with Carlos Antonio Leonardia

Was anybody surprised to hear that one of the most crucial witnesses in the gruesome Maguindanao massacre was recently shot and killed?  Former militiaman Suwaib Upham had the balls to tag the powerful Ampatuan clan as responsible for the massacre, saying that he was among the gunmen on that fateful day and that he saw everything, including who the masterminds were.  For that, he got the death sentence, Maguindanao style.

Suwaib Upham already knew that he was a dead man walking, that the powerful clan that he was going to testify against would go after him to permanently silence his incriminating testimony.  But because he did not trust the Department of Justice, whom he saw as tainted by the long reaching tentacles of his powerful former bosses, he was not given any form of protection by the government.  Maybe his fears weren't completely unfounded, because if the Department of Justice was truly interested in the pursuit of justice, it would have expended all its available resources in securing and protecting critical witnesses who could provide critical information in what was arguably the most gruesome and sensational mass murders in the history of the country.  Anyway, how can he trust the witness protection program when the head of the DOJ himself questionably tried to absolve 2 members of the Ampatuan clan from any liability?  No paranoid witness in this country can trust the government agency whose head had the temerity to clear the suspects of the case he is willing to testify in without the benefit of a trial. 

How can a witness to a crime where the suspects belong to a powerful warlord clan whose members are very close with the President herself believe that he can find safety with the government when he sees whistleblowers like Jun Lozada being kidnapped so that he could be prevented from testifying in a Senate investigation?  The Secretary of Justice has the nerve to wash his hands of the death of Suwaib Upham by saying that the so-called witness never presented himself nor asked for protection but he never considered that the witness could not trust the government because of the increasingly common notion that this government is not interested truth nor justice where the friends of its President are concerned.

In this country, nobody goes to the DOJ for protection, especially when your enemies have the right connections.  Ask Jun Lozada, who preferred the protection of the unarmed La Salle Brothers over the "protection" of the government. 

If the leadership of the DOJ were truly adamant in proving all the naysayers wrong, in proving to the doubtful Filipino populace that they are interested in justice and not just the protection of the rich and powerful, it could have gone out of its way to secure and protect witnesses in the Maguindanao massacre. 

The death of potential star witness Suwaib Upham and the DOJ chief's nonchalant response to his loss merely shows this country where the priorities of the DOJ lie.  When it comes to this most recent execution, the DOJ is blaming everybody, including the dead man himself, but themselves when they should have held themselves assumed responsibility for the protection of the witness ever since he gathered the guts to come out and testify whether the man had faith in the poor reputation of the government agency or not.

One of the hallmarks of the Arroyo administration is that it has been particularly unfriendly to whistleblowers and star witnesses.  Ask Acsa Ramirez and Jun Lozada.  Ask the grieving family of Suwaib Upham.  People who try to tell the truth in this country are the ones who are prosecuted and killed while those who are accused of major crimes like plunder and mass murder know that they can get away with anything because we live in a climate where witnesses are too afraid to complicate their lives and those who do decide to sing are easily killed or have the tables turned on them by a government that obviously does not like squealers.

The witness eradication program will hopefully come to an end once the reign of the sitting president comes to a close.  The challenge of the new administration is to restore the witness protection program to its proper place so that the climate of impunity that has reigned over the country over the past decade can finally be changed.  It would be nice to see that for a change, witnesses and their families are no longer the ones cowering in fear, and the criminals, plunderers, and mass murderers are the ones locked up in jail.