TACURONG CITY (MindaNews/24 July) – Wanted: better printers for “Wanted” posters.
None of the “Wanted Maguindanao Massacre suspsects” posters or tarpaulins showing the photographs of a substantial number out of the 189 “at large” suspects in the November 23, 2009 Ampatuan Massacre, has been put up in local police stations, transport terminals, barangay halls and other public places here and in Maguindanao province.
Acting Maguindanao police chief, Senior Supt. Marcelo Pintac, said he had them returned to the printers after he found the colors of the one-foot-by-one-foot tarpaulin poster “not good enough.”
A police officer at the CIDG office in General Santos City fixes one of two tarpaulin posters on the “wanted” suspects of the Nov. 23, 2009 massacre in Ampatuan, Maguindanao. The three others are on the other side of the wall. MindaNews photo by Froilan Gallardo
“The printing was not good enough. It is a back job for the printer,” Pintac said.
The “Wanted” posters should have been put up in Maguindanao and the provinces of Region 12 (Southwestern Mindanao), to alert the public on the presence of the suspects who each have a P250,000 price tag for his arrest.
It has been eight months since the massacre of 58 persons, 32 of them from the media. .
Chief Insp. Francisco Sonza of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Region 12 said they hope the posters will lead to the arrests.
He said they initially sent copies of the “wanted” posters which included pictures and relevant information of each of the 189 suspects, to all CIDG provincial offices in Region 12.
At the CIDG headquarters in General Santos City, five tarpaulin posters of “Wanted Maguindanao massacre suspects” were found posted on the bulletin board but only 115 names were listed, with only four of them without photographs.
Multiple murder charges were filed against 197 persons, eight of them, including the Ampatuan clan members, already in detention. The remaining 189 suspects are still at large. (Froilan Gallardo/MindaNews)
