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Ampatuan Massacre
(An Election-Related Violence)

Submitted By:

JO1 Renor N Apela

INTRODUCTION

In the Philippines, a large number of politicians and candidates are killed before, after and
between elections. Against the backdrop of the constants and changes of this violence, the researcher
outlines why a way out is not in sight and why several dozen dead incumbents and candidates can
again be expected in the coming local and national elections leadership positions.

Brancati and Penn (2022) discussed that political actors often resort to electoral violence to
gain an edge over their competitors even though violence is harder to hide than fraud and more likely
to delegitimize elections as a result. Existing explanations tend to analyze violence in terms of the
same factors as fraud or to treat violence as a means of last resort given its overtness. The researchers
introduce a novel explanation that does neither, arguing that political actors often use violence for the
very reason that it is hard to hide. Its overtness, they argue, allows political actors to observe whether
the agents they enlist to manipulate elections for them do so and reduces these agents’ likelihood of
shirking in turn. The researchers develop our argument through a formal model showing that electoral
monitors, by exacerbating problems of moral hazard (shirking), can induce actors to increasingly turn
to violence and use process tracing to examine the implications of this model through the example of
Egypt.

In practice, however, political parties and politicians have developed campaign technology that
manages to circumvent the parameters set by the Omnibus Election Code. Parties and candidates
commonly plan in five stages: (1) the pre-campaign period, (2) the campaign period, (3) the “ora-de-
peligro,” (4) election day itself, and (5) the period of counting, canvassing of votes and proclamation
of the winners. The pre-election period starts as early as a year before elections. This is when parties
and candidates build their campaign machinery, launch public relations campaigns, map the political
terrain, organize networks, and generate resources.

During the pre-election period, violence is usually targeted at incumbent officials or potential
opposition candidates. The objective is either to eliminate or intimidate a prospective rival or to
paralyze the machinery of an opponent early on.

On the other hand, the Ampatuan massacre was the worst case of election violence in the
Philippines. It has also been called “the single deadliest event for journalists in history” for the fact that
32 of the 58 who were killed were media practitioners and members of the community press, including
broadcasters from TV and radio.

Finally, it is in this light that the researcher would like to discuss in this case study the facts of
the case as well as the issue of whether or not the respondents materialized the felonious and willful
acts committed against 32 of the 58 killed media practitioners and members of the community press,
including broadcasters from TV and radio.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

This case study determined the status of the case of the Ampatuan Massacre against the
victims media practitioners and members of the community press.

Specifically, it answered the following:

1. What qualifying and attending circumstances of murder were done by the respondents in
the case?
2. Did the evidence of the case strongly support the decision of the Regional Trial Court on
the Case?
3. What recommendation may be proposed to address the election-related violence in the
Philippines?
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This study was anchored on the Social Disorganization Theory by Clifford Shaw and Henry D.
McKay (1942), Rational choice theory, and Strain Theory. The application of these theories is shown
in Figure 1.

The theory of social disorganization by Clifford Shaw and Henry D. McKay (1942) as cited by
Bond (2015), states a person’s physical and social environments are primarily responsible for the
behavioral choices that a person makes. At the core of social disorganization theory, is that location
matters when it comes to predicting illegal activity. Shaw and McKay noted that neighborhoods with
the highest crime rates have at least three common problems, physical dilapidation, poverty, and a
higher level of ethnic and cultural mixing. Shaw and McKay claimed that delinquency was not caused
at the individual level, but is a normal response by normal individuals to abnormal conditions. Social
disorganization theory is widely used as an important predictor of youth violence and crime.

In relation to the study, social disorganization theory suggests that a person’s residential
location is more significant than the person’s characteristics when predicting criminal activity and in
this area acquire criminality by the cultural approval within the disadvantaged urban neighborhoods.
Considering that the province of Mindanao was influenced by a mixed culture of Christians and
Muslims and the underprivileged people living in the area, possible violence and violation of human
rights like murder through mass killing would be possible. Therefore, location matters when it comes
to criminality according to social disorganization theory.

Rational choice theory as cited by Perera (2023) explains that individuals partake in criminal
activity following a logical thought process that consciously analyzes and weighs the benefits and
costs of committing crimes. If the perceived cost of committing the crime is outweighed by the benefit,
people will be more likely to offend. Rational choice theory is a school of thought that holds that
individuals decide upon the course of action most in line with their subjective preferences. The theory
has been employed to model decision-making in contexts ranging from economics to sociology.
Rational choice theory in criminology states that individuals partake in criminal activity following a
logical thought process that consciously analyzes and weighs the benefits and costs of committing
crimes.
If the perceived cost of committing the crime is
outweighed by the benefit, people will be more likely to offend.

According to strain theories as cited by Aktualisiert, (2022) some strains or pressures enhance the
chance of crime. These tensions cause unpleasant feelings like frustration and wrath. These feelings
pressure people to take action, and committing a crime is one option. Crime can be employed to relieve
or escape stress, exact vengeance on the cause of stress or connected targets, or alleviate bad feelings.
The primary variations of strain theory address the specific strains likely to result in crime, why some
strains enhance crime, and the elements that contribute to or discourage people from reacting to strains
through crime. Emile Durkheim created the first contemporary strain theory of deviance and crime.
However, Merton’s strain theory and its subsets began to take over criminology in the middle of the
twentieth century. The classic strain concept emphasizes strains affecting the inability to attain
financial success or the slightly broader objective of a middle-class position. Classic strain theory went
out of favor in the 1970s and 1980s, partially because studies appeared to contradict it. Numerous
attempts have been made to update strain theory, with the majority maintaining that crime may
originate from the incapacity to attain various goals. All strain hypotheses agree that only a small
percentage of strained people turn to crime.
This case study analyzes the application of the strain theory by the government, punishment
institutions, and society in combating crime. The latter parts offer criticisms of the theory alongside an
overview of its applicability globally.
 Social Disorganization Theory by Clifford Shaw and Henry D.
McKay (1942) as cited by Bond (2015).

States a person’s physical and social environments are primarily

responsible for the behavioral choices that a person makes

Rational choice theory as

Strain Theory as cited by
cited by Perera (2023)
Aktualisiert, (2022)
Explains that individuals
The theory believed that
partake in criminal activity
some strains or pressures
following a logical thought
enhance the chance of
process that consciously
crime. These tensions cause
analyzes and weighs the Causes of Crime unpleasant feelings like
benefits and costs of
frustration and wrath. These
committing crimes.
feelings pressure people to
take action, and committing
a crime is one option.

Figure 1

THEORETICAL PARADIGM
CASE EVALUATION

It was on Nov. 23, 2009, when 58 people were killed in what is considered as the worst
election-related violence in the country, but while 28 people have been convicted of the brutal
murders, dozens of suspects have yet to be arrested. In 2019, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court
(RTC) Branch 221 promulgated a decision that convicted 28 people for 57 counts of murder,
sentencing them to reclusion perpetua, or a maximum of 40 years imprisonment, without parole.
They were not convicted for the 58th murder because the body of the victim—Reynaldo
Momay—has yet to be found. As stressed by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, they
are still fighting for his official recognition as a victim. The decision, which was written by Judge
Jocelyn Solis-Reyes, also convicted 15 individuals, who were sentenced to six to 10 years, for being
accessories to the crime. But 56 people, including Datu Sajid Islam Ampatuan, had been acquitted.
 The massacre, which took place in Ampatuan town in what was then the province of
Maguindanao, resulted in the filing of murder charges against 197 individuals, some of them members
of the Ampatuan clan. However, according to data from the Philippine Center for Investigative
Journalism (PCIJ), 11 of the accused were released on bail, while eight have either been released or
had the case against them dismissed before the 2019 decision was promulgated.
Likewise, eight of the individuals charged with murder, including the clan patriarch, Datu
Andal Ampatuan Sr., died while the case was still on trial. Ampatuan Sr. died at the National Kidney
and Transplant Institute in 2015. But while the 761-page decision ended the decade-long trial that
heard 357 witnesses and examined 238 case folders, lawyer Nena Santos, the private prosecutor of the
case, had told ANC that the fight is not yet over. This, as 80 suspects, including 15 members of the
Ampatuan clan, remained at large when the promulgation was made on Dec. 19, 2019, ten years since
the massacre took place, as efforts to arrest them had failed. Santos said they would want the 80
accused to be arrested by the Philippine National Police (PNP) “so that we will continue the trial
against them,” stressing that most of the 80, as revealed by witnesses, were the actual killers who shot
the victims.

But in almost three years, only eight of the 80 accused who remained at large have been
arrested. One was killed while the police were serving him an arrest warrant, Press Undersecretary
Eugene Rodriguez said. Some of those arrested since 2020 were Andami Singkala, Datu Harris
Ampatuan Macapendeg, and Ebad Musa, who were arrested in April 2021, April 2022, and May 2022.
The one who was killed was identified as Surin Mentang. It was last year when the Presidential Task
Force (PTFoMS) on Media Security commended the arrest of Singkala, saying that the government has
made it priority to capture the remaining suspects of the massacre. Six accused have been arrested
then.
 A year later, Macapendeg and Musa, who carried P300,000 and P250,000 rewards on their
heads, were likewise arrested by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) of the
Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Rodriguez said the Office of the Press
Secretary “wants to make it clear” that the government “does not forget these heinous crimes
committed against journalists and is strongly committed to protecting them.” The Philippines is
considered the seventh most dangerous country for media workers, with the Committee to Protect
Journalists (CPJ) saying that it is the second country—next to Mexico—with the highest number of
murders of journalists. Based on the Global Impunity Index 2022, the Philippines, as of 2022, has at
least 13 journalist killings that are not yet solved, including the deaths of Renato Blanco and Percival
Mabasa within the first two months of the current administration. But CPJ said all over the world, most
killers of media workers continue to get away with murder, stressing that in almost 80 percent of 263
cases, no one has been held to account.

As 32 out of 58 people murdered in 2009 were media workers, the Maguindanao Massacre is
considered the “single deadliest attack on the media in modern times,” with journalists from all over
the world coming together then to condemn the killings. The massacre “catapulted” the Philippines
from sixth to third in the Global Impunity Index in 2010, with CPJ saying that the murders
“overshadowed the gains that the Philippines had made [in] winning convictions in two journalist
murders.” Back in 2009, 32 media workers, including Momay, were part of the convoy of the wife,
sisters, and lawyers of then Buluan town vice mayor Esmael Mangudadatu, who were set to file a
certificate of candidacy for governor on his behalf.

According to PCIJ, the journalists, mostly from General Santos City and Koronadal City, were
covering the filing of Mangudadatu, who was then about to challenge Ampatuan Sr. in the race for the
highest office in the province. Then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo publicly acknowledged the
Ampatuans as important allies, making them powerful partisans in national politics, PCIJ said. But
when the convoy was already in Ampatuan town, where the mayor was Datu Andal “Unsay”
Ampatuan Jr., the 58 victims, including six motorists, were killed in broad daylight, with their corpses
buried in shallow graves on a hilltop. While only 31 individuals were initially charged for the
massacre, the number of the accused reached 197 as the PNP-CIDG added more names to the list of
suspects. Over 90 of the accused were detained at the Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City.

As stressed by PCIJ, the defense, in the course of the 10-year trial, filed motions that added
weeks and months to the process, with one lawyer, who was representing the Ampatuans, asking Solis-
Reyes to inhibit herself. Then in August 2019, “as defense lawyers were due to submit a memorandum
summing up their arguments, lawyer Paul Laguatan, then counsel of ‘Datu Unsay,’ asked for the re-
opening of the trial, which the court promptly denied.” Likewise, eight contempt and two disbarment
cases were filed against Santos, who was the private prosecutor in the case. “The numerous motions
for reconsideration, the time given for the defendants to find new lawyers, as well as “delaying tactics
of the defense,” tied up the case during the last three years,” Santos told PCIJ in 2019. Elisabeth
Withcel, impunity campaign consultant of CPJ, had stressed that the decision of the RTC in 2019,
while “a long-awaited moment in the global fight against impunity in journalist killings,” is
“bittersweet.” “For more than 10 years, friends and families of the victims have waited for justice and
closure; colleagues across the country waited to learn just how many journalists would have to be
killed before the grip of impunity that had taken hold in the Philippines could be loosened.”
“Moreover, justice has not just been slow, but also only partial,” she said. This, as brothers Ampatuan
Jr. and Zaldy, two of the 28 convicted for the massacre, had said they will head straight to the Court of
Appeals to seek the reversal of the decision of the Quezon City RTC Branch 221.

Likewise, Anwar Ampatuan Sr., and his sons Anwar “Datu Ipi” Ampatuan Jr. and Datu Anwar
Sajid “Datu Ulo” Ampatuan, filed motions for reconsideration before the RTC that convicted them. As
stressed by the relatives of the victims in a letter addressed to Unesco in 2020, they acknowledge that
the decision of the RTC was a triumph of justice, however, they said: “Regrettably, that one court
decision does not mean that the case is ‘resolved.’ Far from it.” “While there has been a verdict, the
Ampatuan convictions can still be and, in fact, have been appealed,” they said. The relatives of the
victims also stressed that almost 80 more suspects, 15 of them surnamed Ampatuan, remain at large
more than a decade after the mass murder. They said “all of them should be tried, but as of February
20, 2020, only four, two of them policemen, have been arrested and are on trial. Another principal
accused, Sajid Islam, brother of Zaldy, Andal Jr. and Anwar Ampatuan, was acquitted even if he was
present at the meeting when the massacre was planned.” Back in 2020, Sajid Islam was the incumbent
mayor of a town in Maguindanao province, where the massacre happened. “This is the reason why the
families of the 32 journalists who perished, as well as the witnesses who testified for the prosecution,
continue to fear for their safety.” “As many are not enrolled in the Department of Justice’s witness
protection program, and continue to live in their known communities, they remain exposed to possible
retaliation and attacks.” Even Mangudadatu revealed that he was offered P100 million to drop the
charges against those behind the massacre that killed 58 people, including his wife, Genalyn.
CASE CONCLUSION

In December 2019, the Regional Trial Court, National Capital Judicial Region Branch 221,
Quezon City of the Philippines, convicted Andal Ampatuan Jr., his brother Zaldy Ampatuan, and
twenty-six other accomplices, including senior police officers, for the mass murder of 58 persons,
including 32 journalists. This incident is also known as the Maguindanao massacre. They
were sentenced to a penalty of imprisonment of ‘Reclusion Perpetua without Parole’ i.e. jail time up to
40 years without parole. The principal accused were also directed to pay damages to the heirs of the
victims. The 32 journalists killed were part of the convoy of 58 people, who were on their way to file
the certificate of candidacy on behalf of the opposition candidate running against the politician, Datu
Andal Ampatuan, Jr “Unsay” (of the powerful Ampatuan clan) for the governorship of Maguindanao.
These journalists were reporting on the event. The Court held that the killings qualified as murder
since it satisfied the first and fifth provisions of Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC) which
provided that a person would be guilty of murder when the killing of another is committed “(1) With
treachery, taking advantage of superior strength, with the aid of armed men, or employing means to
weaken the defense or of means or persons to insure or afford impunity” and “(5) With evident
premeditation.” Concerning damages, the Court reasoned that since the deaths were caused due to
crimes committed by the accused, civil indemnity in the form of damages had to be paid. On the other
hand, actual damage including the loss of earning capacity had to be determined individually,
depending on the evidence presented by each heir of the victims.
On the other hand, the main issue before the Court was whether the accused had conspired
with evident premeditation, treachery, cruelty, and other aggravating circumstances, to kill the 58
victims causing prejudice to their heirs. The Prosecution had brought forth 16 direct
witnesses. Witnesses recalled seeing supporters and members of the Ampatuan clan having met
several times at the Century Park Hotel to plan the killing of “Toto,” in order to prevent him from
filing his Certificate of Candidacy for the post of governor. Witnesses testified seeing heavily armed
men in camouflage along with Unsay securing the checkpoints set up in Ampatuan.
In conclusion, the Court convicted Andal Ampatuan Jr., his brother Zaldy Ampatuan, and
twenty-six other accomplices, including senior police officers, for the mass murder of 58 persons,
including 32 journalists. They were sentenced to a penalty of imprisonment of Reclusion Perpetua
without Parole, i.e. jail time up to 40 years without parole. The principal accused were also ordered to
pay damages to the heirs of the victims.

PROPOSED SOLUTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the results of the discussions and the case evaluation of the study, the following
recommendations were drawn:

The Judicial branch of the government should exert an effort to give legal consideration to the
status of both parties in the case. It is imperative to recognize systematic issues to reevaluate how the
justice system can be better equipped to ensure access to justice for marginalized groups, especially in
the remote provinces in the Philippines.
Partial and fair trial and litigation interventions are critical to protecting the rights of every
citizen. Enactment of law and strengthening the right of every citizen in legal suits is more urgent now
than ever, to cease the growing bias and unjust issues in the legal system.
The local government unit should revisit and re-evaluate the present administration of jails and
prisons, as there were issues with corruption in exchange for special treatment of PDL who were
involved in the case study.
REFERENCES

Aktualisiert, Z. (2022). Anomie theory (Merton). Soztheo. Web. https://lawbirdie.com.

Bond, Mark. (2015). Criminology: Social Disorganization Theory Explained. American Public
University System. https://www.linkedin.com.

Brancati, Dawn and Penn, Elizabeth M. (2022). Stealing an Election: Violence or Fraud? Journal of
Conflict Resolution. https://journals.sagepub.com.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1696507/maguindanao-massacre-the-wound-of-ph-impunity-that-will-
never-heal.

Perera, Ayesh. (2023). Rational Choice Theory of Criminology. Simply Sociology.

https://simplysociology.com.

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