Massacre witness' dad dies after learning son will take the stand

A police operative who responded to the Nov. 23, 2009 Maguindanao massacre testified in court on Thursday and described the crime scene at Barangay Salman in Ampatuan town when they arrived at the area. "This was the first time that we saw something like this. It was tumultuous and demonic. I've never seen anything like this in my entire existence," said Inspector Aldrin Forro. As he further described the site, however, the eyes of the police officer of 13 years started to well. Taking notice of Forro's demeanor, defense lawyer Sigfrid Fortun asked why a Scene of the Crime Operations (SOCO) personnel, who is supposed to be used to processing crime sites, would suddenly turn emotional. "My father died two weeks ago of heart attack after learning I was going to testify in this murder case. My father died because of the Maguindanao massacre," said an emotional Forro in response. Forro said his 70-year-old father was buried last week in Iloilo. "At naluha ako, kasi naaalala ko siya," he said. Grisly photographs During his testimony that began Wednesday, Forro presented a number of photographs that he took of the crime scene, including those showing the bodies of the 57 victims, their personal belongings, and even a backhoe supposedly used by the suspects to bury the victims. In his cross-examination of Forro, Fortun pointed out what he claimed several "procedural lapses" by the responding authorities, among them missing or unreadable cadaver tags, as well as non-existent time code stamps that usually appear on printed photographs. Fortun said one photo — that of an Army personnel and a scene of the crime operative bringing a body out of a pit — showed that the bodies could have been mishandled. Fortun also pointed out that using a backhoe to unearth a buried body was not the "usual" procedure that SOCO members follow when investigating a crime site. Forro claimed he took all the photographs using only one single-lens reflex (SLR) camera, but Fortun said the time stamps in the photos show there were at least two cameras used. To this Forro responded: "I don't know what they did with the photographs because I just submitted them to the office." "So you cannot vouch for the truthfulness of all photographs you are showing today?" Fortun asked, to which the witness said, "No, I cannot." Forro said the photographs did not have time stamps because his SLR does not have that feature. - Mark D. Merueñas/KBK/ELR, GMA News