Aquino faces flak from massacre victims’ kin

By Ritchie A Horario /Manila Times

President Benigno Aquino has been criticised for failing to mention the four-year-old Maguindanao massacre case in his State of the Nation Address (SONA), by the families of the victims yesterday.

Harry Roque, the legal counsel of the families of the 15 of the 58 victims, said the non-inclusion of the case in the president’s SONA only proved his lack of political will to punish those charged with the gruesome killings. “The president’s failure to state how he intend to finish the prosecution of the massacre case points to a lack of political will to punish those who will violate freedom of the press and the right to life,” he said.

However, Roque said they are still hoping that Aquino would address his administration’s plan to speed up the trial of the 106 accused. Among the accused are members of the Ampatuan clan in Maguindanao.“It was very sad that President Noynoy Aquino, for the first time in his SONA, did not have anything to say about the Maguindanao massacre,” Roque said.

He added that as chief executive, it is still Aquino’s duty to prosecute and punish the perpetrators of the massacre. This is after some of the victims’ families were almost entering into an out-of-court settlement with the Ampatuans. Roque had revealed that 14 families signed an agreement with an emissary of the Ampatuans on February to drop the case in exchange for P50mn.

The families were asked to executive an affidavit of desistance and another affidavit that would state,  that Maguindanao Governor Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu, the Ampatuans’ rival, had promised to pay them P30,000 each after they had filed his certificate of candidacy for the 2010 elections.

However, the deal did not work because the emissary was killed.