MikeLigalig.com

By Inquirer Mindanao, Jerome Aning
Philippine Daily Inquirer

A former militiaman who failed to get protection from the justice department after he tagged the powerful Ampatuan clan as being responsible for the Maguindanao massacre has been felled by an assassin’s bullet.

Six months and two weeks after he first appeared on television with his face hidden behind a mask to talk about the massacre, Suwaib Upham was gunned down by a lone attacker on June 14 in Parang town, Maguindanao province, some 100 kilometers from where the carnage occurred.

It was only on Thursday following media inquiriesâ€"or more than a week after the shooting first appeared on the town police blotterâ€"that official information on Upham’s killing came.

Philippine Daily Inquirer informants in Maguindanao said Uphamâ€"believed to be in his 20sâ€"had been moving from one place to another to avoid coming to harm after agreeing to testify against the Ampatuan clan.

Centerlaw Philippines, which assists families of 14 of the massacre victims, laid the blame for Upham’s death on acting Justice Secretary Alberto Agra and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for not supposedly giving any protection to the witness.

His death was recorded on the police blotter as just another case of killing. There was no mention on the blotter of him being a massacre witness.

Upham, a member of the disbanded Ampatuan militia, was shot dead at around 8 p.m.