Maguindanao massacre families, journalists: ‘The fight for justice is far from over’

CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines – “I thought we had been forgotten.”

In tears, Cathy Nuñez, the aging mother of one of the 32 journalists mercilessly killed in the Maguindanao massacre 15 years ago, told rallying media workers in Cagayan de Oro on Saturday, November 23, that it felt like full justice was slipping out of their fingers despite convictions in 2019 and 2022.

A regional court in Quezon City has convicted Maguindanao massacre masterminds Andal Ampatuan Jr. and his brother Zaldy, former governor of the now-defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), and 26 others on multiple counts of murder. 

As of 2022, 44 were convicted, but the victims’ families have yet to be compensated, and 88 of the nearly people linked to the massacre have remained at large as of posting time.

“I thought you (journalists) and the world have forgotten us,” an aging Nuñez told a group of journalists who gathered at the Press Freedom Monument in Cagayan de Oro to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the massacre, declared as the deadliest single attack on media workers so far in history.

She lost a son, UNTV reporter Victor Nuñez, on that fateful day in the rural village of Salman, Ampatuan town in what is now the province of Maguindanao del Sur.

Nuñez told Rappler that her son was hit in the first volley of fire and the first of the victims to get killed – he was riddled with bullets, at least 20.

This was so, she said, because Victor manned up and served as the victims’ de facto negotiator, pleading to the Ampatuans to spare them.

The victims were on their way to the local office of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to file the certificate of candidacy of then gubernatorial aspirant Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu, and Victor and the other journalists tagged along to cover the event.

Due to security concerns because his candidacy was a challenge to the gubernatorial bid of Andal Jr., scion of the then well-entrenced Ampatuan political dynasty, Mangudadatu sent his pregnant wife, thinking no one would ever think of harming her. His wife was among the victims of the 2009 mass murders.

Organized journalists from the Cagayan de Oro Press Club (COPC) and National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), a lawyers’ group, and relatives of the massacre victims called for an end to political warlordism which they blamed for the carnage in the now-dissolved Maguindanao  province in November 2009.

Human rights activist Beverly Musni, representing the Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM), expressed frustration at what she called the slow justice system. She joined local journalists in calling on the government to crack down and dismantle the networks of political warlords in the country.

They said it was political warlordism, the culture of impunuty, and the environment that allows them to flourish that made the unthinkable happen in the now-defunct Maguindanao province.

Ma. Reynafe Castillo, daughter of one of the journalists killed in Maguindanao, sent Cagayan de Oro journalists a message from the United States, thanking them for remembering and expressing solidarity with them.

Castillo’s father, photojournalist Reynaldo “Bebot” Momay, has not been officially recognized by a court as a murder victim because no one found him.

She said she and her family were drawing strength from journalists who continue to commemorate the massacre and other families of the victims.

“The fight continues and will continue until we get the justice the victims deserved,” read part of Castillo’s message. 

“We maintain that the 58 victims, including the journalists killed in the massacre, received only partial justice,” said reporter Shiela Mae Butlig, NUJP-Cagayan de Oro vice president.

Butlig said the NUJP would continue supporting the victims’ families and calling on the government to ensure that there will be full justice.

Monsignor Perseus Cabunoc, who officiated the Mass during the Cagayan de Oro commemoration, said it was saddening that truth-telling “is associated with martyrdom” in the country to this day. – Rappler.com