Vizconde case: A sad day for justice

Last Tuesday,the nation was shocked to learn that the Supreme Court (SC) on a vote of 7-4 with four abstentions had apparently acquitted Hubert Webb, Peter Estrada, Hospicio Fernandez, Miguel Rodriguez, Tony Boy Lejano and Michael Gatchalian who were earlier convicted by the lower courts for the crime of rape with homicide. This time, the SC stipulated that no more motions for reconsideration would be entertained.

 These people were convicted by Parañaque Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge and now Court of Appeals Justice Amelita Tolentino way back in January 2000. Depending on whose side you think you like to support, you can call this a gross miscarriage ofJustice, which Mr. Lauro Vizconde said, while the family of Hubert Webb calls this a triumph ofjustice. What a lot of people failed to comprehend is that old legal dictum, “Justice delayed is justice denied!” Hence in my book, this was a gross miscarriage of justice!

 Just take a look at the timeline of this case. The victims, Mrs. Estrelita Vizconde, who was then 47 years old was stabbed 13 times, while her beautiful daughter Carmela (she was 18-years old at that time) was raped and stabbed 17 times, and her 7-year-old Jennifer was stabbed 19 times. This happened 6-months shy of 20-years ago. Didn’t we just write Justice delayed is justice denied?

 Now with this SC ruling, the big question is who then raped Carmela and killed her, then her mother and sister? This was one of the most gruesome crimes when Pres. Corazon C. Aquino was still president and yet, the Vizcondes did not get speedy justice. Now that her son is the president, the Vizcondes only get a miscarriage of justice! Indeed, it is a sad day for Filipinos and let me say that this was a great day for rapists and murderers!

 We can discuss in detail that there were many other suspects in this case, but the Department of Justice (DoJ) dismissed them all. Then there’s the case of Parañaque policeman Gerardo Biong who was tagged as an accessory to the crime and found guilty of bungling the evidence, yet he too walked away free. So again we ask … who killed the Vizcondes or are we to assume that they all stabbed themselves to death? What about the rape?

 That the Supreme Court found that a lot of the evidence had been lost shouldn’t mean to say that the suspects were innocent … after all, it’s been 15-years since Hubert Webb and company had been imprisoned. The big question really is … why did it take the courts this long to make this decision? Granted that the Supreme Court was correct in its judgment call, how can our policemen now find the real killers when they have to start from scratch, 19 years after the gruesome rape/murders were committed?

 Perhaps a more intriguing question should be asked as to why all of the sudden, ABS-CBN came up with stories about the Vizconde Massacre? Could it be because Pinky Webb is one of their anchors? Was this an effort to “masahe” the news so that it would appear less shocking when the Filipinos found out about the acquittal? When he was interviewed by Mel Tiangco of 24 Oras, Lauro Vizconde said that a Justice told him to prepare for the acquittal of this case. Who was that Justice?

 In yesterday’s Philippine Star column “A Law Each Day” of my good friend Jose C. Sison entitled “Fixing’ he said, “It is of common knowledge that “fixers” abound in government service including the Judiciary. This is a fact of life that people have grudgingly accepted and learned to live with. Apparently “fixing” is hard to prevent because there is really a very thin line separating the act of fixing with the legitimate act of extending assistance to people in need which is but part of public service.”

 Some people say that the SC decision was pointed to our bungling investigating agencies, but it left Mr. Lauro Vizconde with an empty bag. The SC also did not take into account that this decision has very serious repercussions in our society in general. As I’ve written so many times before, our criminal justice system clearly benefits criminals, who more often than not get away scot-free because it just takes the courts extremely a long time to settle or “fix” those criminal cases.

 Another example is the case of our good friend Choy Torralba, which took all 6 years from the time he was shot to the time, the gunman was released by our courts, even despite the fact that he survived this attempt on this life and pointed to his would-be assassin. If at all, there would be an increase in assassinations, vigilante killings and the like you can blame this to the lack of speedy justice from our courts. If we do not change course now, people would certainly lose its confidence in our criminal justice system.

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