“Not the end but rather the start of another stage in the judicial process”

“The long wait is almost over for the families of 58 people killed [in the now infamous Maguindanao massacre] on November 23, 2009,” as media reports it. Not so, offers human rioghts advocate and former Supreme Court spokesperson, Professor Theodore Te.

Interviewed on ANC’s program Headstart, a day before the issuance of the decision on the infamous Maguindanao massacre case, Professor Te said that “Thursday’s verdict [was] not the end of the entire case but rather the start of another stage in the judicial process.” He explained that those convicted would still “go up on appeal and that will take again a matter of years assuming that at the end of this process, the Supreme Court affirms the conviction and then they go back down to have the sentence executed.”

As for the implications of the case on the ‘culture of impunity’ that the massacre represents, Professor Te iterated that it “will not end even if the alleged masterminds of the Maguindanao massacre are convicted. It’s a big step towards that; one decision by itself cannot do it,”

The fuller report may be accessed at: https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/12/19/19/culture-of-impunity-wont-end-with-maguindanao-massacre-decision-says-up-law-prof