The Department of Justice Tuesday filed 25 counts of murder against Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. in connection with the massacre of at least 57 people in Maguindanao last week, even as the government vowed to pursue charges against other members of the powerful political clan.

Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera said they will pursue charges against the Ampatuans clan amidst death threats being made to her and the prosecutors handling the case.

“We expect other developments in this case and we’re building up cases against the other possible suspects,” Devanadera said.

The DoJ filed 25 counts of murder against Ampatuan Jr., the primary suspect in the massacre, before the Cotabato City Regional Trial Court.

The charges were filed by General Santos City Prosecutor Edilberto Jamora.

Jamora said the charges are based on some 20 affidavits of witnesses gathered by the DoJ and the medical findings on some of the recovered bodies at the graves where the victims were dumped. He said supplemental charges would be once medical findings on the rest of the 57 recovered bodies are completed.

Devanadera said the DoJ would continue to build up cases against eight other members of the Ampatuan clan despite death threats that she herself had been receiving so that the DoJ would go slow on prosecuting the suspects.

She said the prosecutors have also received death threats through their mobile phones, but she vowed that these wouldn’t stop the department until the perpetrators are convicted and punished.

Eight other members of the Ampatuan clan who were implicated by witnesses have been placed in the immigration watch list to prevent them from leaving the country.

Devanadera said the government will push for the arrests of the other suspects once the DoJ gathers enough evidence.

Meanwhile, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said there were no signs that the 15 female victims of the November 23 massacre, including the wife of Buluan Vice Mayor Ismael “Toto” Mangudadatu, were sexually abused.

“Based on the result of autopsy and study of semenology, there were no signs of recent carnal knowledge on 15 female victims. Walang signs na sinalbahe sila,” said Dr. Florencio Arizala, chief of the NBI medico legal division.

Lawyer Ricardo Diaz, chief of the NBI’s Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) and concurrent spokesman for the Maguindanao massacre case, said Mayor Ampatuan vomited at dawn the other day and the bureau doctor who attended to his condition said it was due to stress.

Diaz said Ampatuan did not suffer an asthma attack since he is taking maintenance drugs for asthma.

“He is okay but he is still sleeping near the visitor’s area because he is afraid of ghosts,” he said.

The NBI jail is heavily secured and there is a steel fencing separating the jail from the visitor’s area.

As this developed, investigations indicated that the more than 100 executioners of last week’s massacre were seen massing up along the highway in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao three days before the day of mass killing.

A day before the massacre, two of the 37 journalists invited by Buluan Vice Mayor Mangudadatu to cover the filing of his certificate of candidacy for Maguindanao governor went home first to Cotabato City and passed through the armed men unmolested aboard a passenger van, one of the duo said.

“Nakita namin ‘yung mga armadong tao. Wala naman silang ginawa maliban sa naghanap ng mga identification ng lahat na pasahero, kahit na matapos naming ipakita ang mga press IDs namin,” a woman journalist told the Manila Bulletin few hours after the massacre.

The source, whose identity is withheld for obvious reasons, said she was with Napoleon Salaysay of the Mindanao Gazette on that trip to Cotabato City from Buluan where they visited the house of Mangudadatu to list up as members of the team of invited journalists.

She said she and Salaysay went home to Cotabato City with an agreement that they would return to Buluan in the early morning of November 23 to join the six car-convoy.

But for reasons she later realized as God-designed, she dropped her plan to join the group after learning that Salaysay had gone ahead to Buluan early morning.

In a related development, the mechanized excavator or back hoe reportedly used in burying at least 35 of the victims allegedly took off from a gas station owned by principal suspect Ampatuan Jr. in Shariff Aguak town, several hours before the carnage.

Efren Macanas, a casual employee of the Maguindanao provincial government’s motor pool division, made the disclosure on Tuesday as he confirmed that the Komatsu PC-300 excavator found by military and police personnel at the massacre site at Sitio Masalay in Barangay Salman, Ampatuan town was indeed owned by the provincial government of Maguindanao.

He said the equipment, which was printed with the name of Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr., carries a memorandum receipt that named him as the main operator and Hamid Delayudin as his backup.

Macanas, who surfaced Monday after going into hiding when reports about the massacre broke out, claimed in an interview over radio station Bombo Radyo in Koronadal City that he last saw the heavy equipment when he left it at its usual parking space at a Petron gas station reportedly owned by the mayor at around 5 p.m. last November 21.

As then instructed, he reportedly left the excavator’s key to a security guard at the gas station.

When Macanas reportedly came to the gas station at around 7:30 a.m. last November 23, he was supposedly told by the security guards that the excavator left earlier with his backup operator Delayudin for an unspecified job.

In another development, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has urged the creation of an independent body to investigate the massacre as the commission chastised the government for lacking the will to suspend all officials suspected of complicity with the mass murder.

It called for punitive actions on top government officials who had coddled political warlords since 2001.

The armed men deployed in Maguindanao by the Ampatuans are cloaked with legitimacy since they comprise Civilian Volunteer Organizations (CVOs) and Special Cafgu Auxiliaries armed by the military and the police. Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) Chairman Nur Misuari claimed the Ampatuans own more than 3,000 firearms.

CHR Chairwoman Leila M. de Lima said President Arroyo, who had been accused of being the political patron of the Ampatuan warlord clan, should not have sent her adviser, Jesus Dureza, to negotiate for the surrender of Ampatuan Jr. on November 26. (Reports from David Cagahastian, Jeamma Sabate, Ali Macabalang, Marvyn Benaning and PNA)