Be assured that your deaths will be given value.

This was the declaration made by Vice President Manuel “Noli” De Castro as he dedicated his Lifetime Achievement Award Excellence in Broadcasting to the journalists who were included in the Maguindanao massacre.

De Castro, who was bestowed with the award by the Philippine Movie Press Club (PMPC) during the just concluded 23rd Star Awards, reiterated in his acceptance speech the importance of media in the light of the Maguindanao massacre.

Likewise, De Castro, who will likely step down after next year’s national election, hinted that the recognition — given 22 years after he received the first ever Best Male Newscaster Award from the PMPC — could be a sign that he should go back to radio and TV.

The filing of the certificate of candidacy ended yesterday without the Vice President submitting his name as a possible candidate for any elective office.

Thus, he is expected to step down from his post as Vice President.

Aside from this he is also the concurrent housing czar being the chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), Presidential Adviser for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), head of the National Price Coordinating Council, and chairman of the Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG Fund) Board of Trustees.

But not until De Castro can take over the presidency until a new president is proclaimed after the May 2010 elections.

This developed as the Philippine National Police (PNP) is bracing for a possible eruption of ‘rido’ between the Ampatuans and Mangudadatus as a result of the Maguindanao carnage which left 57 people dead.

PNP Chief Director Gen. Jesus A. Verzosa said the worst-case scenario that could happen in Maguindanao is ‘rido,’ a protracted hostilities between two warring families, in this case, the political families of Ampatuans and Mangudadatus.

“Rido is about a seemingly endless cycle of vendetta. It involves kinship groups or relatives who wage war to avenge family members who have been aggrieved. The perceived aggressor and the aggrieved parties engage in drawn-out violence,” explained Verzosa.

Verzosa even cited a recent Social Weather Station report saying that violence in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is mostly “clan conflicts.”

Verzosa said both the military and the police have beefed up their security measures within and around Maguindanao with checkpoints and chokepoints set up in major roads and mountainous areas to arrest the perpetrators of the massacre.