Witness: Victim asked Ampatuan lawyer to stop massacre

Thursday, January 5, 2012
A POLICE officer whose lawyer-sister was killed during the Maguindanao massacre testified that his sibling even managed to send a text message before she and others in a convoy were killed by gunmen upon instructions by the Ampatuan clan.
Senior Police Officer 4 Raymundo Oquendo said that his sister, lawyer Cynthia Oquendo-Ayon was able to ask her colleague, Arnold Oclarit to contact one of the lawyers of the Ampatuan, Tomas Falque III, for help.

She was able to do this through text-messaging, Oquendo said during her testimony on Thursday before a Quezon City court.
Oquendo’s sister is one of the lawyers of the Ampataun’s political rival, then Buluan town vice mayor and now Maguindanao governor Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu. She accompanied Mangudadatu’s wife, Bai Genalyn and other relatives to file his certificate of candidacy for the gubernatorial post in the 2010 elections.
Catalino, the witness’s father, was also killed during the massacre.
The police officer testified that he recalled reading one of the text messages during the massacre. “Advice client Ampatuan to stop it please. We might get killed. Please tell Tom,” he said adding that the Tom his sister was referring to was Falque.
“As I understood the message, it was to tell Attorney Falque to advise his client Ampatuan to stop firing as they might get killed,” he told the court.
According to the police officer, he managed to read his sister’s text messages to Oclarit when he rushed to his office after he received news that his sister was kidnapped. He explained that he got the news from their other sister, Gemma, adding that he was at work in Polomolok, South Cotabato at the time.
Another text message sent by her sister said, “Many have been killed. We’re next. Please tell Tom.”
“I felt nervous and shocked to learn that she was in danger of being killed,” he told the court.
He also said that at the time, he did not know his father was with his sister in the Mangudadatu convoy.
The convoy included members of the media covering the filing of candidacy in the province’s capital town of Shariff Aguak. It was stopped at a checkpoint by heavily-armed men, allegedly members of the Ampatuan’s private army, in Barangay Salman, Ampatuan town. They were later brought to a hilly portion of the place where they were massacred.
Authorities recovered the bodies of 57 people, including Mangudadatu’s wife and 31 journalists. The body of the 58th victim, journalist Reynaldo Momay has yet to be recovered more than three years after the grisly killings.
Defense lawyers led by Sigfrid Fortun questioned Oquendo’s testimony, saying it would have been better if Oclarit’s cellular phone was presented in court, which the prosecution panel later did.
The defense panel also objected when the witness told the court he was later informed by Oclarit that he was able to talk to Falque.
He said Oclarit told him that Falque managed to contact Norie Unas, then the provincial administrator of Maguindanao but that Unas said he could not contact the Ampatuans.
Fortun said that part of the testimony constitutes “double-hearsay” and that the court should have disallowed it.
During the hearing, five more suspects in the case were arraigned.
These were Police Officer (PO) 1 Abdullah Baguadatu, PO3 Abibudin Abdulgani, PO2 Hamad Nana, PO1 Esmael Guilal, and SPO1 Oscar Donato.
All five entered not guilty pleas when the charges against them were read by the clerk of court.
The arraignment brings the total number of those formally accused in the case to 69 including the Ampatuan clan’s patriarch, Andal Ampatuan Sr. The government has so far captured only 93 of the 196 suspects in the case.
Photographers and cameramen were disallowed from taking photos and videos by jail guards, citing “security purposes.”
The hearing is being held inside the heavily-guarded annex of the Metro Manila District Jail at Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan, Taguig. (AH/Sunnex)
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/manila/local-news/2012/01/05/witness-victim-asked-ampatuan-lawyer-stop-massacre-199001

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