Kin of massacre victims to get online updates from De Lima

TACURONG CITY, Philippines – Justice Secretary Leila de Lima promised on Sunday to regularly provide updates to relatives of victims of the Maguindanao massacre in 2009 regarding the prosecution of the accused through online briefings she would email to media entities in Central Mindanao.

De Lima said she would personally oversee the prompt dispatch of official communiqués on the case to reporters based in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and Region 12, where most families of the massacre victims reside.

“We just have to do a proper format and design a template for that information relay process,” De Lima said.

De Lima and the region’s two largest press clubs – the 6th Infantry Division “Kampilan” Press Corps and the ARMM Regional Police Press Corps – agreed to cooperate in disseminating updates on the case to keep families of the victims up to date on all developments in the prosecution of the alleged perpetrators of the massacre on Nov. 23, 2009 in Ampatuan, Maguindanao.

Members of the Ampatuan clan and their henchmen allegedly committed the massacre wherein 58 people were killed.

The clan’s patriarch, former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr., several of his sons and relatives and members of their so-called private army were accused in the killings.

Among the dead were the wife of incumbent Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu and two of his sisters, two female lawyers and 32 media workers who covered the supposed filing of certificate of candidacy of the then vice mayor of Buluan town who would run for governor of Maguindanao and challenge an Ampatuan.

The Mangudadatus have accused the Ampatuans of masterminding the incident, specifically pointing to former mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. of Datu Unsay, Maguindanao as one of the leaders of 100 armed men who abducted Mangudadatu’s supporters.

The Ampatuans denied the allegations against them. – With Aie Balagtas See, Cecille Suerte Felipe, Danny Dangcalan