Nida Blanca murder: unsolved after 5 years

It’s been five years since Nida Blanca was murdered. Five years since morning news shocked Filipinos with the discovery of the showbiz star’s limp body inside her car, bludgeoned to death. Five years since authorities assured that no way would they let off whoever did this to Nida. There have been four justice secretaries, five National Police chiefs, and three NBI directors since Nov. 7, 2001. The vow of swift justice has yet to be fulfilled.

Nida’s daughter Kaye Torres returned home from U.S. migration to pursue justice. She has found out how elusive it is this part of the globe. One person may have been arraigned, yet trial has not commenced. The identified mastermind and executioner meanwhile remain free or missing. New witnesses have come forward, Kaye’s lawyer has left, and Nida’s loyal friend belatedly has been implicated. The case is as confused today as when it unfolded with police roughing up suspects and mishandling evidence.

Politicos chatter about unsolved killings of hundreds or so militants, journalists and judges. How can those expect closure, when inquiry on a tragedy involving everybody’s favorite comedienne can be bungled, and with only her daughter now seeming to care?

Everything was wrong with the probe from the start. Police did not immediately cordon off the car park where Nida’s body was found, at the building where she worked as film rater and which she on record left the dusk before. Too, instead of lab testing possibly to pinpoint the killer, they misplaced a bottle of urine found at the scene. They then left and lost at the funeral morgue the bloodied clothes Nida was wearing at the time of death. They couldn’t retrace Nida’s movements from the time she left work on Nov. 6 supposedly to meet friends at a casino – yet they were dealing here with a famous face, everybody’s favorite actress for almost half a century. Lastly they returned Nida’s car for cleaning, along with a van of her American husband Rod Strunk, yet the latter turned out to be a suspect and his van the possible murder vehicle.

It was as if investigators deliberately were messing things up or were just ignorant of basic crime scene investigation, or both. This became plain when, in spite of naming Strunk as prime suspect, police didn’t book him but let him flee to the U.S. All that time, they had on a supposed admission by Philip Medel as the killer whom Strunk had hired. Medel detailed his activities and whereabouts with Strunk for 19 hours prior to the discovery of Nida’s body, from their first meeting to the actual killing to the getaway. Yet the police could not use it then because, it would later emerge, they had extracted the confession by torture.

Medel, according to justice department insiders, is a professional witness whom military spies tap to cover their tracks when an operation fumbles and ends up in court. In short, he is used to lying, and that could include his story of being manhandled. But it seemed he was not faking it when doctors saw telltale welts on his body. Investigators claimed that Medel accidentally bruised himself in jail while suffering an attack of peptic ulcers. But they couldn’t explain why, if he was that sick, they didn’t rush him to the hospital.

In denouncing torture, Medel swore seeing one Mike Martinez being punched in the body by a police officer, also to admit to the murder. The brass denied knowing or arresting anybody by that name, or that the officer was ever assigned to the case at the time. Weeks later it turned out that not only was the officer on the case from the start, but also that a patrol car did pick up Martinez at his Parañaque City home, as jotted down by subdivision security guards.

The first prosecutors on case recommended transfer of investigation from the National Police to the NBI, then withdrew in favor of a fresh team. The NBI reworked the probe, noting the bungling, but came to the same police conclusion of conspiracy among Medel, Strunk, and retired army intelligence chief Gen. Galileo Kintanar. The justice department sought Strunk’s extradition. Twice the U.S. judge ruled that the evidence presented by Philippine prosecutors not only were contradictory but also tended to exonerate Strunk.

For the next four years Nida’s daughter Kaye, the only person left seeking closure, pressed the justice department to set the case aright once and for all. Still nothing moved.

Then came a seeming break when new witnesses stepped up to pin Medel, Strunk and several others at the car park crime scene. Newsmen rushed to dig up files on the dormant case. Everybody suddenly wanted in on the action. A police character demanded that interviews with the witnesses be cleared with him, and his name be mentioned in news items as having discovered them. Reporters grumbled, but strangely the justice secretary appeared to favor the unusual new rule of coverage.

New witnesses midwife Andrada Dalandas and messenger Rannie Francisco allegedly did not know each other. The former said she saw from the shadows at the car park past midnight the famous Nida being dragged from a van to a car. The latter said he saw Nida walking to the car park the afternoon before with a person who looked like her housemate of 30 years Elena dela Paz.

Kaye’s lawyer Harriet Demetriou, a former judge and election chief, was elated with the break. Kaye was not, though. She could not believe that her "Tita Elena", on whose lap she grew up, had anything to do with her mom Nida’s murder. Grandma Crescencia, Nida’s mom, had told her at deathbed in 2005 that faithful Elena was at home with her when Nida went missing from dusk of Nov. 6 till the discovery of her body the next dawn.

Kaye requested the justice secretary to replace the prosecutors who implicated Elena. As in the celebrated Subic rape case, the secretary refused on the grounds that he cannot give in to an aggrieved party’s every request. Kaye and Demetriou then parted ways as client and counsel.

Oddly though, all this time, de la Paz has maintained that Strunk was at home with her and Grandma Crescencia all those hours that Nida went missing and Medel in his confession swore they were together. So Kaye’s lonely search for justice goes on.

* * *

E-mail: [email protected]