President Gloria Arroyo placed Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat and Cotabato City under state of emergency following Monday’s gruesome massacre.
The declaration allowed members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to augment the troops deployed in Maguindanao.
The AFP also claimed it has disarmed two companies of Special Cafgu Active Auxiliary (SCAA) in the wake of the declaration. “It is something they should have done a long time ago,” Indayla said. “For a long time, we demanded for the dismantling of these paramilitary groups because it has been an open secret in Maguindanao that these are the same groups turned into private armies to harass voters during elections,” Indayla said.
Indayla called these paramilitary groups as “thugs” trained by the 6th Infantry battalions.
“These Cafgus and paramilitary groups are partners of the AFP. They should have (dismantled) them a long time ago, so that they would not be used for the interest of the powers-that-be during elections.”
Indayla also felt the disarming of the SCAAs was merely a token act. “Even if they could take away the guns of these thugs, they can easily get guns anywhere, given the situation in Maguindanao.”
Indayla’s group wanted the government to totally scrap Executive Order 546. The directive allowed the training and arming of civilian volunteer organizations as local armed auxiliary units under the Philippine National Police (PNP), in support of the AFP, supposedly to counter “terrorist threats.”
Although these paramilitary groups are organized all over the country, the situation in Maguindanao is much worse. “These units are being used as private armies by warlords or by military elements to suppress legitimate dissent of the people,” she said.
Indayla also said the state of emergency will only worsen the situation. “It will not allow an interplay of democratic forces, to begin, that will help pave the way for a genuine justice-seeking process for the victims,” she explained.
The interfaith group Moro-Christian People’s Alliance (MCPA) also called on Moro and non-Moro people to unite against the culture of impunity.
Antonio Liongson, the MCPA national coordinator for the human rights, said that Maguindanao, one of the poorest and underdeveloped provinces in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), has long been under the grip of the “feared and untouchable Ampatuan clan,” the suspected perpetrator of Monday’s mass murder.
Liongson said, the clan continues to enjoy the political support of President Arroyo, “despite having been accused as corrupt, land grabber and responsible for the many documented and undocumented serious cases of human rights violations in Maguindanao.”
Unless it is stopped, the reigning culture of impunity “will breed more Ampatuans and political warlords who will ensure and safeguard Arroyo’s hold to power in extremely vicious ways and forms,” Liongson said.
The MCPA demands that President Arroyo should render swift justice to the victims of the Maguindanao massacre, pull out the AFP and PNP forces assigned in Maguindanao at the time of the massacre, relieve their respective commanding officers and disarm the Ampatuan clan’s private army.
Liongson also said the President should order the Department of Interior and Local Government to suspend the Ampatuans from their government positions to allow an independent probe into the massacre. (Cheryll D. Fiel, davaotoday.com)
