The Quezon City Regional Trial Court (QC RTC) Branch 221 issued Thursday warrants of arrest to 189 persons out of the 197 allegedly involved in the Maguindanao massacre last Nov. 23 that took the lives of 57 persons, including 30 Filipino journalists.

The warrants were finalized on March 24 and were officially released Thursday morning.

According to the court, there is no specific location yet of where the arrestees will be placed.

A court statement said no bail is recommended for the arrestees.

There are 197 persons supposedly involved in the Nov. 23, 2009 massacre allegedly led by members of the Ampatuan clan, an influential family in Maguindanao.

As of press time, eight out of the 197 persons are already detained in different areas in the country. Datu Andal “Unsay” Ampatuan, Jr. is currently in the premises of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Manila.

In a court document, further detention is ordered for Datu Andal Ampatuan, Sr., who is in Camp Panacan Hospital in Davao City, Takpan Dilon and Esmael Canapia who are detained in the Philippine National Police (PNP) Custodial Center in Camp Crame in Quezon City.

Datu Zaldy “Puti” U. Ampatuan, Datu Akmad “Toto” Ampatuan, Sr., Datu Sajid U. Ampatuan, and Datu Anwar Ampatuan are in the custody of the CIDU 12, Camp Lira, General Santos City.

The current presiding judge of the QC RTC Branch 221 is Jocelyn A. Solis-Reyes.

Meanwhile, Director General Jesus Verzosa, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), ordered Thursday the deployment of more police tracker teams to arrest those responsible in the Maguindanao massacre who remain at large following an issuance of arrest warrant by Quezon City RTC Branch 221.

The manhunt operation will concentrate on 143 more respondents on the massacre case since some of those accused are already in the custody of the police units in Metro Manila and in Mindanao.

"You are directed to coordinate with proper government agencies for the arrest of the suspects, create tracker teams, liase with Department of Justice prosecutors of the case and security of witnesses, and conduct manhunt operations," said Verzosa in his order.

Chief Supt. Francisco Don Montenegro, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), said they have already served the arrest warrant against the 47 policemen who are currently under restrictive custody in Camp Crame.

The same serving of arrest warrants was also conducted against the five key members of the Ampatuan clan headed by its patriarch Andal Ampatuan, Sr. who are currently detained in various police camps in Mindanao and militiamen Takpan Dilon and Esmael Canapia whose guns turned out to be the ones used in the killing of 57 civilians in Ampatuan town last Nov. 23.

Supt. Joaquin Alva, spokesman of the Task Force Maguindanao, said they are now preparing for the commitment of the 47 policemen at the PNP Custodial Center in camp Crame.

The 47 cops, including former Maguindanao police director Supt. Abusama Maguid and his deputy Chief Insp. Sukarno Dicay, were transferred by batch in Camp Crame last month in preparation for the massacre trial.

Alva said that police commanders in Western Mindanao have already started creating tracker teams to hunt down the remaining suspects, in compliance with Verzosa's order.