WATCH: Victims’ families recount living with the loss brought by Ampatuan massacre
MANILA, Philippines — After 10 long years of pain and suffering among families of the victims of the Ampatuan massacre, a Quezon city court found several principal accused guilty.
Forty-three people on Thursday were found guilty as principals or accessories to the 57 counts of murder led by Andal Ampatuan Jr. and his brother Zaldy Ampatuan.
After Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes ended the hearing and the 10-year-old case, victims’ kin were all smiles when they walked out of the annex court in Camp Bagong Diwa.
A son of one of the victims said the decade-long wait was “worth it.”
“I am happy. Even if we waited more than a decade for justice, it felt worth,” 20-year-old Jay Mark Jhoy Duhay said in Filipino.
Duhay was only in fourth grade when the massacre stole away his father Jhoy Duhay, whom he described as “kind” and “loving.”
After his father’s death, his mother went to work as an overseas Filipino worker.
“After that day, everything is difficult. We had no money, I had no allowance. It was hard financially,” Duhay said.
Argie Caniban, partner of slain journalist John Caniban, also experienced the same struggle.
She was set to marry John on December of 2009 but on November 23, 2009, the grisly incident claimed the lives of 58 people, 32 of whom were media workers. John was one of them.
“Nakakuha na kami ng requirements para magpakasal. December sana kami ikakasal,” she said.
(We already secured the requirements for the wedding. We’re supposed to get married in December.)
But not even death could keep them apart. Argie married John on the day the journalist was laid to rest in a cemetery in Isulan, Sultan Kudarat.
“‘Yung 10 years na paghihintay napakahirap kasi ‘yung anak ko eight months bago ‘yung massacre. Ngayon 10 years old na siya. Napakahirap magtaguyod ng anak na wala akong trabaho at meron siyang heart disease,” she said.
(The 10-year wait was very hard because my child was only eight-month-old before the massacre. Now, she’s 10 years old. It was very difficult to raise a child when I had no job and she has a heart disease.)
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