Clan suspected in massacre in the Philippines

SALMAN, the Philippines — As the toll in what is now considered the Philippines' worst case of election violence rose to 57, the authorities on Wednesday focused their suspicions on a powerful clan allied with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

The army announced that it would disband a 200-member militia controlled by the clan suspected in Monday's attack, the Ampatuan family. Army Lt. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer said Andal Ampatuan Jr., who is a town mayor, surrendered today to presidential peace adviser Jesus Dureza in the provincial capital.

Later on Wednesday, Arroyo's political party, the Lakas Kampi CMD, announced that it had expelled the patriarch of the Ampatuan clan, Andal Ampatuan Sr., and two of his sons, Andal Jr., and Zaldy.

The army also deployed 500 extra troops from the central Philippines to the province of Maguindanao on the southern island of Mindanao, an area that is home to decades of Muslim and Communist rebellions as well as fiefs controlled by powerful families.

As the authorities continued to search for bodies, they unearthed 11 more on Wednesday on a grassy hilltop overlooking this village, not far from another mass grave with 46 of the victims, most of them members of the rival Mangudadatu clan, accompanied by 18 journalists.

The killings appeared to be linked to an electoral challenge to the Ampatuans mounted by the Mangudadatu family. But they were rooted in a political system in which the national government has supported and sometimes armed families to curb the influence of Muslim and Communist insurgents. Families have often ended up clashing in feuds called "rido" that can grow so violent that they regularly send ordinary residents fleeing as refugees.

Led by Andal Ampatuan Sr., the governor of Maguindanao, the Ampatuans have controlled the province since early this decade.

Because several provinces in Mindanao constitute a semiautonomous Muslim region, a provincial governor has the authority to carve up the province into smaller fiefs for his sons. New towns can be seen along the main road cutting through the province.

With elections scheduled for May, the Ampatuans faced a challenge for governor by Esmael Mangudadatu, the vice mayor of Buluan, a small town in this province. Mangudadatu's clan holds the top political positions in the province just south of here, Sultan Kudarat.

The dead included the wife and two sisters of gubernatorial candidate Esmael Mangudadatu.Saying that he had received death threats and that the police had denied his request for an armed escort, Mangudadatu told the Philippine news media that he had sent his wife and female relatives to file his candidacy papers. He said he believed that, following traditional custom, the militias would not harm women.

Mangudadatu also invited journalists to accompany the women on the way to Shariff Aguak, the capital of Maguindanao province, reasoning that "maybe they will not harm us if journalists are watching them," said Aquiles Zonio, a reporter for The Philippine Daily Inquirer who accompanied the entourage part of the way.

Felicisimo Khu, the police superintendent who oversaw the search for bodies on Wednesday, said that gunmen stopped the entourage and drove the victims toward the hilltop along a rough dirt road. Another police official said the force's members were under the control of Andal Ampatuan Jr., one of the governor's sons.

Mangudadatu said he received a phone call from his wife, Genalyn, just before she and the rest of the entourage were killed. His wife told him that they had been taken hostage by around 100 men, Mangudadatu told the Philippine news media.

Khu said the gunmen seemed to have stayed a long time on the hilltop, as suggested by cooking pots found at the scene.

"They planned this very well," Khu said.

The two provinces that are home to the two feuding clans, Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat, as well as Cotabato City, were in a state of emergency on Wednesday.

Some were skeptical that the Ampatuans, who are Arroyo's closest political allies in Mindanao, would be arrested soon.

"It appears that the government is handling the Ampatuans of Maguindanao with kid gloves," said Teodoro Casino, a congressman and critic of the president. "Lesser mortals would have been arrested and disarmed by now, especially under a state of emergency."

Information from

The Associated Press

is included in this report.