Televise the trial
| NO HOLDS BARRED |
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| Armida Siguion-Reyna |
It was early this year under another presidency, when I had first heard that the live coverage of the Ampatuan trial was not going to take place. Very few wondered why so, for that president was known to be “soft” toward the clan charged with the most horrific slayings in recent memory, exactly a year ago today.
Fifty seven persons killed, 32 of them journalists, their bodies savaged, some beheaded, the women among them shot in the genitalia, others in the faces, causing their eyes to hideously pop out, then dumped into an open pit, for doing what? For accompanying family and supporters out to file in the Comelec office at the next town of Sharif Aquak the certificate of candidacy of one who had dared to buck the Ampatuan stronghold.
It does not get gentler in the re-telling, particularly as there appears to be hemming in hawing in ensuring that the guilty get punished.
Patricia Evangelista reminded us so well, in her last Sunday column in another broadsheet, that, “According to Human Rights Watch, in May of 2002, then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo received a letter from 12 community leaders in Maguindanao, alleging that the Ampatuans and their allies were responsible for at least 33 killings and a number of abuses. The leaders said that many of the witnesses were afraid or had been killed. In August of 2008, another group wrote to President Arroyo alleging that Andal Ampatuan Sr. and other members of his family had been committing serious human rights abuses. Those who were perceived to have offended members of the clan have been shot in broad daylight in the middle of village squares, or at home, along with their children..... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20101123com4.html
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