Blogging Maguindanao

The author, Jaemark Tordecilla, is PCIJ’s online platform architect and associate multimedia producer, and an avid blogger. He flew to Mindanao to document the visit by an international delegation of journalists from the International Federation for Journalists (IFJ), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) to the families of the slain journalists in General Santos City. After the visit, he travelled up north with local journalists to get a glimpse of Maguindanao. This is his log of one interesting day in the Kingdom of the Ampatuans. Incidentally, this is Jaemark’s first visit to Mindanao.

by Jaemark Tordecilla

I HAD the opportunity to travel with Mindanews editor Carol Arguillas and senior writer Froilan Gallardo as they journeyed across the province of Maguindanao. Mindanews is a cooperative of independent, professional journalists whose work has been invaluable in covering the aftermath of the Maguindanao massacre of November 23, including the declaration of martial law in the province last December 5.

December 7, 2009

4:40 PM – We pass through Tacurong City in Sultan Kudarat, a city of about 80,000 people located between South Cotabato and Maguindanao. The town center, like thousands of other centers of mid-sized towns in the country, is marked by a Jollibee store. It would be an otherwise unremarkable place, except that a number of journalists stayed here the night before the massacre in Ampatuan, Maguindanao. They were here to cover the city’s Kalimudan festival, which celebrates the founding of the province.

4:50 PM – About ten minutes away from downtown Tacurong, in adjacent Isulan town, stands the regal provincial capitol building of Sultan Kudarat. I get the feeling it won’t be the last lavish provincial capitol building I will see for the day. The governor of the province is Suharto T. Mangudadatu, an uncle of Buluan, Maguindanao vice mayor Ismael “Toto” Mangudadatu, whose candidacy for governor of Maguindanao triggered the chain of events of November 23.

4:55 PM – Here’s something you don’t see every day: A woman in a hijab (a Muslim headscarf) riding a motorcycle down the highway. Just as I took that down in my notes, I see a couple of other hijab-cloaked women riding past us in their bikes. I guess it’s the sort of thing you see every day in Sultan Kudarat.

5:00 PM – We stop at a roadside stand for buko pie in Esperanza, the last Sultan Kudarat town before we enter Maguindanao. I wonder whether the people going to Maguindanao note the irony of passing through a place whose name means ‘hope’ before heading on to the province.

5:03 PM – We dig in for buko pie, which my companions boast as better than those in southern Luzon. It’s really good. I’m not an expert on the pastries of Mindanao, but this might be the best pie in the whole island. I wouldn’t say that the pie was better than the best buko pie in Los Baños, but that might be because of some leftover loyalty to Laguna’s buko pie country, where I spent my college days.

(I would later find out, over dinner, that the piemaker of Esperanza actually hailed from Laguna.)

A morbid thought entered my mind: did the members of the convoy in the Maguindanao massacre know about this buko pie stand? I figure they did. They probably did not have time to stop for a slice on the way, but I wonder if some people in the caravan thought about stopping by the roadside for some of the best pastry in all of Mindanao on their way back home, perhaps even for pasalubong for loved ones.

5:10 PM – A field of golden corn welcomes us ominously into Barangay Karuan, the first barangay of Ampatuan town in Maguindanao. “This is it,” my companions tell me, the stretch of highway where the convoy of politicians, supporters, lawyers, and media members were stopped before they were massacred. On this trip, I travelled hundreds of kilometers of highways from General Santos to Cotabato City to Davao City, and this stretch did not look particularly special. It looked like any other stretch of highway in Mindanao, save for the evil that happened here.

5:12 PM – “There, that’s the road!” Carol says, pointing to a narrow dirt road that appears next to a green building. It was the road that leads to the burial sites dug by the perpetrators for the massacre victims. We speed past it. I lose all my appetite for more buko pie.

5:20 PM – We see a vehicle full of soldiers stopping at the municipal hall of the town of Ampatuan. As we were getting off our van, several photographers run toward us, shouting that soldiers found a hidden cache of arms just behind the municipio. We speak to one of the soldiers who found the hiding place of the guns, buried behind a makeshift shed at the back of the building.

Apparently, the soldiers had been using the shed as a kitchen. In need of firewood, they decided to take one of the 2-by-2 planks that were being used to hold up the shed. After pulling the piece of wood off the ground, they noticed that there was something else buried in the ground, so they decided to dig, and that’s how they found the buried guns.

Meanwhile, there was a pot of stew sitting on the stove just beside the shed. The soldiers’ plan to cook lunch with the dos por dos firewood also turned out to be a success.

5:30 PM – Just before getting back to the vehicle, I spot a group of children playing in the grounds from across the municipal building. I approach to take shots of them, and once they see me, they smile and mug for my camera. Of course they do.

5:36 PM – We arrive at the lavish provincial capitol building at the town of Shariff Aguak. An armored vehicle is parked at the main gate, blocking the entrance. The Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Samson, was giving a briefing for members of the media gathered around him outside the gates. Photographers were busy taking pictures of the tank while television camera crews prepared the lighting systems for their live reports in the evening news.

5:50 PM – After taking video of the scene, I come back to find Lt. Col. Samson eating a slice of buko pie from Carol, as he discussed with her his opinions about martial law in the province. He says that the declaration would make it easier for the military to disarm private armies.

Just as we were preparing to leave, Lt. Col. Samson tells us that the military had another operation at midnight, and that we might want to stay for that. We decide to come back later. We privately wonder why the military would conduct an operation at midnight. In Manila, I thought to myself, the only places that get raided at midnight were strip joints and seedy massage parlors.

6:09 PM – We continue to make our way from Maguindanao to Cotabato City. With no other cars along with us, it was one of the scariest places to be in: Maguindanao, after dark, three days after the declaration of martial law, two weeks after the massacre. My companions did not seem fazed; Carol took it as an opportunity to steal catnaps.

6:48 PM – We make it to Cotabato City, after crossing the majestic Rio Grande de Mindanao. We are able to make it to our destination safe and sound; I still wish we could have said that for the people who were in that Maguindanao highway in November 23. We rest a little, have dinner, and decide to go back to Shariff Aguak to cover the operation that Lt. Col. Samson had talked about.

10:10 PM – We arrive back at Shariff Aguak, where to our right is the mansion of Andal Ampatuan Sr., the patriarch of the clan. Up ahead, to our left, is the mansion of his son, ARMM governor Zaldy Ampatuan. These are grand structures, perhaps even breathtaking when one pans from their splendor to the abjectness that surrounds them. Both mansions notably share the color scheme of the provincial capitol building; they look like they were made of the same materials too. Outside the mansions were several armored personnel carriers along with other police and army vehicles, while a platoon of soldiers stood guard, waiting for their orders. The military was apparently doing a search at the old man Ampatuan’s mansion.

10:20 PM – We receive word that the party doing the search had been limited upon the request of the Ampatuan family. This is why the group of soldiers, which included an elite Scout Rangers unit, stayed outside waiting. “Wow, this is martial law with TLC (tender loving care),” quips one photographer. Meanwhile, the Scout Rangers made themselves more comfortable by lying on their backs to rest right on the driveway of the Ampatuan mansion.

10:30 PM – We start to hear sounds of children wailing from inside the house; they sounded like kids who were up crying after being awakened. We walked up to the gates of the mansion — a sign above the metal bars read “Ahlan Asahlan Ramadan” — to try to see if we could see anything, but we couldn’t. Instead, we notice that the family has a horse lounging around just inside the mansion’s gates. “The horse is inside the mansion, and we aren’t,” says one Scout Ranger.

10:50 PM – Some soldiers have taken to taking photos of each other with digital cameras to pass the time. I slump down under a lamp post, where Carol takes a picture of me. “For Facebook!” she says.

11:15 PM – Carol texts to ask Lt. Col. Samson for updates from inside the mansion. He replies that the military has found a vault that they were looking for, but couldn’t open it because they didn’t know the combination. We ask if we could be allowed entry to the mansion, and we are rebuffed once more. Out of respect for the family, we are once again told.

11:24 PM – The Scout Rangers have packed up, and the media are following suit as well. “What’s the point of having martial law if you’re still going to negotiate entry into the mansion, or take delicate care of the Ampatuan vault? Why not just go through the due process and get the search warrants?” they wonder. I don’t suppose this is exactly what people who support the declaration of martial law had in mind. We get back into our vehicle and drive into the Maguindanao night back to Cotabato City, with the hope that tomorrow would be a more fruitful day.