Arms cache found anew in two more sites in Andal Ampatuan cement drier factory

Arroyo govt laying grounds for whitewash with rebellion charges - lawyers

DAVAO CITY – Operatives found again arms cache in two sites inside the cement drier factory of Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr., in the capital town of Shariff Aguak, after several finds in different places the past week.

Maj. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer, commander of the Armed Forces' Eastern Mindanao Command (Eastmincom) and Director Felizardo Serapio of the Western Mindanao's Directorate for Integrated Police Operations (Dipo) were there at the area to oversee the extraction of the arms cache in six suspected sites within the compound.

Maj. Randolph Cabangbang, Eastmincom spokesman, said that Army and police operatives have marked six sites in the cement factory and have seized the arms cache from two sites.

The first site was yielded two caliber .30 machine gun, six cal. .50 barrel guns, 200 rounds for cal. 30 machine gun, 230 rounds for cal. 60, 250 rounds cal 30, 50 rounds cal. 50 linked, cal. 45 pistol, boots, bandoliers, a Canon 350D camera, and gun parts.

The second site was an arms cache also dumped with garbage and contained one cal. 50 machine gun, one cal. 30 machine gun, assorted ammunition in wooden boxes, assorted uniforms of Civilian Armed Auxiliary and National Police, and a dismantled truck believed to be an armor vehicle.

Cabangbang said operatives have yet to inventory the cache in four other sites inside the compound.

Meanwhile, about 1,500 ralliers, including journalists and lawyers, joined the national indignation on December 10 over the turn of the investigation over the Ampatuan massacre in Maguindanao last November 23, warning that the filing of rebellion charges indicated that the “Arroyo government was laying the grounds for a whitewash”.

Lawyers have warned that the surprising filing of rebellion charges against the suspects in the massacre “are indeed calculated and preemptive plans by the Arroyo administration for a cover-up to also free the regime, including several of its generals, of any culpability in the rise of ruthless warlords, like the Ampatuans of Maguindanao”.

“Specifically, it will not be surprising that in the coming days, the Ampatuan camp will exploit the government's deceitful scheme by seeking the absorption of the multiple murder charges in the rebellion charge,” said the Union of Peoples' Lawyers in Mindanao.

The UPLM said that “considering the gravely flawed factual basis cited to justify Proclamation 1959, the difficulty of proving the crime of rebellion, then, is almost certain. And with it follows the eventual acquittal of the accused, particularly the suspected masterminds, who are all members of the Ampatuan clan.”

Speakers from various groups which joined the march and rally to commemorate the International Human Rights Day yesterday said that “while the government was always bent on pushing for common criminal charges than rebellion against insurgents to ensure that they get jailed for life, here the administration has filed rebellion charges that subsume all crimes like murder under it”.