Justice, PH style

“Who is Hubert Webb and why is everything on TV about him?”

My son asked this question on the day the Supreme Court decision acquitting Hubert Webb and his co-accused was released. He was right. A few days after, most local channels featured stories about Hubert Webb and the Vizconde Massacre, as the gruesome crime has been named.

My son may not know why Hubert Webb is hogging the news but I do. I was a sixteen-year-old college freshman in UP Diliman when the crime that Hubert Webb was acquitted of was committed in 1991. I knew about the case because it was in the news for a long time. It didn’t help that in 1993, (National Artist?) Carlo J. Caparas made a movie called “The Vizconde Massacre (God Help Us!)” about it. It starred Kris Aquino as Carmela Vizconde. I didn’t get to see the movie but I saw the advertisements for it and concluded that it was cheesy and exploitative. I felt as if another crime had been committed against Mrs. Estrelita Vizconde and her children.

The day after the Supreme Court released its decision, Hubert Webb was interviewed in a morning show and asked about life in jail. He spoke about wanting to kill himself on several occasions because he felt desperate. Fifteen years in jail is a long time for a man who believes himself to be innocent of a crime.

After the Hubert Webb interview, clips showing Mr. Lauro Vizconde weeping were shown on TV. Beside him were members of the anti-crime group who raised their fists and shouted that the Supreme Court committed an injustice against the Vizcondes. I had read similar views posted in Internet news sites although an equal number seemed to believe that the Supreme Court decided correctly.

The biggest shock I got was hearing Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) Head Persida Rueda-Acosta say that Mr. Vizconde could still file a motion for reconsideration. She also said that double jeopardy does not apply. I think of all the PAO clients in different courts who need good lawyers and hope that the PAO lawyers handling their cases are much better than the PAO Head.

I read the Supreme Court decision and felt bad. I know I shouldn’t be surprised about how the Philippine criminal justice system works (or doesn’t work) but reading the main opinion as well as the concurring opinion of Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno made me remember all the times I wanted to quit litigation because I felt that too much time and resources were being spent for outcomes that had little to do with truth or justice.

Quoting Richard Refshauge, Justice Sereno wrote: “The adversarial system … is rooted in the notion of a contest with winners and losers …” That, I think, is at the heart of the problem. Clients expect their lawyers to win at all costs and lawyers forget their oath to do no falsehood. The Supreme Court decision details how the prosecution used Jessica Alfaro, a witness who claimed that she knew someone who could testify on the case, and failing to find him, told her National Bureau of Investigation handler: “Easy lang, Sir. Sir, relax lang, Sir, papapelan ko, papapelan ko na lang ‘yan.”

I wish that our legal system were more like that of the rainforest Teduray, an indigenous peoples in Mindanao studied by anthropologist Dr. Stuart Schlegel in the late 1960’s. In his book “Wisdom from a Rainforest: The Spiritual Journey of an Anthropologist,” he wrote, “The skill of legal specialists was understood in terms of their capacity to achieve justice, not their ability to outwit or otherwise overcome others. Even to appear to tend toward such a goal was to invite severe censure of being called… ‘a cheater.’”

I might have to wait a while.