It has been a long time since I have visited Maguindanao and my last visit there over a decade ago was not a pleasant one. In the summer of 1995, when I was last there, I was a newbie reporter who hadn't had the foresight to bring packed food of any sort. There I met a man named Bong Reblando, who was a provincial journalist working as a correspondent for the Manila Bulletin.

Bong laughed at my lack of planning and laughed even harder that I thought there were sari-sari stores or streetside stalls that sold food. The Maguindanao I had visited then was so poor and cut off from the main economic routes that ensured the delivery of such staples as Skyflakes crackers that having a little money was no better than having a lot of it, as there were few places that sold food and the distances between such merchants was far indeed. Having laughed at me and my stupidity, Reblando did something I wouldn't expect of my colleagues in Manila: He shared his cache of pandesal buns with me. This is one of the people who was killed without mercy by the powers that be in that poor province, in a town where the people are so disenfranchised that ample food is a luxury.

Bong Reblando is one of the 58 people who fell victim to the killings in Maguindanao's Ampatuan town on Nov. 23, 2009. He and the others slain on that bloody path to Shariff Aguak did not deserve the brutality that ended with their deaths.

I think of the government now that the DOJ has decided to allow the multiple murder charges against Zaldy and Akmad Ampatuan, two of almost a hundred suspects in the killings. My thoughts turn to anger and a sense of betrayal. Not because Bong and others in that ill-fated caravan were my friends, but because these journalists who were slain were slain for doing their jobs.

I feel betrayed because, as a taxpayer, I expect my tax payments to go towards the delivery of justice and the implementation and upholding of the laws that provide a framework upon which to build a nation. I feel angry that, had I been one of the journalists slain in the Ampatuan massacre, my family would have had to suffer the added indignity of a betrayal by the government to which they pay their taxes.

Maguindanao now, 15 years after my visit there, is still as poor as it was then. This fuels my rage against the government machine that is malfunctioning thanks to patronage politics and a culture of impunity that favors the rich and politically powerful clan that is suspected of ordering the killings of 58 people, including an unborn baby carried by one of the women of the Mangudadatu clan and one journalist whose body was not found among the dead.

The brutality of the killings in Ampatuan town demands more than just a cursory investigation and the dismissal of MULTIPLE MURDER charges against some of the suspects in the massacre. This heinous act of mass torture and killing demands that the perpetrators be brought to court and tried. The dismissal of charges against Zaldy and Akmad Ampatuan guarantees that these suspects will not see their day in court, that they will walk.

It also sends this chilling message: Administration allies, no matter how bloody their hands, enjoy impunity and can rape, torture and kill people they do not like with that same impunity. This is an obscene and obnoxious message to send to the Filipino people, the Filipino voter, the Filipino taxpayer.

My brother and sister journalists have called the latest action (or should I call it a lack of action?) on the part of the Department of Justice (DOJ) an obscenity. I call it a dereliction of their duty to uphold the law. I call it a betrayal of the people they are tasked to serve. I call it hypocrisy. We may just as well call the DOJ the DOI - for Department of Injustice.

When good people do nothing, evil thrives. There cannot be silence in answer to the DOJ's latest mistake. We who strive to be good people should speak up and speak loudly. No, this is not a call to arms. This is a call for Filipino citizens everywhere to wake up and let the government know the DOJ's dismissal of multiple murder charges against these two Ampatuan clan members is wrong.

This is not just a fight for journalists and journalism. This is not just a fight for press freedom. It is so much larger than that. This is a fight for our lives, with blood having been spilt before the hue and cry.

If we let the government do this, with nary a peep, we are silently saying yes to impunity. We are signing our own death warrants, for, someday, the next victims could be us, could be the people we love, could be the people who would otherwise have something good to give to this nation that so sorely needs what good it can get.

I urge all of you to send letters to our congressmen, senators and the president herslf. Send open letters of protest to the newspapers and publications you subscribe to. Post your own blog entries protesting this action by the DOJ. We may not be able to make much of a difference, but we can be heard over various public fora - including the internet's social networking sites and the blogosphere. This is our power and the best exercise of the free speech journalists down through the decades have died upholding and defending.

Let us be heard. Let us remind the authorities who they serve. Let us not forget the deaths of 58 people because of one warlord clan's belief in its own impunity.

No to impunity. Our country deserves no less, we deserve no less, the Ampatuan 58 deserve no less.