COTABATO CITY – The Presidential Task Force on Media Security has expressed concern over reports that some politicians in Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat are allegedly coddling several suspects in the infamous Maguindanao massacre case.
Undersecretary Paul Gutierrez, PTFoMS executive director, said he was alarmed by these reports and bared that there are about 80 massacre suspects who have not been arrested to stand trial for the case which was promulgated in 2019.
Gutierrez visited the massacre site during the commemoration of the Maguindanao massacre on November 23 where he assured the families of massacre victims of the immediate arrest of the remaining suspects.
In 2020, the Philippine National Police ordered an intensified manhunt for the remaining suspects and placed a bounty for the capture of suspects Datu Bahnarin A. Ampatuan and Datu Saudi Ampatuan Jr. at P300,000 each.
The reward for the arrest of the remaining suspects was set at P250,000 each.
Gutierrez said the task force will publish the names of the suspects in Maguindanao massacre and other media killings who remain at large to expedite the manhunt and their possible arrest.
He warned politicians coddling these massacre suspects that the full force of the law will be meted against them. “Some of the massacre suspects even serve as armed goons of the local politicians,” Gutierrez said.
After ten years of trial, the Regional Trial Court convicted some 100 respondents in the case, including principal suspects from the Ampatuan political clan. Fifty-seven individuals were killed, including 32 media workers, in a hinterland village in Ampatuan, Maguindanao del Sur on November 23, 2009.