This is another story I submitted for the BlogWatch project of the Philippine Online Chronicles

Youth formations and individuals from different universities, high schools and communities in Metro Manila marched last November 27 to Malacanang in order to demand accountability and justice from the Arroyo government for the election-related massacre that occurred in Maguindanao a few days earlier.

From Espana Avenue in Sampaloc, youth groups lead by Kabataan Partylist marched towards Mendiola bridge where they were stopped by police barricades and barbed wires from reaching Malacanang.

The students expressed outrage over how the Arroyo government is handling the issue. “It took four days for the government to arrest one of the Ampatuans,” said Rain Sindayen of the Student Alliance for the Advancement of Democratic Rights – UP (STAND-UP). The Ampatuans are considered the primary suspects for the massacre in Maguindanao. “For ordinary citizens suspected of crimes, it only takes a few minutes for the police to have them arrested,” he added.

The manner by which the government is responding to the crisis reeks of political accommodation, expressed another student leader. The Ampatuans are said to be instrumental in the landslide victory of Pres. Arroyo in Maguindanao in the 2004 elections, and the electoral sweep made by the administration ticket in the same elections and in the succeeding 2007 polls. The results in Maguindanao are also suspected of being tampered as towns across the province registered almost 100% turnouts with some registering zero votes for the opposition.

Speaking in front of the crowd, student leaders from PUP and UP Diliman also exposed that it was the Arroyo administration that gave the private armies of warring political families in Maguindanao a legal basis for existence through Executive Order 546. The said document provided for the existence of armed civilian volunteers organization (CVO) to act as “force multipliers” to assist the Philippine National Police (PNP) in implementing “peace and order” in the countryside. The existing private armies of local politicians thus became CVO’s. The said executive order also ensured government funding for the civilian armed groups.

“Government bullets killed the Ampatuan victims,” claimed one student leader.

Anton Dulce of Anakbayan said that the Maguindanao massacre bares not much difference from the massacres that happened in Mendiola and in Hacienda Luisita, where scores of farmers were killed by arms from the government. He also reminded the crowd of the thousands of activists that have disappeared or were killed by suspected elements of the military since 2001. All, he said, were politically-motivated and were meant to protect the interests of the ruling class.

Charisse Banez, Student Regent of the University of the Philippines, raised the issue further by saying that the massacre was not an isolated incident of clan feud, but was a regular manifestation of the systemic violence employed by political families and even by the State in order to protect their interests and maintain the status quo. She added that it is no different from political warlords and other politicians with private armies in many other parts of the country, and no different from the government who employs an army that kills Filipinos who struggle for social justice and equality.

Late in the afternoon, the demonstrators marched back to Sampaloc where they held a noise barrage near Trabajo Market. The mobilization ended peacefully with youth leaders reminding student participants, pedestrians and the residents of the immediate community to remain vigilant in demanding justice from the Arroyo government for the Ampatuan massacre and in asserting for genuine social change even after the 2010 national elections.