Authorities failed to secure massacre site - media groups

Almost a week after the November 23 massacre in Maguindanao, the crime scene remains heavily littered. Newspapers and used SIM cards lay scattered on the ground. There is even a tuft of long hair lying around, surrounded by other materials that could have belonged to any of the 57 unfortunate victims in the gruesome mass murder. Apparently, authorities have failed to properly secure the massacre site where potential evidence against the perpetrators can be found. These observations, among others, can be found in the report of the fact-finding delegation sent by some of the country's biggest media institutions -- the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, MindaNews, and the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists, a broad coalition of other media organizations -- to the massacre site in Ampatuan town over the weekend.

The 28-page report, based on the findings of the team that gathered information in Mindanao from November 25 to 30, was made public Thursday at a press conference in Quezon City. "The retrieval team from the military and police was clearly assigned to achieve only one task: get the bodies out. There was little or no consideration given to preserving the evidence. There was little or no consideration given to avoid the contamination of the crime scene," the report said. "The authorities have been gathering a lot of testimonies, but showed less emphasis to securing physical evidence," said the media organizations, whose team gathered evidence in Maguindanao. In their rush to retrieve the bodies, authorities also used a backhoe--different from the one allegedly used by the perpetrators to dig up a mass grave--which may have added damage to the buried bodies, said NUJP Noynoy Espina during the press conference. But Chief Superintendent Felicisimo Khu, head of the Joint Task Force Alpha in Maguindanao that spearheads the investigation on the site, defended the Scene of the Crime Operatives from Region 12 and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which conducted the retrieval operations. "Karapatan naman nila (media groups) mag-criticize, but our SOCO personnel are experienced enough to decide which items there are collected as evidence," Khu told GMANews.TV over the phone. He added that a military platoon is guarding the massacre site at all times to ensure that no one can just enter the area. Khu said they still continue to gather evidence based on reports they receive, such as on Sunday when they were able to retrieve 23 spent shells from a nearby area. Khu also justified the haste with which authorities retrieved the bodies: "Please take note, ang mga relatives nag-reklamo na bakit matagal mag-imbestiga (The relatives were already complaining about the slowness of the investigation)." Last November 23, a convoy led by the wife and two sisters of Buluan town Vice Mayor Ismael "Toto" Mangudadatu were blocked by a group of around 100 armed men while it was on its way to Shariff Aguak to file Mangudadatu's certificate of candidacy for his gubernatorial bid. They were later found killed, some of them buried, in a hillside mass grave in Ampatuan town. The convoy also included about 30 journalists, which, according to the media organizations' report, comprised 54 percent of the victims. Most of the media practitioners killed were based in General Santos City. Datu Unsay town Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., a scion of the powerful Ampatuan clan, has been detained and charged with 25 counts of murder. [See: DOJ files 25 counts of murder vs Andal Jr.] On Wednesday, the Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) recommended the filing of murder charges against five more members of the Ampatuan clan, including its patriarch, Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan Sr., and six others. [See: Multiple murder raps filed vs Ampatuan patriarch, 4 kin] The media groups, however, said "government response to the situation has not fully eased the anxiety and fear of the residents and media workers in the affected areas." "The threats to the safety and security of the communities linger, especially with the forthcoming elections likely to fire up the tension between partisan rivals and political clans," said the 28-page report. Long-term humanitarian assistance for the victims' families is also needed, the media groups said. Around 23 journalists slain in the massacre had children. NUJP board member and PCIJ research director Rowena Carranza-Paraan said a foreign delegation composed of 12 to 15 representatives from the International Federation of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists, among others, would go to General Santos City in Mindanao from December 6 to 10 to extend assistance to the victims' families and grieving fellow journalists of the murdered media practitioners. "They want to understand why it happened," Paraan said. - RSJ/KBK, GMANews.TV