CA upholds inclusion of Andal Sr. as massacre suspect

The Court of Appeals has junked with finality the petition of former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr., who asked the appellate court to dismiss the multiple murder charges lodged by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against him for the Ampatuan massacre in 2009. In an eight-page resolution, the CA's Former Special Eleventh Division upheld its Jan. 31, 2011 decision that dismissed the clan patriarch's petition against the two DOJ resolutions that found probable cause to indict him for the gruesome carnage where 57 people were killed. The Maguindanao massacre case is being handled by the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221, a special court designated to handle the massacre trial alone. The appellate court said that Andal Sr. was unable to present new arguments that warrant the reversal of its January 31 decision. "We found no grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction when the DOJ found that there exist some facts and circumstances that engender a well-founded belief that a crime has been committed, and that petitioner is probably guilty of that crime and should be held for trial," said the CA resolution written by Associate Justice Noel Tijam. Associate Justices Antonio Villamor and Amy Lazaro-Javier gave their concurrences. In denying Andal Sr.'s bid to strike down the murder charges against him, the appellate court said the DOJ has established that there is probable cause to include his name among the list of suspects in the Maguindanao massacre case. It clarified that it made such ruling "not because of the victims’ families’ clamor as the bloodiest single incidents in the history of the Philippines, has drawn worldwide media attention; and, certainly not because of the magnitude of the controversy that has hounded this case since day one." The CA then stressed: "We only hold that he [Andal Sr.] should be held for trial due to the DOJ’s finding of probable cause." January 31 ruling Andal Sr. has claimed that the DOJ committed grave abuse of discretion in giving weight to the testimony of Kenny Dalandag, who alleged that the clan patriarch was present when the plan to stage the massacre was being hatched. Andal Sr. said there was "clear and convincing evidence on record" that Dalandag's testimony was "fabricated." But in its Jan. 31 decision, the CA said the clan patriarch's allegations "have no basis in fact and law." "After a careful scrutiny of the records of this case, we find and so hold that there is no grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of the DOJ insofar as its April 16, 2010 and May 5, 2010 resolutions upheld petitioner's indictment for the charge of multiple murder," said the appellate court. "On this note, petitioner's main petition, as well as the supplemental petition, must therefore, necessarily fail for lack of merit," it added. The CA likewise said Andal Sr.'s alibi "must simply fail" compared to the positive identification of witnesses Dalandag and Rasul Sangki that the clan patriarch was among the plotters of the massacre. "Citing serveral reasons that tend to discredit these witnesses' accounts, [Andal Sr.] mainly raises the defenses of alibi and denial and claims that he never had a hand in the Maguindanao massacre," the court said. — RSJ, GMA News