GENERAL SANTOS CITY – A private counsel in the Maguindanao massacre case rejected the P300 million bribe from the principal accused in the case.
In a radio interview here on Wednesday, lawyer Nena Santos, counsel for the families of the massacre victims, admitted that she was offered P300 million by an emissary of the Ampatuan clan members, the principal accused in the case, to drop the case against the principal suspects in the infamous Maguindanao massacre case.
Santos said she told the emissary of the Ampatuans to bring money which she would burn before the latter.
Santos said she turned down the offer as she could not take to let the suspects go scot- free for the death of at least 58 people.
“I believe in karma in which my conscience could not take it to accept the money in exchange for the eventual exoneration of the accused,” Santos said.
She said that the prosecution panel composed of the public and private prosecutors had really worked for building up an air-tight case against the principal accused in the case.
Santos expressed optimism the court will convict the principal suspects as the prosecution was able to establish their guilt of conspiring each other to plan out, execute and cover the massacre of the victims.
Meanwhile, local journalists and families of the massacre victims are set to hold today a mass and candle-lighting ceremony at the Forest Lake cemetery where the remains of the twelve local journalists killed in the massacre were buried.
A wide screen will be set up at the cemetery in order for the families of the massacre victims view the live coverage of the promulgation of the case.
Elliver Cablitas, husband of local newspaper publisher Maritess Cablitas who was among those journalists killed in the Maguindanao massacre, said the families had waited for about a decade for the final decision of the case.
“We want to see the conviction of the accused especially the principal suspects,” Cablitas said. (Joseph Jubelag)
