Mangudadatu asks voters to end Ampatuan rule

Voting for local candidates aside from those with the Liberal Party would mean the return of the Ampatuans to power.

This was the final appeal of Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu to voters of Maguindanao in a bid to shore up his candidacy in the gubernatorial post.

He warned that if one of his two opponents wins, “the ills and evils of Ampatuans will reign again.”

Mangudadatu is pitted against Guindulungan Mayor Midpantao Midtimbang, father-in-law of Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Governor Zaldy Ampatuan, and Mayor Ombra Sinsuat of Datu Odin Sinsuat town, a known ally of the Ampatuans.

“And you have seen what they were capable of,” Mangudadatu said, referring to the massacre of 57 people—including his wife and relatives, lawyers and journalists—in Ampatuan, Maguindanao, in November.

The Inquirer followed Mangudadatu and traveled with his convoy in the final days of the campaign.

In areas he visited, Mangudadatu repeated the warning amid a sea of green-clad people, mostly youth.

“Change will come under my leadership,” he said here Saturday.

Mangudadatu said it was time for Maguindanao to have a different kind of governance, far from the iron-hand employed by the Ampatuans, “where the people are masters and the elected their public servants.”

Mangudadatu admitted that his fight against the Ampatuans has become personal.

He said he wanted to end the “evils” of the clan.

“My fight is personal. I am against Ampatuan’s atrocities. But I don’t want to go to hell. I will never retaliate. It will be OK if I die in this fight as I am ready to die to fight. I will never kill. I cannot do that, only they can do that,” he said.

Ebra Macarimbang, 70, a native of Barira town, said: “I have not seen progress around.”

“Now that I’m old, I’d like to do something so my grandchildren can see change here. I don’t want them to see the present system. I believe that with Mangudadatu, the future is bright, the one that I dreamt of when I was younger,” he said.

Many Maguindanao residents that the Inquirer talked with pinned their last hopes on Mangudadatu.

But in Shariff Aguak, the heart of the province, residents worry that the elections will still be dominated by the Ampatuans and their allies.

“But the thought that I could vote for whoever I want to this time offers me some sort of freedom,” a restaurant owner said.