MANILA At least 21 people, 13 of them women, were massacred on Monday morning in a major flareup of political violence in a province in the strife-torn Mindanao, the military and relatives of the victims said.
Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner, the spokesman of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), confirmed in live interviews with Manila-based radio and TV stations that soldiers have discovered the bodies of 21 victims in a forest near the capital town of Sharif Aguak, Maguindanao province in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Brawner said that of the bodies discovered at the scene, 13 were women and eight men. He added the death toll could still go up, citing the same report that the soldiers also discovered newly-dug graves where other victims were buried.
The victims, Brawner said, were among the 36 people, including about 15 Mindanao-based journalists, who were aboard at least five vehicles on their way to file a certificate of candidacy before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) regional office in Sharif Aguak.
In separate interviews, Vice-Mayor Esmael “Toto” Mangundadatu of Buluan town in Maguindanao, said one of the massacre victims was his own wife, Genalyn Kiamson-Mangundadatu, who was reportedly beheaded.
Mangundadatu earlier announced he would run for governor of Maguindanao against the incumbent Andal Ampatuan, father of ARMM Governor Rizaldy Ampatuan, in the coming May 2010 polls.
Mangundadatu blamed the Ampatuans, their supporters and the police for the massacre. On the other hand, the Ampatuans could not be reached for comment.
According to Mangandadatu, he sent his wife, and several relatives to file his nomination in Sharif Aguak in the company of about 15 Mindanao-based media correspondents in Manila.
Mangundadatu explai-ned he decided to send his wife, sister and several relatives and two women lawyers, to file his nomination paper, thinking they would be safe and would not be harmed.
He said he was prevented from personally filing the papers because he was in Manila on Monday. Besides, Mangundadatu said security reasons also prevented him as he cited reports that he would be ambushed if he did so.
Meanwhile, the military said that based on sketchy reports, the convoy bearing the victims were on their way to Sharif Aguak at about 10am on Monday when they were flagged down by uniformed policemen and miltiamen who put up a checkpoint in a major road intersection.
Mangundadatu also claimed that during the confrontation, his wife stabbed and hurt Mayor Ampatuan with a ball pen when he tried to forcibly take a copy of the certificate of candidacy from her.
From the checkpoint, Mangundadatu said the Mayor Ampatuan and the policemen abducted the victims and brought them to a forest area near a camp of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front where they were slain.
Manolo B. Jara
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