PNP ready for Ampatuan promulgation
The Philippine National Police (PNP) yesterday said preparations are now in full swing for the promulgation on the Maguindanao massacre slated on 19 December.
PNP spokesman PBrig. Gen. Bernard Banac said the police are also on the hunt for the suspects who remain at large.
“Anytime, we are anticipating that the judge will make the request for additional security for the promulgation of the case decision,” Banac said in a briefing in Camp Crame. “Efforts are also ongoing for the arrest of the other suspects.”
He disclosed that policemen from around Metro Manila have been ordered to augment the security at the Quezon City Jail Annex at the National Capital Region Police Office headquarters in Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City for the scheduled promulgation of judgment by Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes.
To recall, Solis asked last month from the Supreme Court for an extension to be able to keenly thumb through the case’s voluminous 165 volumes of proceedings, 65 volumes of transcripts of stenographic notes, and eight volumes of the prosecution’s documentary evidence.
Fifty-eight people, 34 of whom were journalists, perished in what was tagged as the bloodiest and deadliest incident against media workers on 23 November 2009.
It was also the most violent election-related incident in recent history. Members of the powerful Ampatuan clan, with Andal “Datu Unsay” Ampatuan as the primary suspect, were accused of masterminding the gruesome crime.
Andal Jr. and Zaldy Ampatuan are the primary accused in the case.
Ampatuan patriarch Andal Sr., meanwhile, died while in detention last July 2015.