Aftermath
In the aftermath, Nueva Ecija Rep. Eduardo Nonato N. Joson said the massacre might affect, or even lead to the cancellation of, the scheduled 2010 presidential elections.[21] Candidates in the election condemned the massacre.[23]
On Wednesday, November 25, 2009, the executive committee of the Lakas-Kampi-CMD political party unanimously voted to expel three members of the Ampatuan family - Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr. and his two sons, Gov. Zaldy Uy Ampatuan of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. - from the party for their alleged role in the Maguindanao massacre.[24] An emergency meeting of the Lakas-Kampi-CMD was held in Pasig, during which the Ampatuans were stripped of their membership.[2]
On Thursday, November 26, 2009, Ampatuan Jr. surrendered to his brother Zaldy, was delivered to adviser to the peace process Jesus Dureza, then was flown to General Santos on his way to Manila, where he was taken to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) headquarters.[25][26] Police in the Philippines charged Andal Ampatuan Jr. with murder.[27] Ampatuan denied the charges, claiming that he was at the provincial capitol in Shariff Aguak when the massacre took place. He instead blamed the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), specifically Ombra Kato, as the mastermind, a charge the MILF dismissed as "absurd."[28][29]
Mangudadatu successfully filed his certificate of candidacy at Shariff Aguak on November 27. He was accompanied by Lakas-Kampi-CMD chairman and presidential candidate Gilberto Teodoro, along with a caravan of 50 vehicles, to "ensure his safety."[30]
On December 4, 2009 a number of homes belonging to the Ampatuan political family were raided in connection with the massacre.[31]
After the incidents it was predicted by critics that the Philippines could find itself on the next edition of the list of failed states annually reported by the Fund for Peace's Failed States Index, if it continued to have such massacres, extrajudicial killings and disappearances.
Among the worst mass killings earlier in the history of the Philippines are the Balangiga massacre of a whole American camp by Filipinos and the retaliation by General Jacob H. Smith in which all adults were killed and Samar was turned into a "howling wildness", the Lapiang Malaya massacre in Pasay in 1967, the Escalante, Negros Occidental massacre owing to labor unrest, in September 1984, the Mendiola massacre of peasants for land reform in 1987 and the Lupao, Nueva Ecija massacre during a military campaign against the New People's Army (NPA) in 1987
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