The Ampatuan Massacre: Unconstitutional to the Core

Franco Luis G. Lopez, FL

Legal Theory
Atty. Neil Silva

Borrowing liberally and quoting casually from former US Associate Justice Antonin Scalia’s
exposition into the American Bill of Rights, we see that the real Constitution of any society, as the name
itself suggests, is how it is built. Without a government so constituted to recognize its own capacity for
tyranny, the rights so enshrined in the Constitution, specifically those lauded provisions as the bulwark
against the proverbial Leviathan, are reduced to but mere parchment guarantees.
With the US Bill of Rights serving as an inspiration, if not an actual template, to our country’s very
own, so too did that fundamental idea that shaped it become embedded in ours. One need not look far back
into the annals of Philippine history to see how powerful this idea was, that a dictator who knew and
understood it deeply, meticulously and insidiously tried to destroy it, managing to hold its force in abeyance
for fourteen years.
Of course, the strongest ideas withstand the test of time and the test of men. Through it all,
withstand it did, manifesting through the sovereign will, and ultimately being codified, in blood, sweat, and
tears, after the momentous 25th of February 1986.
We took for ourselves the idea of a Constitution posed by Justice Scalia, and made sure that in it
were the safeguards necessary to maintain such a structure—an empowered Judiciary, a more representative
Legislature, and a more accountable Executive—that a people who had spent their whole history fighting
for freedom could be finally guaranteed the guarantees that they deserve.
This punto de vista is what compels me to say that the abomination that was the Ampatuan massacre
is not only against the very fabric of the rule of law, but also the very idea the people revolted for—the
1987 Constitution.
The people involved, on either side of the gun, operated under one unconstitutional premise—that
public office, in lieu of being a public trust, was property. The Ampatuans took such premise to its end,
resulting in a brutal tragedy so repugnant to the Filipino ideal.
To elevate my position from being a mere exercise in semantics to a novel proposition, I quote
from former Chief Justice Reynato Puno in his Concurring Opinion in Republic v. Sandiganbayan1
The sole purpose of government is to promote, protect and preserve these [human] rights.
And when government not only defaults in its duty but itself violates the very rights it was
established to protect, it forfeits its authority to demand obedience of the governed and could be
replaced with one to which the people consent. The Filipino people exercised this highest of rights
in the EDSA Revolution of February 1986. (Citations omitted; Underscoring supplied)
With every gory detail laid out by Dr. Fortun, nothing made me gag more than the fact that the
backhoe used to bury the victims was government property. It encapsulated what the very evils rooted in
Philippine government thought of the constituents they were supposed to serve—mere opportunities to
amass power and obstacles to overcome in preserving the same. It, on its own, can explain why people are

1
454 Phil. 504 (2003)
no longer shocked when our very own President regards the Constitution to be more nothing than a piece
of toilet paper.
This is why I tend to agree heavily with Prof. Te’s takeaway from reading the decision of People
v. Ampatuan—it felt as if we got away with it. It felt like we stole justice—naka-isa tayo. Indeed, nothing
captures more brutally what it feels like to be a Filipino when pinned against a public official: up is down,
black is white, and the government makes both certain death and taxes for the Filipino man.
Even having stolen justice, victims of the massacre were forced to shrug off certain iniquities—
deficiencies regarding provisional remedies, one Ampatuan being acquitted, one victim not being declared
dead, the case possibly being dragged for so long that the Ampatuans’ service of their sentence will precede
the award of damages .
The case, viewed cynically, proves the toxic and regressive mindset of the Filipino—might is right,
survival of the fittest, and only the strong survive. The 22 Sections in the Bill of Rights are but parchment
guarantees against a government who could not care less about them.
However, the case teaches us a very valuable lesson: that the rule of law, amidst all, can be upheld.
Call it whatever it is, at the end of the day, the Ampatuans, sans Sajid, are serving their time. The system
works.
More importantly, the case teaches us that it doesn’t come from one single institution wielding its
awesome power.
It can be upheld through one judge who sacrifices her career for a proper administration of a case,
it can be upheld through a panel of three professionals committed to educating the people to what really
happened in the Ampatuan Massacre and what we can gain from it, it can be upheld through a law student
body that arms itself with the knowledge of not only what to study, but what to study for—to uphold the
Cosntitution that he is sworn, under oath, to protect, and to introduce reforms to the procedures, facilitating
justice, or at the least, preventing injustice.
If justice can be stolen, then perhaps it can be kept. If liberty can be fought for, then perhaps it can
be protected. And like the revolution that built our Constitution, our preservation of such need not start with
the Court. The fight against tyranny and impunity starts and ends with the Filipino people.