THREE members of the Ampatuan clan were expelled Wednesday from the administration Lakas-Kampi-CMD party following their suspected involvement in the massacre of 57 civilians, including journalists, in Maguindanao on Monday.
Lakas-Kampi-CMD chair and standard-bearer Gilbert Teodoro, who visited Maguindanao Wednesday, said the party’s National Executive Committee “unanimously decided” to expel Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr. and his sons Zaldy, governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and Andal Jr., mayor of Datu Unsay town. The elder Ampatuan was the party’s chairman in Maguindano.
The Ampatuans, staunch allies of President Arroyo, are known to have helped the president clinch her victory in the 2004 elections by delivering votes that have been described as “statistically improbable.” Arroyo’s opponent, population action star Fernando Poe Jr., scored zero in several Maguindanao towns.
Maguindano’s involvement in rigging the results of the elections was confirmed in wiretapped phone conversations between Arroyo and then Elections Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano that became public a year after the elections.
Teodoro said the Ampatuans failed to exercise “moral authority” over their clansmen who attacked a convoy of relatives of Buluan Mayor Ismael “Toto” Mangudadatu, lawyers and journalists who were on their way to Shariff Aguak town for the filing of Mangudadatu’s certificate of candidacy for the gubernatorial post with the Commission on Elections provincial office. Mangudadatu did not join the convoy. Andal Jr. is also running for governor.
Earlier, Arroyo declared Thursday as a national day of mourning for the victims of carnage which, she said, constitutes “a most heinous crime.”
“This is not a simple election feud between opposing clans; this is a supreme act of inhumanity that is a blight on our nation,” she said in a statement.