Philippines: Dying Ampatuan’s sons seek visiting rights

Manila: Two sons and a grandson of a dying Filipino-Muslim patriarch, their co-accused and alleged mastermind of the brutal murder of 58 political rivals and journalists in 2009, are seeking a lower court’s approval to visit him in hospital, a lawyer said.

Zaldy Ampatuan, former governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), and Andal Ampatuan Jr, former mayor of Maguindanao, asked a regional trial court in suburban Quezon City to allow them to see their father, former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr. who remained comatose after he suffered a mild stroke and massive heart attack at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) on Monday, lawyer Sam Panelo told Gulf News.

One of his grandsons, also a co-accused in the murder case, filed the same petition before the court, Panelo said.

“After the elder Ampatuan suffered a stroke last Monday, he has been vomiting and defecating blood, hooked to a ventilator because of acute respiratory failure, and to a dialysis machine to avert kidney failure. Doctors predicted he can go anytime,” Panelo said, adding that Ampatuan is also suffering from advanced stage liver cancer.

All his other children, grandchildren, siblings, and other relatives have been to the hospital to visit him, Panelo said, adding, “We hope for a humanitarian consideration from the court.”

The court that has been hearing his case allowed Ampatuan, 74, to remain under hospital arrest at the NKTI last July 2.

When he was rushed from his detention cell in southern Luzon to Quezon City’s NKTI last June 5, doctors said he had three months to live.

If the court allows the wish of Ampatuan’s two sons and grandson, twelve other relatives who are Ampatuan’s co-accused in the murder cases will make the same request, said a relative of one of the murder victims.

“These relatives include Anwar Ampatuan Sr and his son-in-law Akmad ‘Tato’ Ampatuan. All of them are politically and economically powerful. This is scary,” said the source who requested for anonymity.

Relatives of the victims were also against a court decision last March to allow one of Ampatuan’s sons, Sajid Ampatuan, to post bail. Seventeen other arrested policemen were allowed to post bail in 2014.

In November 2009, the elder Ampatuan allegedly led other Ampatuan family members to orchestrate a plan to stop a political rival, Esmael Mangudadatu, from running as governor of Maguindanao in 2010. During a convoy for the filing of Mangudadatu’s candidacy, members of Ampatuan’s private army massacred Mangudadatus’s wife, sister, relatives and political supporters, including 38 journalists who covered the event.

Their bodies and their vehicles were thrown by an excavator into a hilltop mass grave. The country’s worst elections-related killing shocked the world.

More than 100 suspects were arrested, and more than 100 accused remain at large.

Ampatuan’s allies who turned state witnesses were also killed. Relatives of victims complained of intimidation and offers of bribe money.

Many Filipinos are now sceptical of President Benigno Aquino’s promise in his campaign in 2010 to conclude the case before the end of his term in 2016.

Political families are notorious in perpetrating extrajudicial killings with help from hired guns.