The Press Freedom Monument in Cagayan de Oro City, which was erected to commemorate journalists who were killed in the line of duty. (PNA file photo)
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Suspects in the Ampatuan Massacre who are still in hiding should surrender and face the charges against them, a family member of one of the victims said Monday.
Catherine Nuñez, the mother of UNTV reporter Victor Nuñez who was one of the victims killed in what is now known as the most gruesome media killings in recent history, made this appeal after one of the suspects was arrested last week in the Misamis Oriental town of Tagoloan.
The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-10 (CDIG-10) apprehended in Barangay Mohon, Tagoloan town, on Friday (Aug. 21) Nasser Adam, one of those allegedly involved in the massacre.
Adam, who now goes by the name Umar Kasim, was working as a security guard for a beverage manufacturing plant in Mohon prior to his arrest. The suspect is said to be a member of the Ampatuan family’s “inner circle” and carries a PHP300,000 bounty on his head.
Nuñez said it would be better for the suspects who are still in hiding to turn themselves in.
“I hope they surrender and face the charges. Let the court decided if they are guilty or innocent. If they are innocent, they will be acquitted,” she said.
Nuñez said she no longer felt the anger and resentment she used to have and no longer wished ill-feelings to the people involved in the massacre.
“These people were just being used by the Ampatuans. They are victims too. It should be the Ampatuans who must be punished,” she said.
Nuñez recalled that back in 2011, a few months after the massacre, a group of men went to her neighborhood asking for her whereabouts.
Lawyer Harry Roque, then a legal counsel for the families of Ampatuan Massacre victims, advised her to go to Manila for a while.
Nuñez said she is still waiting for the court-approved compensation promised to the families of the massacre victims. She said her family is expecting to receive PHP2.1 million in damages.
Nuñez’s son was among the 32 media workers killed when they covered the filing of certificate of candidacy of Esmael Mangudadatu, who ran against Andal Ampatuan Jr. for the governorship of Maguindanao.
Some 58 people in the convoy led by Mangudadatu’s wife Genalyn and other relatives was stopped at a checkpoint and then summarily killed in Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman, Ampatuan town in Maguindanao, on November 23, 2009.
In her verdict, Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes acquitted 56 suspects and convicted 28 persons on Dec. 19, 2019.
Nuñez, who hails from Cotabato, has been living in Misamis Oriental even before her son was killed in 2009.
“At first I felt afraid. I was not aware that one of the suspects was living nearby. I thought they went to the mountains to join the rebels. But I told myself, I must not fear anymore. I leave it all to God for my protection,” she said in a phone interview. (PNA)
