2 abductors of Cebu boy meted death

CEBU CITY — For forever scarring the childhood of Ryan James Yu, two of his kidnappers were meted the death penalty, while two of their accomplices were slapped jail terms of 40 years and 17 years.

A fifth cohort was acquitted on insufficiency of evidence.

Yu, who was 11 years old when he was abducted in July 2001, was in the packed courtroom when the verdict was read. He simply said that he was happy with the convictions.

The crowd erupted into cheers after the sentence was read. It took the court clerk nearly two hours to read the 16-page decision.

For Regional Trial Court Judge Pampio Abarintos, it was his first time to send anyone to death.

Before judgment day, Abarintos had sleepless nights and, being a devout Catholic, admitted to having consulted a priest, who told him to just do what he felt was right.

No pity, no sympathy

So, in sentencing principal suspects Roberto Galope and Jovencio Camado to death by lethal injection, Abarintos said, "It is the duty of the courts to apply the law, disregarding any feelings of sympathy or pity for an accused."

He also sentenced Efren Hernandez to 40 years in prison as an accomplice to the crime and Edgar Manimog to 17 years as an accessory.

But he set free Henry Hernandez, saying the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence to prove his guilt and participation in the kidnapping.

At the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center, some five kilometers away from the courts, former policeman Engelberto Durano must have cringed at the news.

Durano is the alleged mastermind of the Yu kidnapping but is being tried separately. He also faces separate cases for murder, frustrated murder and attempted murder, all related to the killing of a tricycle driver and a subsequent attempt on the life of an eyewitness.

In ruling for conviction, Abarintos gave weight to the testimony of Oster Repollo, a suspect-turned-state witness, who provided the court with precise details that "can only be supplied by one who actually participated in the crime."

P50-M ransom

Yu was walking to school with househelp Joel Bation in the early morning of July 23, 2001 when three motorcycle-riding men grabbed the boy. Before speeding away, they handed Bation a written demand for a P50-million ransom.

While fleeing, one of the abductors pistol-whipped Yu to stop him from wriggling and trying to free himself.

Yu was transferred to a car and taken to a safehouse in Lahug where he was thrown blindfolded into a room, his hands tied behind his back.

But two days later, the Yu family got the surprise of their lives when the boy called the house and told his mother he was left abandoned at BC Homes.

Police came rushing to the safehouse and rescued Yu. Believing the kidnappers did not know Yu had been rescued, police instructed his father to pretend to continue negotiating with the abductors, hoping to trace their location through their cellphone conversations.

The trace took police to Davao City where a supposed ransom payoff had been arranged at the city’s airport.

Entrapment

With the help of the Davao City police, the abductors were trapped and arrested.

Repollo, who claimed to be with Durano at the time in a bus terminal in Valencia, Bukidnon, was arrested a few days later.

As for Durano, it would take police many more months before he was finally arrested, in August 2002, at the Manila domestic airport.

Durano had been in hiding for 18 months, right after the killing of a tricycle driver in Busay in December 2001.

The death sentences immediately go under automatic Supreme Court review. Moreover, even if upheld, it is held unlikely that Galope and Camada will be executed immediately.

Buckling under intense pressure from the Catholic Church, which abhors the death penalty, the government has stayed all further executions. — Freeman News Service