PNP vows to hunt down 80 more Maguindanao massacre suspects

FILE: Maguindanao massacre site in Barangay Salman, Ampatuan, Maguindanao (PCOO photo)

MANILA — The Philippine National Police (PNP) has assured the families of the victims of the Maguindanao massacre that it is exhausting all efforts to arrest more than 80 suspects who remain at-large.

“The PNP OIC (officer-in-charge) (Lt. Gen.) Archie Francisco Gamboa assures the bereaved families and relatives of victims of the infamous Ampatuan massacre of 2009 that efforts are ongoing and being intensified for the arrest of suspects who are still at-large,” PNP spokesperson Brig. Gen. Bernard Banac told reporters on Monday.

Banac said Gamboa has directed National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) acting director Brig. Gen. Debold Sinas to heighten security at the Quezon City Jail Annex in Camp Bagong Diwa for the scheduled promulgation of judgment of the case by Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 on December 19.

Sinas said at least 120 members of the Regional Mobile Force Battalion clad in full battle gear were deployed in various facilities, including the entrance and exit points of the camp.

Undersecretary Joel Sy Egco, Executive Director of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS), earlier said there were 80 of the 197 accused who are still out there and have not yet been presented to the court in the last 10 years of the trial.

He said the PTFoMS has been coordinating and regularly getting updates from law enforcement units regarding the continuing operations against the other massacre suspects.

Egco believes that the principal suspects will be convicted of the killings on the strength of the pieces of evidence presented by the prosecution, especially the accounts of 192 witnesses.

The promulgation of judgment will involve the accused masterminds of the massacre led by brothers former Datu Unsay, Maguindanao Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. and former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao governor Zaldy Ampatuan.

The family’s patriarch, the late Maguindanao Gov. Andal Sr., was also among the principal suspects but died in detention in July 2015.

The suspects were charged with multiple murders for planning and direct participation in the massacre in Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao.

The Maguindanao massacre is one of the cases in the inventory of the PTFoMS as 32 of those killed were journalists accompanying the convoy on their way to Shariff Aguak town in Maguindanao to file the certificate of candidacy of then Maguindanao gubernatorial candidate Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu.

The convoy was ambushed by around a hundred armed men.

Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta said the court has given Solis-Reyes a 30-day extension or until December 20 to promulgate the decision on the case.

The case has been submitted for decision on August 22 which means the deadline for its promulgation should have been on November 20, three days before the massacre’s 10th anniversary on November 23.