PIMENTEL DARES PRESIDENT ARROYO TO SUSPEND AMPATUANS,
AND NOT TO DELEGATE SUCH AUTHORITY

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. today dared President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to suspend Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan and other members of his clan to prove that she can muster the political will to punish perpetrators of the massacre of 57 innocent civilians in their turf regardless of her political or personal ties with them.

Pursuant to the Rule of Law, Pimentel said the President herself should exercise her authority to suspend erring local government officials in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, instead of delegating such authority to Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno.

He said it is important that the Maguindanao governor and other Ampatuans suspected of involvement in the mass murder should be suspended right away from their local government posts, pending the outcome of the investigation being conducted by law enforces, to prevent them from using their offices to cover up and destroy vital evidence that will unmask the criminal perpetrators.

"I regret that despite the heinousness of the offense, there does not appear to be an adequate and speedy response by the government to the blatant challenge to the Rule of Law in the province of Maguindanao," the senator form Mindanao said.

"What is needed is a decisive action on the part of the President, not a questionable delegation of her executive powers to a Cabinet member. Questionable because of the scope of the delegation - power to supervise and control in her behalf the government operations in the provinces, cities, municipalities and barangays in the ARMM."

Pimentel also urged the government to disarm all members of the Civilian Volunteer Organization in Maguindanao and to transfer the venue of the preliminary investigation either to Cebu or Manila so that the witnesses can speak freely before impartial investigators, prosecutors and judges.

He was alarmed by reports that judges and prosecutors in Maguindanao have gone on a mass leave for fear of being the objects of harassment and physical harm from the political warlords and their henchmen.

Pimentel said the President's directive giving Secretary Puno the authority to exercise administrative supervision over the ARMM is questionable because the Local Government Code specifies the manner in which local government units may be supervised but not controlled by the President.

He pointed out that the Department of Interior and Local Government, led by Puno, was supposed to have been phased out of the areas of local government after the approval and effectivity of the Local Government Code in 1991.

What is needed, the minority leader said, is not a period of national mourning over the carnage in Maguindanao.

"What is needed is effective and efficient action on the part of the government to uphold the Rule of Law and neutralize the warlords even as they pretend they are helping in the enforcement of the law," Pimentel said. As a senator from Mindanao, he said he must express outrage at the massacre that could only be associated with barbarians. As a lawmaker of the land, he said he must denounce the murders for savagely snuffing out the lives of their victims without provocation.

"As the representative of ASEAN + 3 and the Asia Pacific Group of Nations in the Committee of the Human Rights of Parliamentarians in the Inter-Parliamentary Union, I cannot help but demand that justice be done - not tomorrow but - today against those who did the bastardly deed," Pimentel said.

"And specially against those who plotted, organized and ordered the massacre probably out of a misplaced belief that they enjoy immunity under the Protection of some highly-placed officials of the Republic."