4 more Maguindanao massacre suspects volunteer to be arraigned

Four more suspects in the Maguindanao massacre are giving up their contentions against moves to arraign them for the high-profile case. The suspects have informed a Quezon City court they were no longer interested in pursuing their respective motions for reinvestigation regarding the 57 counts of murder slapped against them for the November 23, 2009 bloodbath that killed 57 people, including 32 media workers. Misuari Ampatuan, Tato Sampogao, Taya Bangkulat and Salik Bangkulat asked Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of Regional Trial Court Branch 221 if they could already be arraigned. “Accused respectfully submit that for the sake of expediency for all parties, herein, there is a necessity of withdrawing the motion for reinvestigation and that they be arraigned as soon as possible," the suspects said in their pleading. In the motion for reinvestigation filed earlier by their lawyer Andres Manuel in January, the four suspects contested the charges against them, stressing they were never subjected under preliminary investigation. But on Friday, the four decided to just ask the court to arraign them so they could enter their pleas. The request came a week after another suspect, Senior Police Officer 2 (SPO2) Badawi Bakal asked the court to arraign him as he was already giving up a motion for reconsideration he filed in connection with the massacre case. In his pleading, Bakal said he "realized that his case will drag for so long if he will await the resolution of his motion for reconsideration." In response, Judge Solis-Reyes set the arraignment of Bakal and another suspect Nasser Esmael for Thursday next week (April 7) at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City, where most of the suspects are being detained. Court records showed that only 51 of the 196 suspects accused in the high-profile case have so far been arraigned and all of them pleaded not-guilty. At least 57 people, 32 of them journalists, were killed in what has been regarded as the worst single-day, election-related violence. Most of the victims belonged to an electoral convoy supposed to file the certificate of candidacy register then Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu in the May 2010 elections. On their way, however, members of the Mangudadatus' rival clan, the Ampatuan family, allegedly waylaid them and led them to a hilly portion of Ampatuan town in Maguindano, where they were killed and their bodies dumped in a mass grave. Prominent members of the Ampatuan clan, as well as more than a hundred of their supposed militiamen were tagged in the killings. Eighty-nine suspects have been arrested while more than 100 still remain at large. — LBG, GMA News