PHILIPPINE police on Sunday sought the public’s help in the manhunt for at least 80 suspects in the massacre of more than 50 people, including 32 journalists in Maguindanao province a decade ago.

Authorities have failed to catch the suspects 10 years after the murders, which a trial court decided last week.

“Any information provided by the public will form the basis of operations to arrest the suspects,” police spokesman Brigadier General Bernard Banac told radio DZBB.

A Quezon City court sentenced two senior members of a powerful political clan in Maguindanao to life in prison for the massacre, which a global media watchdog has called the single deadliest attack on journalists.

The trial court convicted former Maguindanao Mayor Datu Andal “Unsay” Ampatuan, Jr. and his brother Zaldy, who is a former governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, along with 26 other principal accused for 57 counts of murder.

More than a dozen more people were convicted as accessories to the crime. Their other brother, Datu Sajid Islam Ampatuan, was acquitted along with more than 50 others.

Critics have said the guilty verdict should help provide justice to the families of the victims, and build toward greater accountability for rights abuses in the country.

The massacre took place when family members and the media were accompanying Esmael G. Mangudadatu to the Commission on Elections to file his certificate of candidacy on Nov. 23, 2009. Mr. Mangudadatu was then running for governor of the Mindanao autonomous region to end the 20-year rule of the Ampatuan family.

New-York based Committee to Protect Journalists called the attack the “worst single incident of journalist killing.”

Judge Jocelyn A. Solis-Reyes said the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that the murders had been planned.

Among the 80 suspects who are still in hiding are 12 police officers, Mr. Banac said.

He said people were afraid to report the remaining suspects to the police. That should change since the Ampatuan family is no longer in power, the spokesman said.

Among the suspects who have evaded justice are former Salibo town Vice Mayor Kanor Ampatuan and Bahnarin Ampatuan, brother and nephew, respectively of the clan patriarch, former Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan, Sr., also an accused who has since died.

Police deputy chief for operations Lieutenant General Camilo Pancratius Cascolan earlier said some of the remaining suspects, many of them close security detail for Andal Ampatuan Jr., had sought refuge in bailiwick areas.

Police are not discounting that some of the suspects may have escaped overseas through the backdoor, given strict measures enforced by the Immigration bureau, Mr. Banac said.

“We will search the entire Mindanao island,” he said in Filipino. “They might just be hiding in nearby provinces.”

The trial court heard 357 witnesses — 134 from the prosecution and 165 from the defense, aside from 58 private complainants.

The court ruling may still be appealed. — Emmanuel Tupas, Philippine Star

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