A coalition of human rights and media advocates convened in London, on the 100th day since the brazen November 23, 2009 Ampatuan massacre in Maguindanao, and castigated President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s failure to disband militias who were said to be behind the grisly crime, among others.

Representatives of Amnesty International (AI), the United Kingdom’s National Union of Journalists (NUJ), the International Federation of Journalists  and the Campaign for Human Rights in the Philippines (CHRP) formed the coalition at a forum on Wednesday in Britain’s capital city.

RJ Maramag, chair of the CHRP, told Asian Correspondent said the forum and coalition are positive steps appreciated by Filipinos and the victims  who demand that justice be swiftly delivered against the masterminds and perpetrators of the Ampatuan massacre. 

“Mrs. Arroyo is committing a bloody mistake is she thinks she could get away with keeping these militias which she unleashed under her watch,” said Maramag.

In a statement, Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific director Sam Zafiri said that “Arroyo is the one who authorized private militias, and she can abolish them with the stoke of her pen.”

Zafiri said that four coalescing organizations are calling on Arroyo to rescind her Executive Order 546 which authorized the formation of militias since 2006.

The Ampatuans, a powerful pro-Arroyo political clan in Maguindanao province and the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, are said to maintain their own militia and this was purportedly mobilized in perpetrating the massacre that shocked the Philippines and the world last year.

The massacre killed at least 57 civilians including scores of journalists who were accompanying the wife of an Ampatuan foe in filing a certificate of candidacy for the gubernatorial post of Maguindanao. The incident is the single worst act of election violence as the Philippines prepares for the May 10 elections, and the world’s single biggest carnage of working journalists.

In Manila, media watchdog Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) and the Southeast Asia Press Alliance (SEAPA) assailed working journalists and media outlets for their waning interest in ensuring that the masterminds and perpetrators of the massacre are prosecuted and punished.

In a joint statement, the two groups bewailed: “Forgetfulness is among the worst vices of a people whom the media have failed to provide information crucial to their lives. And yet, forgetfulness is the sure guarantee for the repetition of such atrocities as the Ampatuan massacre, the human rights violations that continue to haunt this country, and the constant peril of authoritarian rule. Only by remembering the past can we prevent its repetition.”

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