SC gives QC court one month extension to resolve Maguindanao massacre case

By: Tetch Torres-Tupas - Reporter / @T2TupasINQ

INQUIRER.net / 10:20 AM November 08, 2019

MANILA, Philippines–The Supreme Court has given Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 Judge
Jocelyn Solis-Reyes a one-month extension to resolve the decade-old Maguindanao massacre case.

“There are so many accused and victims. We allowed her to have an extension of one month. We hope
she won’t ask another extension,” Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta said Friday.

The Maguindanao massacre case with over 190 accused was submitted for resolution last August. Under
Administrative Circular No. 3-99, once a case has been submitted for resolution, the court has 90 days to
set the promulgation of the case.

In the Maguindanao massacre case, the 90 days set for the promulgation of the case should be within
this month but Judge Solis-Reyes wrote a letter to the Supreme Court asking for another 90-day
extension due to voluminous records that needed to be studied. /muf

ontemporary art installed in the Palacio de Cristal in the Parque del Buen Retiro, Madrid obscures its
conflicted history. Visitors who take the trouble to read background information will learn that it was
built for the 1887 Philippine Exposition, inaugurated by the Queen Regent Maria Cristina, and was
originally used as a greenhouse for Philippine flora and fauna that formed part of the exhibits that
underscored the culture and products of the overseas colony. Not much is known, however, about the
people chosen and imported for the show: Lowland Christians in their typical costumes were the success
of Spain’s civilizing mission overseas, while specimens from the Cordilleras and Muslim Mindanao
represented the salvajes, or savages to be conquered, Christianized and civilized.

Rizal mourned Basalia from Mindanao, who died shortly after arrival, and criticized the way Filipinos
were displayed as curiosities before the Madrid public, very much like freaks in a perya. To visualize and
contextualize Rizal’s essay, one has to visit the Museo Nacional de Antropologia (across the Atocha train
station) where most of the artifacts of the 1887 Philippine Exposition are now preserved: paintings,
sculptures, wood carvings and other works of art, highlighted by two large works by the 19th-century
Filipino master Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo; samples of clothing and textiles, from women’s garments in
delicately embroidered piña fabric to a marvelous man’s hat, or salacot made from finely woven nito
ornamented with silver. As in all European and American museums, there is an assortment of weapons
from the Cordilleras and Mindanao—armor, shields, spears, arrows and bladed weapons that, together
with weaving, basketry, farm and fishing implements, as well as models of houses and other artifacts,
depicted daily life in the colony. Hanging in the ground floor display area are huge bancas dug out from
two huge trees, and were used in the small pond in front of the Palacio de Cristal during the 1887
Philippine Expo.
To make up for all the years I had put off taking a Carlos Celdran Intramuros tour, I had planned to
surprise him by popping up unannounced at his Halloween Rizal in Madrid tour. But he passed away
unexpectedly two days before I left Manila for a Sentro Rizal lecture series, funded by the National
Commission for Culture and the Arts, through London, Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna and Madrid.
In all these cities, I made the effort to trace Rizal’s footsteps, a task that I should have done
systematically years ago on previous visits.

Celdran’s death gave my recent trip a sense of urgency and regret, which drove me to walk aimlessly
around the streets of Madrid last week, clocking in from 12,000 to 20,000 steps a day, unusual for a
couch potato who hardly registers 500 in Manila, as I am usually seated by a desk or caught in traffic.
Armed with a map of Rizal addresses downloaded from the Philippine Embassy website, I began my tour
guided by Google Maps, but got lost and ate my way through the streets of Madrid.

While walking, I remembered Pedro Ortiz Armengol, writer, historian and ambassador of Spain to the
Philippines, who took me on a life-changing tour of Rizal’s Manila. With an 1872 street map, we started
in Binondo, located the house of Kapitan Tiago, and ended in Intramuros at the site of the Monasterio
de Santa Clara where Maria Clara was last seen wailing during a dark and stormy night. School did not
teach me to study Rizal’s novels as closely as this; it took a Spaniard to show me the physical plan of
Rizal’s Manila through its unchanged features: streets, rivers, esteros, ruins and landmarks.

A pity that when I reconnected with Ortiz Armengol in Madrid in the late 1980s, we did a Benito Perez
Galdos walk, following the path of characters in the novel “Fortunata and Jacinta” that ended in a
meeting with the 19th-century writer’s grandson, instead of tracing the houses where Rizal lived in and
the places he frequented.

Seeing Madrid through Rizal’s eyes is not just a physical walk through history and tourism, it will also
uncover our conflicted historical relationship with Spain.