Massacre witness knew his days were numbered

MANILA, Philippines—He knew he was a dead man walking the moment he fled the hinterlands of Shariff Aguak in Maguindanao.

In an interview with a select group of reporters on March 9, Suwaib Upham disclosed that he feared for his life as he bared an alleged plot by Andal Ampatuan Jr. to silence him.

He said it was a matter of time before hired killers would get to him.

Barely three months after the interview, an assassin’s bullets felled the man who may have been a vital witness in prosecuting the powerful clan accused of orchestrating the country’s worst election-related murders.

“Datu Unsay (Andal Jr.) will stop at nothing to kill those who knew about the massacre, including myself,” Upham told reporters in a thick Maguindanao accent.

By Upham’s own account, Andal Jr. talked to Kanor Ampatuan over the phone sometime in February. During the conversation, he said he heard Andal Jr. say he wanted him killed to prevent him from spilling the beans on the influential political clan about their role in the November 23 slaughter of 57 people in Maguindanao.

At that time, Andal Jr. was already locked up at the National Bureau of Investigation jail in Manila.

“They were really powerful. He was able to talk with Datu Kanor regularly even if he was already inside the jail,” Upham said.

He said he and a number of militiamen went with Kanor, then the vice mayor of Salibo town, to seek refuge in the mountains of Shariff Aguak after state forces launched a manhunt for them.

The interview, done inside a rented room of a hotel in Ortigas, Pasig City, was arranged by public interest lawyer Harry Roque and his colleagues who had been helping some of the massacre victims’ families.

At that time, Roque requested the media not to divulge Upham’s real identity for security reasons.

Upham himself chose the name “Jesse” as alias for the one-hour interview.

A burly man in his late 20s, Upham wore a shawl to cover his face while answering questions from reporters as TV crews shot footage of the interview.

During the interview, columnist Ellen Tordesillas helped him translate some of his statements in a Visayan dialect as he could barely speak Filipino.

At times, he would remove the shawl as he sneered at how Andal Jr. wielded his power in the impoverished province of Maguindanao.

Journalists who heard him talk of Andal Jr.’s notoriety were bowled over by his stories about the chainsaw murders and other horrid crimes purportedly perpetrated by the scion of the most powerful family in his province.

Once, he said, Andal Jr. gunned down a man after the hapless victim refused to “share” his wife with him.

His vivid narration of the supposed killings somehow confirmed the myths about how the clan maintained its fiefdom.

“Nobody could go against their will in Maguindanao. They kill even their relatives who question their decisions,” he said.

To prove his intimate dealings with the Ampatuans, Upham disclosed that Andal Jr. fondly called President Gloria MacapagalArroyo “Nanay” (Mother) whenever she visited the Ampatuan mansion in Shariff Aguak.

He said Andal Jr. would even kiss Arroyo’s hands to show his respect during her meetings with the Ampatuans.

Despite the threats to his life, Upham said he decided to surface “to tell the truth.”

“I decided to come out because I want Datu Unsay (Andal Ampatuan Jr.) and Datu Kanor behind bars and to pay for the crimes they committed,” he said.

“I was bothered by my conscience. I pity the innocent people they killed,” he added.

According to him, he was a member of a police auxiliary unit in Maguindanao assigned as “special bodyguard” of Kanor.

Kanor, Andal Jr.’s cousin, was one of the primary suspects the Department of Justice charged in the massacre.

Although state prosecutors presented several witnesses, Upham was the first to admit direct participation in the carnage.

Describing himself as a neighborhood toughie, Upham said he started working as Kanor’s close-in security escort in 2008.

He said it was Andal who recruited him to work as police auxiliary agent and later assigned him to Kanor, receiving a monthly salary of P3,000 and a sack of rice.

“In Maguindanao, the word of the Ampatuans was the law. No one went against what Datu Unsay wanted to happen because he would not hesitate to kill anyone who disobeyed his wishes,” he said in a separate affidavit furnished the Inquirer.

He said Kanor and Andal were “inseparable” and “were like brothers.”

“It is for (this) reason that I gained intimate knowledge of the workings of the Ampatuan clan, especially of Datu Unsay and Datu Kanor,” he said.