13 years after: Momay still not listed as a victim of Ampatuan Massacre

THERE is still one journalist, among the 32 media workers killed in the Ampatuan Massacre 13 years ago, who has yet to be included as a victim of the killings, despite efforts by the police and colleagues to search for him or his remains.

Reynaldo ‘Bebot’ Momay, a freelance photojournalist, remains missing to this day and remains “unrecognized” because a court ruled that his remains were not found among the victims who were buried in Sitio Masalay, Ampatuan town in Maguindanao del Sur on November 23, 2009.

Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes sentenced brothers Datu Andal ‘Unsay’ Jr., and Zaldy Ampatuan to 40 years in prison, without the possibility of parole or early release after ruling them guilty of 57 counts of murder for 31 journalists and 26 others on December 19, 2019.

Momay was the ‘58th’ victim but Reyes ruled that since only Momay’s denture was found at the crime scene it was not enough to establish that he was among the victims.

Reyes acquitted the Ampatuan brothers for the murder of Momay.

“There is no hope in finding his remains with our prevailing governance. Maybe ten percent, I would leave because that keeps me going to finding justice for my dad,” Ma. Reynafe Momay-Castillo, daughter of Momay said. Momay-Castillo has left for the United States where she and her family are now based.

Momay-Castillo said for years her family could not even light a candle because they did not know if their father was already dead.

Amid the cheering from the families of the massacre victims when Judge Reyes handed down the decision, Momay-Castillo and her family were stoic and silent.

Several of the 300 witnesses told the court that Momay, who worked for the Tacurong-based Midland Review, was seen with the convoy of 31 journalists, the wife of then gubernatorial candidate Esmael Mangudadatu and some supporters going to Shariff Aguak in Maguindanao province on November 23, 2009.

The plan was for Genalyn, wife of Mangudadatu, to file his candidacy for governor. The journalists were there to cover the event.

Court records show that a heavily armed Datu Unsay and his alleged private army stopped the convoy along the Isulan-Cotabato City highway in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao.

Datu Unsay and the armed men then allegedly stripped the occupants of the convoy of their mobile phones.

They also stopped two other vehicles — a red Toyota Vios and A FX Tamaraw — that were not part of the convoy.

Unsay and his men allegedly brought the victims to the hills of Sitio Masalay, some four kilometers from the highway where they killed the victims and tried to bury the vehicles.

The massacre has been touted as the bloodiest attack on journalists in the world.

“I am trying to survive for the sole reason that as a broken person, I don’t want my fight for justice to be killed further. I do not want to forget and be left without any purpose. For the sake of my father’s name, my children, and (my) future grandchildren. I won’t let them,” Momay-Castillo’s Facebook post reads.

Last Sunday, relatives of the massacre victims and a small contingent of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines visited the massacre site in Sitio Masalay to commemorate the 13th year anniversary.