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed Proclamation 1959 using the following as her basis for declaring Martial Law:

• the Constitution and
• Republic Act 6986.

But RA 6986 happens to be “An Act establishing a high school in Barangay Dulop, municipality of Dumingag, province of Zamboanga del Sur, to be known as the Dulop High School, and appropriating funds therefore.” See for yourself. Go to chanrobles.com and scroll down to view RA6986

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita shows a copy of Proclamation No. 1959 signed on December 4, 2009 by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, proclaiming a state of martial law and suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in the province of Maguindanao, except for certain areas after a press briefing Saturday (December 5) in Malacanang. (Official photo release by the Office of the Press Secretary, photo by Marcelino Pascua)

Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera must have caught on to this mistake because in the press conference today at noon in Malacanang Palace, she started by pointing out a “clerical error” in Proclamation 1959.  She didn’t apologize or explain the mistake, though.  To watch the presscon,  go to Dec 5, 2009

She said: “Let me first announce a correction in our Proclamation No. 1959. There is a clerical error on the third ‘Whereas’ clause –instead of RA No. 6989, it should be Act no. 3815 as amended which is the Revised Penal Code.”

What happens now to Zaldy and Andal Ampatuan Sr who were arrested on the basis of this proclamation? Could their wily lawyer  Sigfrid Fortun  exploit this mistake to point out that their arrests were baseless?

Let’s assume good faith. Perhaps the drafters of the proclamation were sleepy and made a mistake and inverted the numbers?

Sure enough, they did. R.A. 6968 is – “An Act punishing the crime of coup d’etat by amending Articles 134, 135 and 136 of…The Revised Penal Code, and for other purposes.”

This is the same provision in the Revised Penal Code that Devanadera said the Proclamation referred to.

It states how rebellion or insurrection is committed:

“The crime of rebellion or insurrection is committed by rising and taking arms against the Government for the purpose of removing from the allegiance to said Government or its laws, the territory of the Republic of the Philippines or any part thereof, of any body of land, naval or other armed forces, or depriving the Chief Executive or the Legislature, wholly or partially, of any of their powers or prerogatives.”

Let’s break down this long sentence,

“The crime of rebellion or insurrection is committed by rising and taking arms against the Government…

I’m puzzled by this. It’s now sunset and no armed men – that the military said were massing -  have been were arrested in connection with the rebellion.

During the press con, Devanadera justified martial law by saying: “It was a looming and in fact it was already practically an overthrow of government. The courts were not functioning in Maguindanao.”

But she had started her explanation by saying: “There were arrests and there were witnesses that came up and the appropriate charges were filed for multiple murder. ” Didn’t that show a functioning court?

The Supreme Court spokesman Midas Marquez also rejected Devanadera’s claim of a non-functioning court there.  See  SC contradicts Palace on judiciary in Maguindanao.

To further justify martial law, she said,  “practically the local governments in the whole of Mindanao had been removed from the legitimate government authorities. In fact most of these local government units, even the municipal buildings especially, have closed down. They cease to render government services and there was massing in various parts of heavily armed men.”

Perhaps there is another reason why town halls shut down? Last week, President Arroyo gave Interior and Local Governments Secretary Ronaldo Puno wide supervisory powers over the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) which includes Maguindanao. Presidential spokesman Cerge Remonde said Puno had the power to suspend all officials of Maguindanao province and relieve all police and military commanders in the area.

Did he or did he not suspend local executives? And didn’t he also have the power to replace them for dereliction of duty?

Today Remonde practically said media should be grateful for martial law. He said “this step is taken by Her Excellency President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in answer to that cry for justice of the victims of the Maguindanao massacre.”

Unfortunately, the Ampatuans will not be tried by a military court but by a civilian court that could throw out vital evidence just because this was taken in an unconstitutional manner.

I fear this martial law is a set-up. An overkill that will harm the case of  the Filipino people against the Ampatuans.

“We need a backhoe to empty out the previously excavated mass graves to sift through the debris to ascertain whether an untouched part of the grave may still hold some human remains,” according to Peruvian forensic anthropologist Dr. Jose Pablo Baraybar who is helping gather forensic evidence to use in the coming court trial.

They are still looking for a possible 58th victim.

I am reprinting below the latest press release issued by Atty. Romel Regalado Bagares, executive director of the  lawyers’ NGO, the Center for International Law, which is also helping out.

PRESS RELEASE 12/3/09

Cotabato City – The independent forensic team led by Peruvian forensic anthropologist Dr. Jose Pablo Baraybar said yesterday it is “now almost sure that there is a 58^th body” that is yet unaccounted for after his team’s discovery of a partial upper left denture with a metal clasp at the crime scene that did not fit any of the remains already recovered.

As this developed, Baraybar and his team were set to fly back to Manila yesterday on the advice of their private security consultants who reported that the group was being cased by armed men.

Dr. Baraybar  said the dentures belonged to slain Midland Review staff Reynaldo “Bebot” Momay, of Tacurong City Sultan Kudarat, according to his dental records.

“However, the dentures  did not fit the set of human remains earlier identified as belonging to Momay,” said  the forensic anthropologist, adding that the same body is being claimed as well by the families of  Victor Nuñez  and a certain Tiamzon, both of UNTV based in General Santos City.

The discovery of the dentures brings to 58 the number of people who perished in the Nov. 23 carnage. Ealier, authorities reported that a total of 57 human remains have been recovered from the site and of these, only three have remained unidentified.

However, Dr. Baraybar’s team found that of the three remains, two have a full set of teeth while the third has full upper and lower dentures. “This clearly means we have another body still missing.”

Baraybar’s team began evidence-gathering at the massacre site in Barangay Salman, Ampatuan town Sunday.  The dentures were recovered Wednesday in a grassy area near one of the vehicles – a Songgyang van – in the convoy that was waylaid by some 100 armed men  linked to the powerful Ampatuan clan.

The Peruvian forensic expert said Momay’s dentures are  held in place by a metal clasp and could not be easily dislodged unless extracted by an indirect force. “That is the best guess we can have at this moment.”

Dr. Baraybar and his British counterpart Christopher Cobb-Smith, a weapons expert and experienced field investigator, lead a team of forensic investigators and lawyers from the Center for International Law (CenterLaw) deputized by the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to conduct an independent parallel investigation on the Ampatuan massacre.  He also directed the Office on Missing Persons and Forensics of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo.

Baraybar and Cobb-Smith are joined in the team by Centerlaw lawyers Harry Roque, Joel Butuyan, Romel Bagares and Gilbert Andres.

The group’s recovery efforts had been hampered by the lack of heavy equipment. “We need a backhoe to empty out the previously excavated mass graves to sift through the debris to ascertain whether an untouched part of the grave may still hold some human remains,” said Dr. Baraybar.  “It has to be carefully done – we have some experience doing this in the Balkans in our work for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.”

The legal team’s chief counsel, Harry Roque, said he was able to arrange for a backhoe and a truck for the use of the forensic investigation to be fielded to the crime scene by Saturday morning.

“We’re moving our base of operations from Cotabato City to Koronadal City, where the security risks are not as high,” said Roque.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s run for Congress is being favourably compared by her supporters to that of United States President John Quincy Adams.

The allusion, it turns out, is not entirely correct. It could also prove unfortunate and make her critics quite happy.

Adams, according to our 1968 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica printed in the US, finished his term as president in 1829. It was only a year later that he ran for Congress and won, and not while sitting in the Oval Office.

“When it was suggested to him that his acceptance of this position would degrade an ex-president, Adams replied that no person could be degraded by serving the people as a representative in Congress.”

A desire for vindication may have been behind Adam’s decision to run for Congress.  Like Arroyo, his presidential electoral victory came under a cloud early on and marred his entire term. He was accused of  vote-buying and corruption after he appointed as Secretary of State the person who had cast the winning vote for him in the electoral college – the body that ultimately determines who should be president.

Arroyo, too,was accused of allegedly rigging her votes in the 2004 race.

Adams served in Congress for 17 years but all the while “he had not abandoned his hopes for a re-election to the presidency,” the Britannica said.

On February 21, 1848, while delivering a vituperative speech inside the session hall,  “he suffered a cerebral stroke,  fell unconscious to the floor of the house and died two days later in the capitol building.”

Britannica’s description of Adams reminds me very much of Arroyo:  “He had few intimate friends, and not many men in American history have been regarded, during the period of our lifetime, with so much hosility and attacked with so much rancour by their political opponents.”