Well-funded black propaganda THE SECOND MASSACRE OF THE MANGUDADATUS

By Manny Piñol

People who know that Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu and I are friends have called my attention to an article circulating in the social media attacking the Mangudadatu family for their ostentatious display of wealth and their recent trip to Las Vegas, Nevada to witness the Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Fight of the Century.

Being a former politician and having experienced similar black propaganda operations in the past, I initially shrugged off the issue and dismissed it as “part of the game” until my US-based wedding godson, Jeff de Guzman, sent me the link to the article which appeared in a political website politics.com.ph.

Reading the article, I was aghast at the plain and simple lies peddled by the writer who introduced himself as Adeeb Limbutungan, obviously an alias, and who claimed to be part of an advocacy group protecting the interests of the people of Maguindanao.

What particularly angered me was the patent lie in the very first paragraph where he said that the Mangudadatus flew “en masse” to Las Vegas to watch the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight and spent hundreds of thousands of pesos on the boxing tickets and the plane tickets at the expense of the people of Maguindanao.

“Weeks after Maguindanao was placed under a state of calamity due to the recent joint military and police operation against the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), one of our officials – Buluan, Maguindanao Vice Mayor King Jhazzer Mangudadatu and other members of the Mangudadatu clan flew en masse to Las Vegas to see the Fight of the Century. Their boxing and plane tickets worth hundreds of thousands of pesos could have already fed 80,000 evacuees in our place,” the article said.

“En masse?” Boxing tickets worth hundreds of thousands of pesos?

The author of the black prop should have double checked his facts and should have made sure that there were no direct witnesses who could testify that what is being peddled is a brazen lie.

Unfortunately for him and his group, I and my 12-year-old son, Bernhart Immanuel, were with Gov. Mangudadatu shortly before the fight and right after the fight.

Gov. Mangudadatu was with his wife and son, Vice Mayor King.

Now, here are the facts:

First, the boxing tickets worth $5,000 each was given FREE by Manny Pacquiao. Imman and I also got the same tickets and were seated behind the Mangudadatus.

Second, in the US, the Mangudadatus rode in an old Mitsubishi Montero worth $3,000 owned by Jeff de Guzman. Gov. Mangudadatu had to buy new tires to replace two worn out tires of the old SUV.

Third, they took a taxi cab from their hotel to join me and my son at the Palms Hotel on Sunday morning, May 3 to take a 4-hour trip to Coachella Valley in Southern California to visit the modern farms in the desert to see how the technology could be transferred to Maguindanao province.

I was with them. I drove the Montero from Las Vegas to Coachella Valley where i showed Gov. Toto and King Jhazzer modern farming technology in the desert.

The result of that trip is a program called “Peace Farmers Program” where 12 Muslim, Christian and Tiruray/Manobo agriculture students, three traditional farmers – Muslim, Christian and Tribal – and three college agri professors will be sent to coachella valley in a “learning by doing” OJT program to help improve Maguindanao agriculture.

The proposed program was submitted to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Maguindanao last Tuesday and copies of the “Peace Farmers Program” design was forwarded to the Office of the President and the US Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg.

After the trip to Coachella, Jeff drove Gov. Mangudadatu and his two companions back to Las Vegas from where they set off on the journey back home to the Philippines.

Now, hear this from a first hand witness: Gov. Mangudadatu did not gamble in the casino and he was not travelling “en masse” with other members of his family. How could the old Montero have accommodated more than six people which included me, my son, Imman, Jeff, and Gov. Toto and two others?

I am not defending Gov. Toto because he is my friend but as the former Governor of North Cotabato who saw first hand the kind of governance Maguindanao province had over the years, I can say with all certainty that Maguindanao has a better leader now in Gov. Mangudadatu.

He has the vision for the people and the province and I am honoured that he proudly tells people that most of the agriculture programs he is implementing now in Maguindanao were patterned from the very successful programs of North Cotabato when I was Governor.

The Plant Now Pay Later Program of North Cotabato which gave out planting materials of high value crops to farmers through a soft loan was copied by Gov. Mangudadatu with an improvisation: he gave out the seedlings for free knowing that his people are poor.

The Plow Now Pay Later Program which involved the use by the farmers of farm tractors payable after harvest was copied by Gov. Mangudadatu again with an improvisation: he will set up a complete farm equipment pool – tractors, planters, harvesters, bulldozers, backhoes, water drilling rig and others – which would be available to the farmers of Maguindanao.

The Study Now Pay Later Program of North Cotabato was improved by Maguindanao. Students are sent to college by the hundreds without having to pay the provincial government back.

Now, he is going to implement a provincial-funded technology transfer program through the “Peace Farmers Program” which will start August this year.

These are programs in Maguindanao unheard of in the previous years.

This was what I asked the author of the article against the Mangudadatus:

Did you raise this same issue and advocacy against the corruption in Maguindanao when Datu Andal Ampatuan flew to Las Vegas with a large entourage and placed hundreds of thousands of dollars of bets in Las Vegas casinos?

Did you question what business undertakings the Ampatuans were involved in to allow Datu Andal to shop in the boutiques of MGM grand and buy the most expensive Rolex watches in Beverly Hills where he paid in cash?

Did you raise a howl during the times when the Ampatuans passed through the national highways of North Cotabato in a convoy of 20 to 30 vehicles with fully armed bodyguards and terrorised other motorists?

Did you appeal for justice when the killings in Maguindanao were so brazen that even well-known people like Ed Mangansakan were murdered for simply crossing the path of this once very powerful political family.

Indeed, if the Mangudadatus have become wealthy, the question which should be raised is: Did they steal from government?

Have these people forgotten that long before the fishpens became popular, the Mangudadatus were already raking in money from their bangus fishpens in Lake Buluan, a body of water so rich with planktons that you do not have to feed the fish?

Have these people overlooked the fact that the Mangudadatu clan own vast tracts of ancestral land planted to Oil Palm and are now fully productive?

There may be some other things I am not privy to but then again the challenge is: If you can prove that the Mangudadatus stole money from government to finance their lifestyle, then file charges.

Becoming rich is neither a sin nor a crime. But stealing from the poor and killing innocent civilians are definitely evil deeds.

Reading the article between the lines, I can smell that there is a well-financed effort to demolish the Mangudadatus whose ascension to power in Maguindanao was a result of a painful episode in their lives – the still unsolved Ampatuan Massacre where Gov. Mangudadatu lost his wife, Gigi, King’s mother, his sisters and relatives and where over 30 media practitioners were also killed.

Instead of crying for justice for the victims of the Ampatuan Massacre, Adeeb Limbuntungan and his ilk are now hellbent on committing another massacre – the mass defamation of the Mangudadatus through baseless and blatant lies.

Some social media netizens may believe Limbuntungan’s lies but certainly not I, a direct witness, and many others who have followed the story of the province of Maguindanao all these years.

(Photo caption: Gov. Mangudadatu with US Tilapia farming pioneer Rocky French with the blue Montero in the background; Gov. Mangudadatu, French, his son, King, and my son, Imman, in the cornfields in the desert of Coachella. Photos by Manny Piñol)