Senior Supt. Willie Dangane, Cotabato City police director, said the joint police, army and civilian retrieval teams found the eleven bodies along with three vehicles that were buried deep into a grave at the massacre site in Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman in Ampatuan town.

He said two bodies were initially recovered before noon Wednesday inside a Toyota Vios sedan owned by the city government of Tacurong.

Dangane said they retrieved four more bodies at around 2 p.m. along with a van owned by UNTV network and a Tamaraw FX van.

“They appeared to have been shot at close range using a high-powered firearm and then dumped into a grave estimated at about 15 to 20 meters deep,” said Dangane, who is supervising the retrieval and identification of the victims at the massacre site.

The police official said five of the six remains were identified as those of Henry Araneta of DZRH, Ernesto "Bart" Maravilla of Bombo Radyo Koronadal, Julieto Ebarde of UNTV, Eduardo Lechonsito and Cecile Lechonsito.

He said the sixth body was initially believed to be of a missing UNTV camera man but they could not yet make an immediate confirmation.

Supt. Maximo Layugan, chief of Tacurong City PNP, also reported that the identification of five more victims, mostly employees of the city government of Tacurong -- Eduardo Lechonsito, chief of the city’s licensing division, and his wife Cecille; Daryl Vincent delos Reyes and Mercy Palabrica, also with the licensing division; and driver Wilhelm Palabrica, with the city legal division.

They were onboard a Toyota Vios with plate number SGL 834 and were headed towards Cotabato City to bring Cecille to a hospital where she would undergo a CT scan.

Layugan said the Lechonsitos were flagged down along the highway because they were suspected of being part of the Mangudadatu’s convoy. They were reportedly shot at close range and were thrown to the grave site while still inside the car so authorities and their relatives won't be able to trace them. 

Dangane said the recovered bodies were immediately moved to Koronadal City, where an autopsy will be conducted by government forensics.

The second day of the search and retrieval operations resumed early Wednesday morning to recover the remains of several missing victims of the Monday morning massacre that were believed to be perpetrated by armed men hired by the family of Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan.

On Tuesday, the retrieval teams recovered at least 46 bodies at the massacre site and a back hoe excavator owned by the Maguindanao provincial government that was allegedly used in burying the victims. Eleven more bodies were exhumed from the mass grave on Wednesday. 

About a hundred armed men reportedly held and later killed two women lawyers, over two dozen journalists and members of the Mangudadatu family who were on their way to file the certificate of candidacy for Maguindanao governor of Buluan Vice Mayor Ismael Mangudadatu at the Commission on Elections provincial office in Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao.

The suspects initially stopped the convoy in Barangay Saniag at around 9 a.m. and brought them at gunpoint to  Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman, some three kilometers from the national highway. (By Allen V. Estabillo & Malu Cadeliña Manar / MindaNews)

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