Former Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque on Wednesday urged the Quezon City Regional Trial Court to resolve the Maguindanao multiple murder case this year.
“I have said there should be a decision by September or October because of the 90-day rule,” private prosecutor Harry Roque told the Manila Standard.
He was referring to the 90-day period for deciding the case that will start to run from its submission.
But because of the complexity of the multiple counts of murder, the alleged involvement of over 190 accused, and many pieces of evidence and witnesses, the case has dragged on for almost 10 years.
Allan Moral Jr. of Branch 221 said one of the principal accused, former Unsay, Maguindanao Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., filed a motion on July 1 and a formal offer of evidence, which Judge Jocelyn Reyes had yet to resolve.
Another private prosecutor, Nena Santos, earlier told the Manila Standard that Ampatuan was employing delaying tactics to derail the promulgation.
The Justice secretary had previously said he would expect the case’s resolution in the first semester of 2019.
Should Reyes dump Ampatuan’s motions, the accused could seek another legal remedy to appeal the judge’s decision before the Court of Appeals or eventually before the Supreme Court, Moral said.
“We would also want the case to be resolved already,” he said.
“What more the families of the victims?”
On Nov. 23, 2009, at least 58 people, including 31 journalists, and the wife and relatives of then Buluan vice mayor Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu were on their way to Shariff Aguak to file his certificate of candidacy for the 2010 gubernatorial race when armed men attacked, shot and even buried them alive.
The Ampatuan patriarch, the late Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr., his sons and other family members, the police and other civilian armed groups were tagged as behind the Maguindanao massacre.