Yesterday’s Inquirer had a story “Joker: Focus on massacre brains.” Senator Joker Arroyo’s excellent suggestion is for government prosecutors to concentrate on winning a conviction

against the “masterminds” instead of trying to bag all the almost 200 suspects in the killing of the 58 victims of the Maguindanao Ampatuan massacre.

This way, Senator Arroyo said, the risk of taking a hundred years to complete the trial would be avoided.

The PDI story also said Arroyo, in a radio interview, urged the prosecution to “consider asking Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court to concentrate on trying the principal suspects in the killings of 58 people on Nov. 23, 2009, and hold daily hearings to expedite the process.”

The government prosecution witnesses have identified former Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr., his sons former mayor Andal Jr. and former governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Zaldy Ampatuan as the brains behind the massacre.

The story quotes Sen. Arroyo saying, “It [the prosecution] should just go after the principal defendants so they will be sentenced for their crimes. Every crime has a mastermind, most of those involved were just ‘sabit’ (lackeys). Focus on the big ones; there will be more delays if you mix in the little ones.”

“Most of the defendants were only doing what they were ordered to do. It’s obvious that this case involved a mastermind. It’s a conspiracy, and this was not done by chance.”

The third anniversary of the massacre was on Friday last week. Two years ago, Sen. Arroyo warned that seeking to prosecute 200 suspects would prolong the trial for 200 years since each defendant has the right to have his lawyer cross examine all the 100 state witnesses.

Finally the government settled on charging 195 persons of being perpetrators of the massacre. But of the 195 only 103 have been arrested.

We agree with Senator Arroyo
It is better to have the court convict the principal suspects who have been tagged as masterminds than allow the case to drag on and on.

The delay is making the families and friends of the victims lose faith in our country’s justice system. Other Filipinos who are following the progress of the case are also losing faith that the government can ever deliver justice.

There is news that the ruling political party, to which President Benigno Aquino belongs, has embraced members of the Ampatuan class as Liberal Party candidates in Mindanao. This buttresses doubts about our criminal justice system.

The joint statement of seven major media organizations on this subject says:
“Even as fear of reprisals continue to haunt witnesses and plaintiffs in the case, the government of Mr. Aquino and other major political parties in the country have embraced the Ampatuan clan.

“At least 72 Ampatuan clan members are candidates in the May 2013 elections, nine of them running under the Liberal Party, and 34 others under the United Nationalist Alliance of Vice President Jejomar Binay.

“The big number of candidates from the clan bares an intact financial and power infrastructure.

In fact, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) shows that Andal Ampatuan Jr. has managed to sell eight prime properties, an outrage when the government has pledged to forfeit wealth that multiplied many times as the clan consolidated its powers with help from successive administrations that wooed the clan’s formidable voting machine.”

The organizations are the Center for Community Journalism and Development, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, the Philippine Press Institute and the University of the Philippines-College of Mass Communication.