Just moments before a rally to commemorate the victims of a massacre in Ampatuan town, almost 1,000 kilometers south of the Philippines capital Manila, got underway, a crude bomb exploded.

The chief of police in the province of Manguindanao said that nobody had been hurt and the explosion was only meant to "disrupt activity" and scare people from attending the ceremony. He also said that two other bombs had been found and safely disarmed, adding that they had been left in a place where they would easily be detected.

Flowers and white balloons

Despite the disruption, victims and government officials attended remembrance ceremonies in the hilly village of Salman near where the massacre took place two years ago. They lit candles, offered flowers and released white balloons and doves into the air. Concrete markers bearing the names of the dead were erected.

Governor Esmael Mangududatu attended the ceremony although he had earlier said he would not. His wife and 20 other relatives were killed two years ago when gunmen ambushed an election-campaign convoy that was making its way along a mountain road to witness her file his papers ahead of elections in May 2010.

The victims were allegedly led along a dirt road before being shot and buried in mass graves. The dead included at least 31 media workers who were covering the Mangududatus' campaign.

Defying the Ampatuans

Mangududatu had decided to stand against the powerful Ampatuan clan, which was close to former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and ran the largely Muslim province of Maguindanao in the southern Philippines for almost a decade.

Murder charges have since been filed against 196 people, including the former provincial governor Andal Ampatuan and his sons. Some 80 people have been arrested but an additional 100 suspects are still at large, including former police, military personnel and civilian militia linked to the Ampatuans and thought to be hiding in the restive south.

Some 80 people are on trial in a courtroom that was especially built in a maximum security prison east of Manila where a judge has been hearing the case twice a week, but on Wednesday relatives of the victims called for a swifter resolution.

"The families need to act, to remain strong and to continue the fight," said Grace Morales, the widow of journalist Rosell Morales and sister of another slain reporter, Marites Cablitas. "It has been two years but we have not obtained full justice because not all of them have been detained and sentenced."

A culture of impunity

Morales and other relatives of the victims blame former President Arroyo for a culture of impunity in the southern Philippines, saying she could have prevented the killings.

Last Friday, Arroyo was arrested on charges of electoral fraud, which she denies. She and Andal Ampatuan are accused of being involved in rigging the Senate elections in Maguindanao in 2007 to favor her allies.

The US ambassador to the Philippines Harry Thomas said on Wednesday that people around the world were watching the legal proceedings into the "appalling act of violence" very closely.

Author: Anne Thomas (AP, Reuters, AFP)
Editor: Shamil Shams