Journalists to commemorate massacre in simple rites

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – Media groups in Cotabato City and Maguindanao will commemorate on Tuesday with prayers in simple rites the first anniversary of the Maguindanao massacre, which left 58 people, mostly journalists, dead.

Members of the Oblate Media Circle or those working in outfits owned by the Oblate congregation, the National Union of Journalists’ Cotabato City chapter and the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) will mark the worst-ever election-related violence in the province with a Mass and lighting of candles at the Oblate Media Center here.

Edwin Fernandez, manager of dxMS here and chairman of the city’s KBP chapter, said the commemoration will just be simple as agreed upon by the participants, among them journalists covering the Army’s 6th Infantry Division and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao police.

Cotabato City journalists have been pushing for a speedy trial of the Maguindanao massacre.

Witnesses have tagged Andal Ampatuan Jr. and his father, Andal Sr., as the brains behind the massacre.