Maguindanao vice gov, town mayor cleared in 2010 slay

SULTAN KUDARAT, Maguindanao ,Philippines  – The Department of Justice (DOJ) has cleared this province’s vice governor and a town mayor of any culpability in the 2010 killing of a mayor who was a potential gubernatorial candidate in next year’s local elections.

Sultan Kudarat Mayor Tucao Mastura and his nephew, Vice Gov. Dustin Mastura, told reporters yesterday in the presence of their lawyer that the DOJ, through Prosecutor General Claro Arellano, has dismissed charges that they masterminded the killing of Alex Tomawis, mayor of Barira town, in Davao City on Nov. 28, 2010.

Mayor Mastura, the provincial chairman of the Liberal Party, was touted as the “key engineer” of the election in 2010 of Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, who defeated a rival whose candidacy was allegedly bankrolled by the Ampatuan clan in the second district of the province.

The DOJ resolution also exonerated 11 other suspects, including Mayor Mastura’s younger brother Armando, the mayor of nearby Sultan Mastura town, and Talib Abo, former mayor of Parang, a coastal municipality in the first district of Maguindanao.

Tomawis’ widow Fatima, the mayor of Buldon town, accused the Masturas as having hired two men to kill her husband. The Masturas’ legal counsel, John Rangal Nadua, said he presented enough evidence to the DOJ to show that his clients were innocent.

The DOJ panel, composed of prosecution attorney Ria Niña Sususco, assistant state prosecutor Grace Ruiz, and senior state prosecutor Roberto Lao, recommended the dismissal of the charges against the Masturas for lack of evidence.

“In the first place there was no reason for us to kill Mayor Tomawis because there was no animosity between our clans,” Mayor Mastura said.

Tomawis was known as an “adopted son” of former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr., who is detained along with other family members for the 2009 Maguindanao massacre.

The Ampatuans were reported to have started grooming Tomawis as their candidate for provincial governor in the 2013 elections before he was shot dead in front of his rented house in Buhangin district in Davao City.

Also cleared by the DOJ were Raul Tomawis, a cousin of the slain mayor, and Rosalim Bangon, who were both killed in an ambush in Barangay Nituan, Parang town last month.