DATU HOFFER AMPATUAN, Maguindanao—Using sniffer dogs and shovels, troops dug up another arms cache on Sunday in a crackdown on suspects in the massacre of 57 people after the declaration of martial law in Maguindanao that has led to 62 arrests.
The seizure of 39 high-powered firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition came a day after police and military units uncovered 340,000 bullets for M-16 assault rifles in a warehouse reportedly owned by the Ampatuan clan, the main suspects in the Nov. 23 bloodbath, in nearby Mamasapano town.
Army and police units also swooped down on three opulent mansions of the Ampatuan family in Davao City Sunday, Maj. Gen. Gaudencio Pangilinan, vice chief of staff for operations of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said in a briefing in Manila.
There were no arrests made or contraband confiscated in the raids on the Ampatuan mansions.
“We’re not picking our targets at random,” Pangilinan said, adding that troops were moving swiftly to neutralize the 4,000-member civilian militia force of the Ampatuans.
“These forces are not only a threat to the public safety and security of the province, they are also capable of committing terrorism, such as bombings, arson and attacks on our convoys,” he said, adding authorities have disarmed only about 400 of the militia group.
Philippine National Police Director Andres Caro said at the Malacañang briefing that 62 suspects in the massacre had been arrested since President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued her martial law proclamation on Friday.
Those detained on Saturday included Andal Ampatuan Sr., the family patriarch and three-time governor of the province, and four of his sons—the governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the acting governor of Maguindanao, its vice governor and the mayor of the capital town of Shariff Aguak.
The alleged mastermind, Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. of Datu Unsay town, surrendered three days after the massacre and is detained at the National Bureau of Investigation in Manila.
Mango farm yields arms
Lt. Col. Michael Samson, spokesperson of the Maguindanao military unit, said at Datu Hoffer Ampatuan town that a tip by a resident led to the buried armaments at a mango farm in Barangay Limponga.
Samson told reporters that investigators were verifying information that the two-hectare farm is owned by the elder Ampatuan, one of Ms Arroyo’s closest political allies.
“Almost 80 percent of our province is owned by the Ampatuans. I’m sure even the policemen know that for a fact,” a middle-aged woman said.
Recovered from the area were a 50-cal. machine gun, 11 M-16 rifles, 15 M-14 rifles, three Garand rifles, two automatic rifles, two M203 grenade rifles, two M60 and M50 sub-machine guns, a 30-cal. rifle and two carbines.
The latest find was unearthed from a four-foot deep digging just 20 meters away from a nipa hut of the farm caretaker, who has disappeared.
Various types of ammo for different types of assault rifles were placed in three sacks and at least 10 boxes of wooden and metal boxes.
A nearby one-foot hole also yielded a wooden box containing at least 1,000 rounds for M-16 rifles.
Bullet boxes marked ‘DND’
The boxes of bullets were marked “Government Arsenal DND (Department of National Defense).”
The ammunition and some of the long firearms showed that they were manufactured by Arms Corp. of the Philippines, a private weapons company that exclusively manufactures bullets and guns for state security agencies.
Fenced by metal barb wires, the mango plantation lies beside a dirt road connecting the province capital, Shariff Aguak, to Datu Hoffer Ampatuan, a newly created town named after Ampatuan’s murdered son.
The farm is less than a kilometer away from the provincial police headquarters in Camp Akilan Ampatuan.
As in last Thursday’s recovery of firearms buried in a vacant lot near Ampatuan’s mansion, nobody was arrested in Sunday’s operations.
Col. Leo Ferrer, commander of the Army’s 601st Infantry Battalion, said the farm’s caretaker fled the area moments before government troopers arrived.
Ballistic tests
Colonel Ferrer said that ballistic tests would be conducted to determine if the bullets match the shells recovered at the site where an election convoy of gubernatorial candidate Esmael Mangudadatu and his supporters were either gunned down or hacked to death.
The dead included the wife of Mangudadatu, vice mayor of Buluan town, his two sisters and 30 media people. It was the largest single loss of lives for journalists anywhere in the world. They were to cover the filing of Mangudadatu’s candidacy in the May elections.
Ferrer said the recovery of the firearms might also prompt the filing of additional criminal charges against the elder Ampatuan if it were established that he owned the farm.
Using metal detectors and a bomb-sniffing dog, members of the Army’s Explosives Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team scoured the plantation for other firearms.
“We will continue the search for other firearms,” said Samson.
Samson said troops would also look for a certain Kamilon, a policeman who purportedly owned the police uniform seized inside one of the ammo boxes.
‘High-value targets’
Authorities have taken into custody five “high-value targets” who allegedly had direct participation in the massacre, said a police intelligence official who asked not to be named because of the nature of his work.
“They were close-in security escorts of the family. We also received information that they were actually relatives of the Ampatuans,” the official said.
“Our information revealed that they directly participated in the crime,” he added.
Ferrer said police had “invited for questioning” more than 40 persons, some of them women.
“Some of them may have knowledge of the massacre. But if they are cleared by our police investigators, we will release them, immediately,” he said.
Ferrer belied reports that soldiers were randomly storming houses of residents in the province.
“If we accost some individuals or conduct search operations in residential areas, they were based on reliable information given to us. They are not done arbitrarily,” the Army commander said.
He dismissed as “misinformation” the text messages claiming that a number of residents in Shariff Aguak fled after soldiers swooped on their houses, arrested male members of the household and took their valuables.
Empty streets
Businesses and marketplaces were closed and streets were empty in Maguindanao Sunday, while civilians started to flee their homes and farms in fear violence may erupt soon.
“I advise you to stay put and be calm or go about your daily chores. Should our soldiers commit abuses, they will be relieved, investigated and punished,” said Lt. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer, Maguindanao military commander who has taken over as governor.
He said arrests and house searches would only be done on those suspected to be involved in the massacre. With reports from Jocelyn R. Uy, Christian V. Esguerra, Jeffrey M. Tupas and Dennis Jay Santos, Inquirer Mindanao, Reuters, Associated Press
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