In what the Philippine Government feels is a major development to ease tension and get justice for massacre victims in Maguindanao
The Philippine Secretary of Justice has requested formally that a special trial court be set up the Philippine supreme court to handle the trial in the capitol in Manila. Local armed groups, relatives of the victims and terrorists groups may pose a threat to the conduct of a trail and endanger the local court in a nearby city where the suspect remains in government custody. Multiple murder charges are to be lodged versus the suspect and members of his 200 man security force and local police and civilian vollenteer militiamen who are alleged to have been the group that carried out the massacre by the victims families.
A initail report of investigators has been submitted to the President and with the surrender of the principal suspect and disarming of his security detail in Datu Unsay town Maguindanao. It hoped the road to justice for the victims can begin. But anger remains widespread over the entire incident and it remains a strong test for President Arroyo in the remaining months of her term in office.
The suspect is from a family viewed as key ally and backer of the Arroyo and previous occupants of the Presidency since 1991.
The announcement was made as President Arroyo was meeting with local government leaders in the Palace.
Justice Secretary Agnes Devendera, has the principal accused Andal Ampatuan Jr., a town mayor of Datu Unsay, which is named after him according to locals in Maguindanao, turned himself in to the military and President Arroyo’s adviser on Mindanao.
Ampatuan is in custody has been brought to General Santos City, outside of the baliwik of his clan which is one of the major ruling families in the Autonomous region of Muslim Mindanao.
It is General Santos where prosecutors will formally charge him for multiple murder in deaths of 57 people and two unborn babies of pregnant victims. Investigators have been gathering forensic evidence from the crime scene where the bodies were recovered from a mass grave on a grassy hilltop in the town of Ampatuan.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has submitted a initial investigation report and recommendations from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), on the Maguindanao massacre. President Arroyo’s Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita. told listeners of a government radio station Radyo ng Bayan in a interview.
Ermita said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo met with Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera and received the DOJ-NBI report, observation and recommendation regarding the gruesome killing of over 57 people, in that southern Philippines province of Maguindanao Monday.
Ermita said an immediate resolution to ending the tension and bring those responsible to justice in the Maguindanao massacre can be expected with the submission of reports of the different government agencies whose investigation and gathered physical and testimonial evidence to properly charge the perpetrators of the barbaric incident.
Stressing that the government fully understands the feelings of the families of the massacre victims, the Executive Secretary said the government is taking all necessary steps to ensure that the long hand of the law will run after the perpetrators of the gruesome killings and justice is served.