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Host Marco Werman has an update on the massacre of more than 50 people in the southern Philippines earlier this week. A man has been charged. It’s the local Mayor.
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MARCO WERMAN: We want to update you on another story we’ve been covering this week. It concerns a massacre that took place in the Philippines on Monday. More than 50 people were killed. Their bodies were dumped in shallow graves. Most of the victims were supporters and relatives of a local politician who is running to unseat a mayor. Today, that mayor, Andal Ampatuan, Jr. was charged with murder. But the case might not go to trial for any number of reasons. The editor in chief of the Manila Daily Tribune Newspaper, Ninez Cacho Olivarez, offers one possible scenario.
NINEZ CACHO OLIVAREZ: Right now there are four witnesses and they have filed their affidavit complaint but within a period of time, they may just change their tune because here in the Philippines, it’s known all over that witnesses recant out of fear, out of monetary consideration or something but they do recant and if they recant, then the case falls.
WERMAN: Ninez Cacho Olivarez says that this is just the most extreme example of a series of political killings in the Philippines. Rarely is anyone charged, let alone prosecuted. This case she says is just too big for the Philippine government to ignore.
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