THE Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has agreed to help authorities in the manhunt operation for the remaining Maguindanao massacre suspects, a senior police official said on Thursday.

 Director Samuel Pagdilao Jr., of Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) chief, said that the offer of help was made by Ghadzali Jaafar, the MILF’s vice-chairman for political affairs.

“I’m expressing my gratitude to the MILF for their assurance to help government law enforcers in the interdiction of massacres hiding in MILF areas,” Pagdilao said in a statement.

There are at least 92 more suspects in the gruesome massacre of 58 persons—mostly media practitioners—that still remain at large nearly three years after the mass killing took place in a remote area in Maguindanao province.

CIDG and other police officials said that most of these at large suspects are reportedly seeking refuge in MILF controlled areas, which is compounding police’s manhunt operations against them.

With the MILF’s offer of help in the manhunt operations, the CIDG chief said that they are shifting their strategy in running after these suspects.

Pagdilao said that CIDG’s Special Investigation Task Group (SITG) Maguindanao will be conducting more research in reviewing the identities and profiles of the 92 suspects, believed to be hiding in MILF-controlled areas.

“With positive response from the MILF . . . It is high time for the SITG Maguindanao to review the list of the suspects in order to ascertain their true identities and whereabouts,” Pagdilao said.

The shift in strategy, the CIDG chief said, came in the light of several incidents of mistaken identities where police arrested the wrong persons, but whose names are similar to those in the list of Maguindanao massacre case suspects.