The Ampatuans have been suspended from their government posts – there are about a dozen of them, minus their distant relatives the Mangudadatus – and their most notorious member is now behind bars, protesting that he does not deserve the title of Butcher of Maguindanao.
Because the clan occupied almost all the key positions in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the national government has temporarily taken over the ARMM.
With the Ampatuans neutralized – for now – and the Mangudadatus looking poised to take over political leadership in the ARMM, will there be much change in the way the autonomous region is run?
Many people are taking with a grain of salt the vow of Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu not to retaliate for the brutal massacre of his wife, sisters and their supporters, with 30 journalists and unfortunate motorists thrown in as collateral damage.
In the short term, everyone is bracing for more violence in the ARMM and neighboring provinces as the elections approach. The autonomous region is still bristling with guns, and the government looks incapable of collecting all those weapons.
In the long term, the political warlords of the ARMM, like other warlords across the country, will continue to be coddled by the national leadership in exchange for their political support, especially come election time.
The warlords are then left in peace to continue their lucrative businesses, including jueteng and smuggling, and to launder their dirty money. They can bring in all the weapons and ammunition they want, and build their private armies. They can openly brag about beating their estranged partners and mutilating the partners’ lovers.
For a president, it’s a small price to pay for loyalty and a zero vote for the opposition. The administration’s Senate slate won 12-0 in Maguindanao in the Senate race in 2007, and the towns of Ampatuan and Datu Piang gave GMA rival Fernando Poe Jr. a big, fat zero in the 2004 presidential race.
Such warlords can even murder their political rivals, as long as the mayhem is kept within tolerable limits, meaning they should clean up their own mess and not get caught.
The Maguindanao massacre was clearly beyond tolerable, though it took a few days for Malacañang to realize this. After much agonizing, GMA had little choice but to go after the Ampatuans.
Whether the charges against Andal Ampatuan Jr. will stick remains to be seen. In the rare times that VIP murderers are caught, they can enjoy “detention” in the favorite refuge of scoundrels, and there are always hospitals that are willing to oblige if the price is right. If the murderers are convicted, they can expect a quick pardon.
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Someone who has worked for a long time in the ARMM told me that the Ampatuan clan has an arsenal larger than that of the entire Armed Forces of the Philippines.
That is probably an exaggeration, even with the notoriously pitiful materiel of the AFP. But stories abound of the enormous firepower accumulated by the warlords of the ARMM. The buildup intensified in 2006 when the Ampatuans were effectively allowed, by virtue of the President’s Executive Order 546, to turn their private armed groups into state-supported civilian volunteer organizations.
In the hotbeds of Islamic separatism in Mindanao, tribal law still prevails, enforced through the rule of the gun.
One of the biggest mistakes in the peace agreement signed by the government in 1996 with Islamic separatists was to allow the Moro National Liberation Front to keep all its weapons, and MNLF chieftain Nur Misuari to retain what became his private army. Some MNLF members were integrated into the military and police, but there were always questions about their loyalty: was it to country and the Constitution, or to Misuari?
The ARMM was carved out of Mindanao, with the approval of the residents in a plebiscite, and then pretty much left to the mercy of its chosen leaders. It was probably the peace negotiators’ idea of autonomy: self-rule meant allowing ARMM leaders to govern outside the rules of the rest of the country.
And since Misuari and his MNLF fighters were allowed to keep their guns, everyone else in the conflict areas of Mindanao also wanted an exemption from the country’s tough gun laws, just in case Misuari decided to go back to rebellion – which he did, when he was about to lose his post as the ARMM’s third governor.
With the peace agreement ratified and the ARMM created, and development aid committed to the region, a succession of presidents sat back and ignored periodic complaints from some officers of the AFP and national police about the proliferation of guns in the autonomous region, with government forces discouraged from enforcing gun laws lest it disrupt the fragile peace.
Preserving a culture became the preservation of a culture of violence.
A succession of presidents did not want to be bothered with warnings about the buildup of weapons in the ARMM, with warring clans engaging in what amounted to an arms race, even as development and poverty alleviation moved at snail’s pace in the region.
Presidents cared only about two things: was the ARMM governor in control of the autonomous region, and was the governor (and his clan) loyal to the president?
With the Ampatuans and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the answer to both questions, until last week, was yes.
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The Ampatuans have thrived under President Arroyo. In the ARMM hierarchy, there’s an Ampatuan here, an Ampatuan there, an Ampatuan everywhere. Towns have been created and named after clan members, including the site of the massacre, Ampatuan town.
Loyalty, more than competence, is richly rewarded in this administration. For the Ampatuans, the line between public and private property has been blurred, and they have ruled the autonomous region like their personal fiefdom. ARMM security forces serve as their private bodyguards. Armored vehicles, painted like military vehicles but not government property, were found in Maguindanao, for use by the private army.
A backhoe of the Maguindanao government, plus chainsaws and M60 submachine guns, were reportedly used in the massacre.
And yet there are people in the ARMM who, despite recoiling from the horror of the massacre, can only remember how the Ampatuans gave them jobs, or money for a wedding or burial.
Outrage in this country ends where self-interest begins. It guarantees the nurturing of more murderous monsters in our midst.