Submitted by: Keisel Precious Jerlin B. Bansil
Submitted to: Ms. Karina Bote
Maguindanao Massacre
November 23, 2009 a very significant date to all cotabatenos and a very controversial date to anyone who knows about the massacre. A day that brought the city into darkness.The time where majority of the people were into a great fear.The day where many innocent people were executed due to the willingness of others to win the position.
Even for a country long hardened to election violence, the massacre of at least 57 defenseless civilians on the main southern island of Mindanao, many of them relatives and supporters of a local politician and a large group of journalists, sets a new low. This troubled corner of the Philippines usually makes headlines for its long-running Muslim separatist rebellion. But the killings starkly exposed a nationwide malaise: the fierce competition for regional power among the country's small élite of a few hundred families and clans that control an inordinate amount of the national wealth — and the desperate lengths some will go to protect their hold on power.
The most talked about incident that happened 4 years ago has not been resolved until now. The brutal killing of 57 persons that were just about to file candidacy for Cotabato’s former governor Esmael ‘toto’ mangudadatu. On that day, the wife of Esmael Mangudadatu, a local politician, was to submit a Certificate of Candidacy on his behalf. He was to run for provincial governor. Local journalists joined them in a convoy going to the office of the Commission on Election in the municipality of Shariff Aguak. The journalists were interested as it was the first time that there is a man who will take risks to have a rivalry with an ampatuan in terms of running for a position.. It was a challenge to the Ampatuans, the