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?