MAGUINDANAO MASSACRE | Appeals court overturns local court decision to free a cop in Maguindanao massacre case

June 17, 2021 , 06:12 PM

(June 17, 2021) – The Court of Appeals (CA) reversed a ruling made by a lower court to acquit a policeman on his role in the gruesome mass murder of journalists and civilians in a town in Maguindanao in 2009, the single deadliest political killing in the country.

The appellate court has sent Senior Police Officer 2 Badawi Bakal back to prison after finding him guilty of taking part in the carnage, which killed 58 people, including 32 local journalists and media workers.

He will face a jail term of nearly 600 years, after the court sentenced him up to 10 years in prison for each of the 57 counts of murder.

“His acts of threatening Canapia and Dilon (witnesses) with a pistol and of punching the latter for having uttered something about a backhoe, negate his claim that he had no knowledge of the commission of the heinous crime,” Associate Justice Apolinario Bruselas Jr. said in a ruling promulgated on Monday.

“Being a police officer in the active service, SPO2 Bakal abused his public office when he concealed the identities of the accused; he failed to effect or cause their immediate arrest; and he contributed to the delay in the investigation of the crime.”

The Court of Appeals’ Special Sixth Division ruled Bakal was an accessory to the crime of murder, bringing the total number of people convicted in the case to 29.

Nearly 200 people, including members of the Ampatuan clan, a local warlord in Maguindanao, were charged for the killings. A little over 100 were brought to justice as many remained at large, including the grandson of former governor Andal Ampatuan. He died before the lower court reached a verdict in 2019.

Bakal was originally left out from the December 2019 ruling issued by Quezon City Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes convicting 28 people. Another cop, Superintendent Bahnarin Kamaong, appeared twice in the ruling both as a convicted and acquitted suspect, raising confusion about the landmark court ruling.

Solis-Reyes, in a separate order in March 2020, clarified Kamaong was guilty while Bakal was not.

In the Omnibus Order, the judge said Mangudadatu’s convoy followed by groups of journalists did not pass through the particular checkpoint where Bakal was stationed so he had no liability in the crime.

But the Office of the Solicitor General, in a petition for certiorari, challenged Solis-Reyes’ ruling for failing to carefully review the facts presented which shows Bakal’s involvement as an accessory to the crime. It further said the judge committed “grave abuse of discretion” for initially acquitting the cop.

The appeals court agreed.

“It is the Court’s view, that in acquitting SPO2 Bakal, the respondent court utterly disregarded material and relevant evidence available to it and grossly mis-appreciated and overlooked the evidence presented by the prosecution,” the decision said.

“The respondent court limited its attention to certain facts, which it utilized to justify its inadvertence in mistakenly ruling to acquit some of the accused.”

The November 23, 2009 Maguindanao massacre is widely known as the worst election-related attack and the single deadliest incident targeting journalists.

But the court only recognized 57 victims, leaving out journalist Reynaldo Momay, because his body remained missing. Only his dentures were found at the crime scene.

Two sons of the warlord, Datu Andal Ampatuan Jr. and Zaldy Ampatuan, are pinpointed among the masterminds of the massacre.

Press groups have continuously called for justice for the victims year after year in order to ensure that no more journalists would be subjected to similarly gruesome attacks.

(Beatrice Puente/MM)

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