SC gives judge 30 more days to decide Maguindanao massacre case

The Supreme Court has given the Quezon City judge in charge of the Maguindanao massacre trial 30 more days to resolve the multiple murder cases over the gruesome killing of 58 people nearly 10 years ago.

Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 has 30 more days from November 20, the original deadline, to decide the criminal cases, according to a memorandum from Court Administrator Midas Marquez.

Her new deadline is "non-extendible."

She was supposed to have only until November 20 to promulgate a judgment but requested a deadline extension due to the "voluminous" case records consisting of 238 volumes.

Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta said Friday that the tribunal gave the local judge one more month.

"In the case of Judge Jocelyn Reyes, you know very well that there are so many accused and there are so many victims in that case," he said in his first press conference since being appointed top magistrate in October.

"We also allow meritorious motion for extension and we understand her predicament," he said, but noted that the motions for extension are the "exception rather than the rule."

"We understand her plight and I hope that she will no longer ask for another extension so that before the end of the year, those cases will be finally decided," the chief justice said.

Peralta, who used to be a prosecutor and a trial judge, said the Maguindanao massacre was the first case that he learned of that involved the killing of "so many people."

He said Reyes "did her best" in the process to give the victims justice and afford the accused due process.

The Department of Justice and the lawyer for many of the victims' families had hoped that the Quezon City judge would have rendered a decision by November 23, exactly 10 years since the killing of 58 people, 32 of them members of the media, in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao.

The incident is considered the Philippines' worst case of election-related violence and the single deadliest attack on journalists in history.

After years of trial, the case was finally submitted for resolution in August. Under court rules, the judge has 90 days or in this case until November 20 to promulgate a decision. Reyes requested the 30-day extension in a letter dated October 28.

According to court records, 197 were charged, 15 of them surnamed Ampatuan. Many remain at large. The trial saw the presentation of 357 witnesses. —KBK/RSJ, GMA News