Vizconde massacre
Encyclopedia
The Vizconde Massacre was the multiple homicide
of members of the Vizconde family on June 30, 1991 at their residence in BF Homes
, Parañaque City
, Metro Manila
, Philippines
. Estrellita, 47, had suffered thirteen stab wounds; Carmela, 18, had suffered seventeen stab wounds and had been raped before she was killed; and Jennifer, 7, had nineteen stab wounds. Lauro Vizconde, Estrellita's husband, and the father of Carmela and Jennifer, was in the United States
on business when the murders took place.
The lead suspect was Hubert Webb
, whose father Freddie Webb
was famous as an actor, former basketball player, and former Congressman and Senator. The other defendants were Antonio Lejano II, Hospicio Fernandez, Michael Gatchalian, Miguel Rodriguez, Peter Estrada, Joey Filart and Artemio Ventura. In the Trial Court (People of the Philippines vs. Hubert Webb, et al., G.R. No. 176864), it became one of the most sensational cases in the Philippines, becoming the "trial of the century
". The men were convicted by the Parañaque Regional Trial Court which the Court of Appeals affirmed. Except for Filart and Ventura who had been convicted in absentia, the men were later acquitted by the Supreme Court
on December 14, 2010 for failure of the prosecution to prove their guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The reinvistigation concluded that Hubert Webb was in the Philippines in 1991.
Alfaro's testimony coincides with the angle that was being explored by Supt. Rodolfo Sison, the police investigator originally assigned to the case in 1991. Sison was ordered to desist from further investigating that angle by then Philippine National Police
Capital Region Commander Marino Filart after six members of akyat bahay gang(burglars) were arrested by Regional Police Unit in October 1991. The suspects said they were tortured and forced to confess to the crime before they were presented by Filart to the media. They were acquitted by a trial judge in September 1993 for insufficient evidence.
Alfaro testified that as Webb followed Carmela into the dining room, she decided to step outside for a smoke. From there she allegedly saw Lejano and Ventura take a knife from the kitchen drawer, while the rest of the gang acted as lookouts. Alfaro said Estrellita was killed before Webb began to rape Carmela. Jennifer woke up and, seeing Webb violating her sister, jumped on him and bit him. He then hurled the little girl to a wall and started stabbing her.
Alfaro said that when she went back to the house, she saw the bodies of Estrellita and Jennifer on the bed and Webb raping Carmela on the floor. Lejano and Ventura also took turns raping Carmela, before finishing her off with numerous stabs. Alfaro said that policeman Gerardo Biong "was instructed by Webb, in my presence, to take care of the house where the incident happened". Alfaro also said that she bumped into Biong at the Faces Disco in Makati in March 1995 and relayed to her the offer of the group to give her a free ticket to the United States to shut her up. She added that suspect Miguel Rodriguez warned her to "shut up or you're gonna get killed" in the same disco on April 8, 1995 prompting her to voluntarily submit herself to the National Bureau of Investigation(NBI) for protection. According to the footage of the trial, Alfaro had been able to identify all the defendants by their names. The defense questioned Alfaro's credibility noting that she admitted to being under the influence of drugs when she allegedly witnessed the crime and had made inconsistent statements on her two affidavit
s. Alfaro said she was then having reservations when she first executed the first affidavit and held back vital information due to her natural reaction of mistrust.
Alfaro's testimony was corroborated by other witnesses including: Lolita Birrer, a former live-in partner of policeman Gerardo Biong, who narrated the manner of how Biong investigated and tried to cover up the crime. Birrer said she had accompanied Biong to the Vizconde house to destroy the evidence and to retrieve Webb’s jacket and the murder weapon. She also testified that Biong received money at a house that she later learned belonged to then Parañaque Congressman Freddie Webb; the Webb family's maids, Mila Gaviola and Nerissa Rosales, who both testified that Hubert Webb was at home on June 30, 1991. At about 4 a.m. on June 30, 1991, Gaviola woke up and entered the bedrooms to get the Webb's dirty laundry and wash it as part of her job. She said that when she entered Hubert’s room, she saw him wearing only his pants, awake and smoking in bed. While washing Hubert Webb's clothing, Gaviola said she noticed fresh bloodstains on his shirt. After she finished the laundry, she went to the servant's quarters. But feeling uneasy, she decided to go up to the stockroom near Hubert's room to see what he was doing. In the said stockroom, there is a small door going to Hubert's room and in that door there is a small opening where she used to see Hubert and his friends sniffing on something. She observed Hubert was quite irritated, uneasy, and walked to and from inside his room. Security guards Justo Cabanacan and Normal White. Cabanacan said Webb had entered the subdivision(where the Vizconde house was located) a few days before the massacre
and that he even identified himself as the son of then Congressman Webb. White, on the other hand, said he saw the three cars enter the subdivision on the night of June 29, as Alfaro had testified; White also testified that policeman Gerardo Biong was the first to arrive at the crime scene.
Other prosecution witnesses were: Carlos J. Cristobal who alleged that on March 9, 1991 he was a passenger of United Airlines Flight No. 808 bound for New York and who expressed doubt on whether Hubert Webb was his co-passenger in the trip; NBI medico-legal Dr. Prospero Cabanayan, Belen Dometita and Teofilo Minoza, two of the Vizconde maids; and Manciano Gatmaitan, an engineer.
Among evidence that was not admitted by Judge Tolentino, was the note verbale
from the United States Embassy in Manila claiming that Webb entered the United States in March 1991 and left in October 1992. This coincided with his passport and Philippine Immigration records but were dismissed by Tolentino due to belief that these documents can possibly be falsified. .(The Philippine Rules of Evidence require official attestation of the authenticity of any public document presented in evidence; as per Sec. 24, Rule 134, R. Evid.)
Moreover, Judge Tolentino also denied Webb's request to subject semen samples to DNA testing on the belief that the samples may no longer be intact. The accused alleged that by rejecting 132 of the 142 pieces of evidence, Tolentino had set the tone for their conviction. On July 24, 1997, the Supreme Court noted that Tolentino erred when she refused to admit the 132 pieces of evidence presented by the defense, although these were later admitted in court through an order issued by Tolentino.
Among the defense witnesses was Artemio Sacaguing, a former, now deceased NBI official who testified that Alfaro was an NBI asset who only volunteered to assume the role of the eyewitness when she could not produce the actual witness to the Vizconde killings.
Former NBI official Pedro Rivera however dismissed as lies the testimony of Sacaguing saying that “Agent Sacaguing had a record of notoriety in the NBI which prompted his transfer to remote places of assignment… until his early retirement”. According to Rivera, Sacaguing was never part of the NBI team assigned to investigate the Vizconde massacre and that his former colleague took Alfaro’s statement in April 1995 without the presence of a lawyer. “Sacaguing broke the guidelines in taking affidavits from witnesses. His intention was very, very dubious,” he said.
the Vizconde family Php
3 million for the murders. Two of the accused remain fugitive
s from the law: Joey Filart and Artemio Ventura. Former Paranaque City
policeman Gerardo Biong was found guilty as an accessory for burning bedsheets and tampering with other evidence in the crime. He was sentenced to eleven years in prison. Biong was released from jail on November 30, 2010 after serving his sentence.
In her decision, Tolentino described the testimony of defense witnesses as full of inconsistencies and biased. She said the US-based defense witnesses, most of whom are relatives or friends of the Webb family suffered from "incorrigible and selective memory syndrome
". She cited the testimony of Alex del Toro, husband of Webb's relative, who said he hired Hubert Webb as an employee at his pesticide company in California. Both Webb and del Toro could not describe in court what Hubert's work was, Tolentino said. Tolentino also found it hard to believe that Webb was working with a pesticide company because he was asthmatic and allergic to various substances. Webb's testimony was also contradicted by other US-based defense witnesses who said they usually saw him "going to the beach, malling, bar-hopping or playing basketball. Tolentino also said, the photographs and videotapes purportedly showing Webb in the United States appeared to be tampered. Tolentino said the certificates issued by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Philippine Bureau of Immigration "could have easily been obtained by the powerful Webb family".
' Third Division voted 3-2 to deny Webb's motion for reconsideration and upheld the ruling of Judge Tolentino on December 16, 2005.
The court ruled that the Parañaque RTC was correct in sentencing Webb et. al. due to "overwhelming evidence that showed Webb and the other accused had conspired to rape Carmela and, in the process, kill her and the rest of the family." The court also amended the award of damages from 100,000 pesos to 200,000 pesos, and also upheld the conviction of Biong as accessory to the crime
"by abusing his public functions... to conceal and destroy the physical evidence in order to prevent the discovery of the crime and by allowing the destruction of the physical evidence, Biong facilitated the escape of the principal accused."
approved DNA testing to be performed on the semen specimen obtained during autopsy from Carmela Vizconde. This has resulted in the revelation by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) that they no longer had the specimens as these were remanded to the Parañaque courts.
On October 8, 2010, Webb filed an urgent motion for acquittal. On November 26, 2010, Lauro Vizconde voiced his concern to media about the purported lobbying of Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio
for the reversal of the guilty verdict. Carpio testified for the defense during the trial. The Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption(VACC) asked Justice Antonio Carpio and his cousin Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales to take a leave while the case is being decided to avoid undue influence on the court's decision. This was categorically denied by the Supreme Court as Justice Carpio had in fact inhibited himself from the case and was not going to take part in the deliberation.
On December 14, 2010, the Supreme Court reversed the earlier judgment of the lower court and Court of Appeals and acquitted seven of the nine accused, including Hubert Webb, finding that the prosecution failed to prove that the accused were guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The High Court put to question the quality of the testamentary evidence furnished by the witnesses. No acquittal has been made as to the two accused, Filart and Ventura, who remain at-large. Of the 15 Justices, 7 voted for acquittal while four dissented and four Justices, including Carpio, did not participate.
, said "that he is entitled to outright acquittal on the ground of violation of his right to due process given the State’s failure to produce on order of the Court either by negligence or willful suppression the semen specimen taken from Carmela." The court argued that the cited case has been superseded by Arizona v. Youngblood
, "where the U.S. Supreme Court held that due process does not require the State to preserve the semen specimen although it might be useful to the accused unless the latter is able to show bad faith on the part of the prosecution or the police".
The court considered the accused's "lack of interest in having such test done" in which they concluded that the state "cannot be deemed put on reasonable notice that it would be required to produce the semen specimen at some future time".
The court said the "portion of Alfaro's story appears tortured to accommodate the physical evidence of the ransacked house" adding that "it is a story made to fit in with the crime scene although robbery was supposedly not the reason Webb and his companions entered that house". The court also said the same for the issue of the garage light: she claimed that Ventura climbed the car's hood, using a chair, to turn the light off. But, unlike the house robbers, however the court points out that "Webb and his friends did not have anything to do in a darkened garage." In general, the court said that Alfaro's story "lacks sense or suffers from inherent inconsistencies."
Justo Cabanacan, the security supervisor of the gated community, said that he saw Webb enter the gated community, although he did not record Webb entering in his log book.
The court also held that the testimony of the Webb's maid, Mila Gaviola, was also unreliable since she was not able to distinguish if it was Hubert whom she saw on June 30, 1991, nor "did she remember any of the details that happened in the household on the other days".
For the alibi to be established "the accused must prove by positive, clear, and satisfactory evidence... that he was present at another place at the time of the perpetration of the crime, and that it was physically impossible for him to be at the scene of the crime". The lower courts, the Supreme Court said, held that "Webb was actually in Parañaque when the Vizconde killings took place". However, the court pointed out that while Webb or his parents may be able to "arrange for the local immigration to put a March 9, 1991 departure stamp on his passport and an October 27, 1992 arrival stamp", they could not fix a foreign airlines’ passenger manifest, and the U.S. Immigration’s record system. The court also said that if Webb was in the U.S. when the crime was committed, the Alfaro's testimony would not hold together: "Without it, the evidence against the others must necessarily fall."
Benigno Aquino III
ordered the law enforcement agencies to re-investigate the case six months before the prescription period lapses. He also ordered the Secretary of Justice
Leila de Lima
to study the possibility of giving compensation to Webb and others.
On December 28, 2010, new witnesses have come forward accusing Hubert Webb and others of allegedly being behind the Vizconde massacre. Other witnesses say Webb was in the Philippines at the time of the murders.
On January 4, 2011, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima
said suspect Joey Filart was spotted in the United States.
On January 18, 2011, the Supreme Court denied Lauro Vizconde's motion to reverse the acquittal because of double jeopardy
.
On March 18, 2011, Hubert Webb, filed a lawsuit against Jessica Alfaro for false testimony at the Parañaque Prosecutor's Office.
On June 14, 2011, Hubert Webb filed a P180,000 compensation claim for "unlawful conviction" for the Vizconde massacre.
On June 28, 2011, Justice Secretary Leila De Lima said Hubert Webb was in the Philippines when the murders took place. This contradicted Hubert Webb's claim that he was in the United States from March 9, 1991 to October 27, 1992. De Lima said the evidence that showed Webb and any of the co-accused were in the country came from the magnetic reel tape
(MRT) of the Philippine Bureau of Immigration (BI) where all records of incoming and outgoing passengers from the Philippines are recorded. The tapes were restored by IBM
while being monitored by the National Computer Center. “There was entry of (former senator) Freddie Webb leaving the country in March 1991 but no Hubert Webb,” De Lima said. She said the same MRT provided data that several Webbs arrived in the country, including Hubert, sometime in October 1992. “It is hard to believe this – there is a record of supposed arrival from other country but no record of departure in 1991 or in any month of 1991,” she said. De Lima also said seven new witnesses claimed they saw Webb in the country during the months of April, May and June of 1991. According to De Lima, all the new witnesses passed the polygraph test. The witnesses include an electrician, a drug dealer, a couple of neighborhood basketball players, a hairdresser and a village security guard. Pitong, an electrician who since 1982, already knew the Webb family claimed he saw a laundry woman wash a bloodied t-shirt on the morning of the crime. He also claimed to have heard Hubert shout, “Putang ina nyo! Kung di ninyo ako pinabayaan, 'di ako magkakaganito.”(Fuck you all! I would not have ended up like this if you had not neglected me). Three days after that, he was allegedly approached by Mrs. Webb who reportedly told him, “You did not see anything.” A week after, Sen. Freddie Webb allegedly told him, “You did not see anything. You will regret it.” Jack, a village security guard who kept records of the village where Webb lived said he saw Hubert Webb during the time of the massacre. George, a drug dealer, claimed he was introduced to Webb by former SPO1 Gerardo Biong sometime in April 1991 where the young Webb allegedly purchased from him 10 grams of shabu
worth P10,000. He alleged that Webb bought illegal drugs from him on two other occasions in May 1991. He alleged that he could not forget Webb because Biong had allegedly threatened him, “Do not cheat him. I will kill you,” brandishing a shiny revolver. Mario, a hair stylist during the period June 1991, testified that Webb, along with Tony Boy Lejano and Dong Ventura had their haircut. He said that he heard Hubert Webb quarrelling with another young looking customer. Rey and Jerry claimed they saw Webb playing basketball between the months of June and July of 1991 during a league in BF Homes.
The findings alo point to another set of suspects, namely Dong Villadolid and his brother Bing. The Villadolid brothers were mentioned by a certain Rhoda Pujanes alias Dang, who claimed she overheard Villadolid and his friends, including Miguel Rodriguez and Michael Gatchalian(both co-accused of Webb), talking about the massacre during a pot
session in 1991. Dang claimed to have heard Dong Villadolid shouting at the top of his voice, saying they had raped and killed a certain Maria(presumed to be Maria Carmela Vizconde) and other persons. She also said that Bing was accosting Ging Rodriguez on why he had to stab and kill a young girl. De Lima believed Dong Villadolid is the same person as Dong Ventura, one of the co-accused who fled to the US following the massacre. Another accused, Joey Filart also fled to the United States. De Lima said they could still go after Filart and Ventura, as well as the Villadolid brothers, since the prescriptive period of 20 years for homicide does not apply to them because they were abroad. One team uncovered “Black Maria,” a woman whom one witness said had told him she was with Webb’s group inside the Vizconde home and saw the crime take place. “She admitted to knowing Webb and company but denied knowledge of the Vizconde massacre,” NBI Death Investigation Division head Romulo Asis said. De Lima said it was possible that it was Black Maria who was in the Vizconde home and not Jessica Alfaro, the NBI’s star witness during the trial.
Although Webb's group can no longer be retried because of double jeopardy
, De Lima said the purpose of the reinvestigation was to “uncover the truth” and bring closure to Lauro Vizconde.
as Carmela Vizconde. A second movie released in 1994, The Untold Story: Vizconde Massacre II May The Lord Be With Us, starring Vina Morales as Carmela and Joko Diaz as one of the assailants, is reportedly based on new evidence. The Jessica Alfaro Story in 1995 had Alice Dixson
as the star witness. The case was featured on a Philippine TV show Case Unclosed
as its ninth episode, "Vizconde Massacre Case."
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
of members of the Vizconde family on June 30, 1991 at their residence in BF Homes
BF Homes Parañaque
Banco Filipino Homes Parañaque is a subdivision in Parañaque City, Philippines developed by Tomas Aguirre in 1969 as the housing extension of Banco Filipino. It is considered the largest subdivision in Asia....
, Parañaque City
Parañaque City
The City of Parañaque , or simply Parañaque , is one of the cities and municipalities that make up Metro Manila in the Philippines....
, Metro Manila
Metro Manila
Metropolitan Manila , the National Capital Region , or simply Metro Manila, is the metropolitan region encompassing the City of Manila and its surrounding areas in the Philippines...
, Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. Estrellita, 47, had suffered thirteen stab wounds; Carmela, 18, had suffered seventeen stab wounds and had been raped before she was killed; and Jennifer, 7, had nineteen stab wounds. Lauro Vizconde, Estrellita's husband, and the father of Carmela and Jennifer, was in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on business when the murders took place.
The lead suspect was Hubert Webb
Hubert Webb
Hubert Jeffrey Pagaspas Webb , is a former convict and one of the alleged suspects of the 1991 Vizconde massacre in the Philippines...
, whose father Freddie Webb
Freddie Webb
Freddie N. Webb is a retired Filipino basketball player and head coach, politician, radio personality, and actor. He also had been active in politics when he was elected as councilor of Pasay City, congressman for Parañaque, and senator...
was famous as an actor, former basketball player, and former Congressman and Senator. The other defendants were Antonio Lejano II, Hospicio Fernandez, Michael Gatchalian, Miguel Rodriguez, Peter Estrada, Joey Filart and Artemio Ventura. In the Trial Court (People of the Philippines vs. Hubert Webb, et al., G.R. No. 176864), it became one of the most sensational cases in the Philippines, becoming the "trial of the century
Trial of the century
Trial of the century is an idiomatic phrase used to describe certain well-known court cases, especially of the 20th century. It is often used popularly as a rhetorical device to attach importance to a trial and as such is not an objective observation but is the opinion of whoever uses it. As...
". The men were convicted by the Parañaque Regional Trial Court which the Court of Appeals affirmed. Except for Filart and Ventura who had been convicted in absentia, the men were later acquitted by the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the Philippines
The Supreme Court of the Philippines is the Philippines' highest judicial court, as well as the court of last resort. The court consists of 14 Associate Justices and 1 Chief Justice...
on December 14, 2010 for failure of the prosecution to prove their guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The reinvistigation concluded that Hubert Webb was in the Philippines in 1991.
Case
The case remained unsolved for almost four years until eyewitness Jessica Alfaro, a self-confessed former drug addict, came forward on April 28, 1995 to shed light on the killing of the Vizcondes. Alfaro implicated the children of wealthy and prominent families including Hubert Webb, Antonio Lejano II, Hospicio Fernandez, Michael Gatchalian, Miguel Rodriguez, Peter Estrada, Joey Filart and Artemio Ventura.Alfaro's testimony coincides with the angle that was being explored by Supt. Rodolfo Sison, the police investigator originally assigned to the case in 1991. Sison was ordered to desist from further investigating that angle by then Philippine National Police
Philippine National Police
The Philippine National Police is the national police force of the Republic of the Philippines. It is both a national and a local police force in that it does provides all law enforcement services throughout the Philippines...
Capital Region Commander Marino Filart after six members of akyat bahay gang(burglars) were arrested by Regional Police Unit in October 1991. The suspects said they were tortured and forced to confess to the crime before they were presented by Filart to the media. They were acquitted by a trial judge in September 1993 for insufficient evidence.
Prosecution
The trial began in August 1995 before Paranaque City RTC Judge Amelita Tolentino. Alfaro had testified that she knew the suspects and was at the Vizconde house when the crime was committed. By Alfaro's account, after a drug session with the group, Hubert Webb allegedly had hatched his plan to rape Carmela Vizconde. Webb wanted Alfaro, the then girlfriend of one of the accused men, Peter Estrada, to join them because Estrellita Vizconde only allowed her daughter to go out and entertain female visitors.Alfaro testified that as Webb followed Carmela into the dining room, she decided to step outside for a smoke. From there she allegedly saw Lejano and Ventura take a knife from the kitchen drawer, while the rest of the gang acted as lookouts. Alfaro said Estrellita was killed before Webb began to rape Carmela. Jennifer woke up and, seeing Webb violating her sister, jumped on him and bit him. He then hurled the little girl to a wall and started stabbing her.
Alfaro said that when she went back to the house, she saw the bodies of Estrellita and Jennifer on the bed and Webb raping Carmela on the floor. Lejano and Ventura also took turns raping Carmela, before finishing her off with numerous stabs. Alfaro said that policeman Gerardo Biong "was instructed by Webb, in my presence, to take care of the house where the incident happened". Alfaro also said that she bumped into Biong at the Faces Disco in Makati in March 1995 and relayed to her the offer of the group to give her a free ticket to the United States to shut her up. She added that suspect Miguel Rodriguez warned her to "shut up or you're gonna get killed" in the same disco on April 8, 1995 prompting her to voluntarily submit herself to the National Bureau of Investigation(NBI) for protection. According to the footage of the trial, Alfaro had been able to identify all the defendants by their names. The defense questioned Alfaro's credibility noting that she admitted to being under the influence of drugs when she allegedly witnessed the crime and had made inconsistent statements on her two affidavit
Affidavit
An affidavit is a written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by an affiant or deponent under an oath or affirmation administered by a person authorized to do so by law. Such statement is witnessed as to the authenticity of the affiant's signature by a taker of oaths, such as a notary public...
s. Alfaro said she was then having reservations when she first executed the first affidavit and held back vital information due to her natural reaction of mistrust.
Alfaro's testimony was corroborated by other witnesses including: Lolita Birrer, a former live-in partner of policeman Gerardo Biong, who narrated the manner of how Biong investigated and tried to cover up the crime. Birrer said she had accompanied Biong to the Vizconde house to destroy the evidence and to retrieve Webb’s jacket and the murder weapon. She also testified that Biong received money at a house that she later learned belonged to then Parañaque Congressman Freddie Webb; the Webb family's maids, Mila Gaviola and Nerissa Rosales, who both testified that Hubert Webb was at home on June 30, 1991. At about 4 a.m. on June 30, 1991, Gaviola woke up and entered the bedrooms to get the Webb's dirty laundry and wash it as part of her job. She said that when she entered Hubert’s room, she saw him wearing only his pants, awake and smoking in bed. While washing Hubert Webb's clothing, Gaviola said she noticed fresh bloodstains on his shirt. After she finished the laundry, she went to the servant's quarters. But feeling uneasy, she decided to go up to the stockroom near Hubert's room to see what he was doing. In the said stockroom, there is a small door going to Hubert's room and in that door there is a small opening where she used to see Hubert and his friends sniffing on something. She observed Hubert was quite irritated, uneasy, and walked to and from inside his room. Security guards Justo Cabanacan and Normal White. Cabanacan said Webb had entered the subdivision(where the Vizconde house was located) a few days before the massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
and that he even identified himself as the son of then Congressman Webb. White, on the other hand, said he saw the three cars enter the subdivision on the night of June 29, as Alfaro had testified; White also testified that policeman Gerardo Biong was the first to arrive at the crime scene.
Other prosecution witnesses were: Carlos J. Cristobal who alleged that on March 9, 1991 he was a passenger of United Airlines Flight No. 808 bound for New York and who expressed doubt on whether Hubert Webb was his co-passenger in the trip; NBI medico-legal Dr. Prospero Cabanayan, Belen Dometita and Teofilo Minoza, two of the Vizconde maids; and Manciano Gatmaitan, an engineer.
Defense
The defense produced documents and presented 95 witnesses, including Hubert Webb himself and his father, along with other relatives and friends to support Webb’s alibi that he was in the United States from March 9, 1991, to October 26, 1992. On October 1, 1996, Judge Amelita Tolentino admitted only 10 of the 142 pieces of evidence the defense presented. (Under Philippine law, generally, alibi is the weakest defense, especially where there is direct testimony of an eyewitness, duly corroborated by another. People vs. Bello, G.R. No. 124871, May 13, 2004.)Among evidence that was not admitted by Judge Tolentino, was the note verbale
Note verbale
Note verbale is a diplomatic communication prepared in the third person and unsigned: less formal than a note but more formal than an aide-mémoire....
from the United States Embassy in Manila claiming that Webb entered the United States in March 1991 and left in October 1992. This coincided with his passport and Philippine Immigration records but were dismissed by Tolentino due to belief that these documents can possibly be falsified. .(The Philippine Rules of Evidence require official attestation of the authenticity of any public document presented in evidence; as per Sec. 24, Rule 134, R. Evid.)
Moreover, Judge Tolentino also denied Webb's request to subject semen samples to DNA testing on the belief that the samples may no longer be intact. The accused alleged that by rejecting 132 of the 142 pieces of evidence, Tolentino had set the tone for their conviction. On July 24, 1997, the Supreme Court noted that Tolentino erred when she refused to admit the 132 pieces of evidence presented by the defense, although these were later admitted in court through an order issued by Tolentino.
Among the defense witnesses was Artemio Sacaguing, a former, now deceased NBI official who testified that Alfaro was an NBI asset who only volunteered to assume the role of the eyewitness when she could not produce the actual witness to the Vizconde killings.
Former NBI official Pedro Rivera however dismissed as lies the testimony of Sacaguing saying that “Agent Sacaguing had a record of notoriety in the NBI which prompted his transfer to remote places of assignment… until his early retirement”. According to Rivera, Sacaguing was never part of the NBI team assigned to investigate the Vizconde massacre and that his former colleague took Alfaro’s statement in April 1995 without the presence of a lawyer. “Sacaguing broke the guidelines in taking affidavits from witnesses. His intention was very, very dubious,” he said.
Decision
On January 6, 2000, Judge Tolentino rendered her decision, finding Hubert Webb, Peter Estrada, Hospicio Fernandez, Michael Gatchalian, Antonio Lejano II and Miguel Rodriguez guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of rape with homicide. They were sentenced to life imprisonment and ordered to indemnifyIndemnity
An indemnity is a sum paid by A to B by way of compensation for a particular loss suffered by B. The indemnitor may or may not be responsible for the loss suffered by the indemnitee...
the Vizconde family Php
Philippine peso
The peso is the currency of the Philippines. It is subdivided into 100 centavos . Before 1967, the language used on the banknotes and coins was English and so "peso" was the name used...
3 million for the murders. Two of the accused remain fugitive
Fugitive
A fugitive is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from private slavery, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals...
s from the law: Joey Filart and Artemio Ventura. Former Paranaque City
Parañaque City
The City of Parañaque , or simply Parañaque , is one of the cities and municipalities that make up Metro Manila in the Philippines....
policeman Gerardo Biong was found guilty as an accessory for burning bedsheets and tampering with other evidence in the crime. He was sentenced to eleven years in prison. Biong was released from jail on November 30, 2010 after serving his sentence.
In her decision, Tolentino described the testimony of defense witnesses as full of inconsistencies and biased. She said the US-based defense witnesses, most of whom are relatives or friends of the Webb family suffered from "incorrigible and selective memory syndrome
Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.David Perkins, a geneticist, coined the term "myside bias" referring to a preference for "my" side of an issue...
". She cited the testimony of Alex del Toro, husband of Webb's relative, who said he hired Hubert Webb as an employee at his pesticide company in California. Both Webb and del Toro could not describe in court what Hubert's work was, Tolentino said. Tolentino also found it hard to believe that Webb was working with a pesticide company because he was asthmatic and allergic to various substances. Webb's testimony was also contradicted by other US-based defense witnesses who said they usually saw him "going to the beach, malling, bar-hopping or playing basketball. Tolentino also said, the photographs and videotapes purportedly showing Webb in the United States appeared to be tampered. Tolentino said the certificates issued by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Philippine Bureau of Immigration "could have easily been obtained by the powerful Webb family".
Court of Appeals decision
The Court of AppealsPhilippine Court of Appeals
The Court of Appeals of the Philippines is the Philippines' second highest judicial court, just after the Supreme Court. The court consists of 68 Associate Justices and 1 Presiding Justice...
' Third Division voted 3-2 to deny Webb's motion for reconsideration and upheld the ruling of Judge Tolentino on December 16, 2005.
The court ruled that the Parañaque RTC was correct in sentencing Webb et. al. due to "overwhelming evidence that showed Webb and the other accused had conspired to rape Carmela and, in the process, kill her and the rest of the family." The court also amended the award of damages from 100,000 pesos to 200,000 pesos, and also upheld the conviction of Biong as accessory to the crime
Accessory (legal term)
An accessory is a person who assists in the commission of a crime, but who does not actually participate in the commission of the crime as a joint principal...
"by abusing his public functions... to conceal and destroy the physical evidence in order to prevent the discovery of the crime and by allowing the destruction of the physical evidence, Biong facilitated the escape of the principal accused."
Supreme Court decision
In April 2010, the Supreme CourtSupreme Court of the Philippines
The Supreme Court of the Philippines is the Philippines' highest judicial court, as well as the court of last resort. The court consists of 14 Associate Justices and 1 Chief Justice...
approved DNA testing to be performed on the semen specimen obtained during autopsy from Carmela Vizconde. This has resulted in the revelation by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) that they no longer had the specimens as these were remanded to the Parañaque courts.
On October 8, 2010, Webb filed an urgent motion for acquittal. On November 26, 2010, Lauro Vizconde voiced his concern to media about the purported lobbying of Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio
Antonio Carpio
Antonio T. Carpio is an incumbent Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. He was appointed to the Court by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and assumed office on October 26, 2001, his 52nd birthday.- Profile :...
for the reversal of the guilty verdict. Carpio testified for the defense during the trial. The Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption(VACC) asked Justice Antonio Carpio and his cousin Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales to take a leave while the case is being decided to avoid undue influence on the court's decision. This was categorically denied by the Supreme Court as Justice Carpio had in fact inhibited himself from the case and was not going to take part in the deliberation.
On December 14, 2010, the Supreme Court reversed the earlier judgment of the lower court and Court of Appeals and acquitted seven of the nine accused, including Hubert Webb, finding that the prosecution failed to prove that the accused were guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The High Court put to question the quality of the testamentary evidence furnished by the witnesses. No acquittal has been made as to the two accused, Filart and Ventura, who remain at-large. Of the 15 Justices, 7 voted for acquittal while four dissented and four Justices, including Carpio, did not participate.
Composition
| Concurred (7) | |Dissented (4) | |Did not take part (1) | |On leave (1) | |Inhibited (2) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Renato Corona Renato C. Corona is the incumbent Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. He was appointed to the Court on April 9, 2002 by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo... Arturo Brion Arturo D. Brion is an incumbent Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. He took his oath as a member of the Supreme Court on March 17, 2008 after having been appointed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo... |
Antonio Carpio Antonio T. Carpio is an incumbent Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. He was appointed to the Court by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and assumed office on October 26, 2001, his 52nd birthday.- Profile :... |
Presbitero Velasco, Jr. Presbitero J. Velasco, Jr. is an incumbent Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. He was appointed to the Court by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on March 31, 2006.- Profile :... |
Antonio Eduardo Nachura Antonio Eduardo B. Nachura was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines until his mandatory retirement in June 13, 2011. He had been Solicitor-General of the Philippines at the time of his appointment to the Court was announced on January 31, 2007 by President Gloria... Mariano del Castillo Mariano C. Del Castillo is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines.After graduating from San Beda College, Mariano del Castillo pursued law studies at the Ateneo de Manila University... |
Concurring opinion
Seven justices based its decision on the following points:- Loss of DNA evidence not a ground for outright acquittal
- Unreliability of Jessica Alfaro's testimony:
- Alfaro had prior knowledge on the facts of the case having been an assetAsset (intelligence)In intelligence, assets are persons within organizations or countries that are being spied upon who provide information for an outside spy.There are different categories of assets, including people...
of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) - Alfaro was not able to explain why the house was ransacked if robbery was not the motive of Webb and his group
- Alfaro had prior knowledge on the facts of the case having been an asset
- Unreliability of testimony from other witnesses
- Webb's strong alibi that he was in the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
- Alfaro's testimony will fall apart if Webb was not in the crime scene and will relieve the others accused of the crime
Loss of DNA evidence
Webb, citing Brady v. MarylandBrady v. Maryland
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 , was a United States Supreme Court case in which the prosecution had withheld from the criminal defendant certain evidence. The defendant challenged his conviction, arguing it had been contrary to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United...
, said "that he is entitled to outright acquittal on the ground of violation of his right to due process given the State’s failure to produce on order of the Court either by negligence or willful suppression the semen specimen taken from Carmela." The court argued that the cited case has been superseded by Arizona v. Youngblood
Arizona v. Youngblood
Arizona v. Youngblood, , was an important United States Supreme Court case about the limits of Constitutional due process under criminal law.- Background :...
, "where the U.S. Supreme Court held that due process does not require the State to preserve the semen specimen although it might be useful to the accused unless the latter is able to show bad faith on the part of the prosecution or the police".
The court considered the accused's "lack of interest in having such test done" in which they concluded that the state "cannot be deemed put on reasonable notice that it would be required to produce the semen specimen at some future time".
Alfaro's testimony
The court ruled that Alfaro was "a stool pigeon, one who earned her living by fraternizing with criminals so she could squeal on them to her NBI handlers." The court also said that it was "possible for Alfaro to lie" on the details of the case. Alfaro, who had "practically lived" at the NBI's offices, would have been able to hear about the details, and gain access to the documents, without difficulty. The court noted the inconsistency between Alfaro's testimony of Webb being Carmela's girlfriend, who had no reason in breaking the glass panel of the house's front door to enter the house; Alfaro said that Webb "picked up some stone and, out of the blue, hurled it at the glass-paneled front door". Alfaro, upon explaining on how the house was ransacked, (the Parañaque police had earlier blamed house robbers as suspects), said that Ventura was looking for the front-door key and the car key.The court said the "portion of Alfaro's story appears tortured to accommodate the physical evidence of the ransacked house" adding that "it is a story made to fit in with the crime scene although robbery was supposedly not the reason Webb and his companions entered that house". The court also said the same for the issue of the garage light: she claimed that Ventura climbed the car's hood, using a chair, to turn the light off. But, unlike the house robbers, however the court points out that "Webb and his friends did not have anything to do in a darkened garage." In general, the court said that Alfaro's story "lacks sense or suffers from inherent inconsistencies."
Corroborating witnesses
The court held that security guard Normal E. White, Jr.'s testimony was unreliable. White was mistaken in saying that Gatchalian and company went in and out of the gated community many times, since they only entered once.Justo Cabanacan, the security supervisor of the gated community, said that he saw Webb enter the gated community, although he did not record Webb entering in his log book.
The court also held that the testimony of the Webb's maid, Mila Gaviola, was also unreliable since she was not able to distinguish if it was Hubert whom she saw on June 30, 1991, nor "did she remember any of the details that happened in the household on the other days".
Webb's alibi
The court said that "among the accused, Webb presented the strongest alibi". The lower courts, however, reasoned that "Webb's alibi cannot stand against Alfaro's positive identification of him." The court said that Alfaro was not a credible witness and that her "story of what she personally saw must be believable, not inherently contrived".For the alibi to be established "the accused must prove by positive, clear, and satisfactory evidence... that he was present at another place at the time of the perpetration of the crime, and that it was physically impossible for him to be at the scene of the crime". The lower courts, the Supreme Court said, held that "Webb was actually in Parañaque when the Vizconde killings took place". However, the court pointed out that while Webb or his parents may be able to "arrange for the local immigration to put a March 9, 1991 departure stamp on his passport and an October 27, 1992 arrival stamp", they could not fix a foreign airlines’ passenger manifest, and the U.S. Immigration’s record system. The court also said that if Webb was in the U.S. when the crime was committed, the Alfaro's testimony would not hold together: "Without it, the evidence against the others must necessarily fall."
Conclusion
The court maintained that for a person to be convicted there should not be "a reasonable, lingering doubt as to his guilt." As a result, the court reverses the decision of the Court of Appeals, and acquits Webb, et al.Dissenting opinion
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Villarama argued that the claim of Webb that he could not have committed the crime because he left for the United States on March 9, 1991 and returned to the Philippines only on October 26, 1992 was correctly rejected by the Regional Trial Court and Court of Appeals. Given the financial resources and political influence of his family, it was not unlikely that Webb could have traveled back to the Philippines before June 29–30, 1991 and then departed for the US again, and returning to the Philippines in October 1992. Webb's travel documents and other paper trail of his stay in the US are unreliable proof of his absence in the Philippines at the time of the commission of the crime charged. Webb's reliance on the presumption of regularity of official functions, stressing the fact that the US-INS certifications are official documents, is misplaced. The presumption leaned on is disputable and can be overcome by evidence to the contrary. In this case, the existence of an earlier negative report on the NIIS record on file concerning the entry of appellant Webb into and his exit from the US on March 9, 1991 and October 26, 1992, respectively, had raised serious doubt on the veracity and accuracy of the subsequently issued second certification dated August 31, 1995 which is based merely on a computer print-out of his alleged entry on March 9, 1991 and departure on October 26, 1992. Villarama noted that the alleged Passport, Passenger Manifest of United Airlines Flight and United Airline ticket of accused Webb offered in evidence were mere photocopies of an alleged original, which were never presented. He adds, this Court takes judicial notice of reported irregularities and tampering of passports in the years prior to the recent issuance by the Department of Foreign Affairs(DFA) of machine-readable passports.Pro
- Freddie WebbFreddie WebbFreddie N. Webb is a retired Filipino basketball player and head coach, politician, radio personality, and actor. He also had been active in politics when he was elected as councilor of Pasay City, congressman for Parañaque, and senator...
: "Kami right now are on cloud nine. Bago sa lahat, there is so much to be thankful for (Right now we are on Cloud Nine. There is so much to be thankful for)"."You have to understand he has lost 15 years of his life. Since day one, we were saying he was in the United States but only a few people believed it. We cannot blame them because at that time, there were so many things being written in the newspapers that, if I didn't know anything about the case, I would be the one to throw a stone at Hubert Webb. The emotions are there because we are talking of 15 years wasted in the life of my son. He lost the most critical years of any person, that's from 26 years old to 41. He should not be in jail not for a minute or even a second ". - Former National Bureau of Investigation (1992-1995) Director Epimaco VelascoEpimaco VelascoEpimaco A. Velasco, popularly known as Epi, is a Filipino politician. DILG Secretary; Governor; NBI Director, first NBI Director who rose from the ranks; worked as a bailiff at the Manila City Hall while studying up law; rose to prominence at the NBI with the killing of Number 1 Most Wanted Man in...
: “I maintain my position. It was not Hubert. Walang pruweba na magpapatunay na sina Hubert Webb ang pumatay"(There's no proof it was Hubert Webb who killed[Vizconde family]) - Winnie Monsod: I cannot speak for all the SC justices who were part of either the voting majority or the minority. But there are two justices whose integrity I can vouch for: Justice Conchita Carpio Morales and Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno, who both not only voted for acquittal, but also wrote a concurring opinion and a separate concurring opinion, respectively. But other than that, Vizconde's charge does not seem to be supported by the history of the case, because if money could really buy the decision in this case, why were these wealthy people in jail for 15 years?
- Ramon TulfoRamon TulfoRamon "Mon" Tulfo is a TV host, radio broadcaster and columnist for the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Tulfo is one of the hosts of Isumbong Mo! , a public service program on RPN . He shares hosting chores with siblings Raffy, Ben and Erwin...
: "With my defense of Webb’s innocence, I feel that I won in the grand lotto jackpot." - Gary ValencianoGary ValencianoEdgardo Jose Martin Santiago Valenciano , better known as Gary Valenciano or Gary V., is a Filipino musician. He is also dubbed as Mr. Pure Energy. He has released 26 albums, and won the Awit Awards for "Best Male Performer" 11 times. In 1998, he became UNICEF Philippines first national Ambassador...
: “Whatever has transpired now is only a step closer to more answers for the questions that have been asked. I’m happy for the Webb family. Hubert is basically going to begin from the very, very beginning. I can only wish him the best this time. But I’m confident, he’s got a good family backing him up” - Democrito Barcenas, former Integrated Bar of the Philippines Cebu City president and regional coordinator of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG): “I think that most of the justices are right in their decision. I expected this decision because since the start, I knew that Jessica Alfaro was not entirely telling the truth”.
- Councilor Sisinio Andales, a lawyer, said he trusts in the wisdom of the justices of the Supreme Court.
- Catholic Bishop Teodoro Bacani: "Si Hubert Webb talagang sa paniniwala ko ay walang sala at kaya naman ako naniniwala diyan ay mayroon akong kaibigan na nasa States na nandun sa kanila si Hubert Webb noong diumano ay pinatay ang itong anak ni Lauro Vizconde. (I believe Hubert Webb is innocent. Because I have a friend in the States who said that Hubert Webb was there when the murders happened)
Con
- Lauro Vizconde: "Is there still anyone among you who doubts that there is rampant corruption in our government? Remember when I made the disclosure that someone is pressuring the justices to vote for a reversal? I did that hoping to make them have second thoughts about doing so,”.“There is no justice in the Philippines. All of us who have cases in court, don’t we realize that if your opponent has money, brace yourself. Anyone can be paid!"
- Jessica Alfaro: Alfaro’s e-mail from abroad read. “I stand by my story. Am I dismayed by the decision of the (Supreme Court)? Yes, but what can I do (?). I am not an NBI agent nor an NBI asset. Thats all crap! Eh di sana may sweldo ako. Di naman ako puwede magtrabaho don” (If that's the case, then I should have had a salary. But I could not work there) "Nasira ang buhay ko para lang sa inyo and then ganito pa ang nangyari. Ayaw akong paniwalaan. Ayoko na! Alfaro told Lauro Vizconde. (My life has been destroyed for you, and then this is what happened. They would not believe me! I've had it!)."
- Former National Bureau of Investigation(1995-1996) Director Mariano Mison: “Hindi ako pabor sa naging desisyon ng Korte Suprema. Ginawa namin ang tama. Matagal na akong nagtitimpi. I refute all arguments,”(I'm not in favor of the Supreme Court's Decision. We did what is right. I've been holding myself back. I refute all arguments)
- Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption chairman Dante Jimenez: "Pera talaga ang laging umiiral sa ating hustisya (Money always prevails in our justice system)".
- Former SandiganbayanSandiganbayanThe Sandiganbayan is a special court in the Philippines which was established under Presidential Decree No. 1606. Its rank is equivalent to the Court of Appeals. The court consists of 14 Associate Justices and 1 Presiding Justice...
Justice Manuel Pamaran: “When it comes to the appreciation of facts especially on the testimony of the witness, the trial court should be given the credence because it has the first opportunity to observe the demeanor, gesture and tone of voice of the witness". - Presiding Justice of SandiganbayanSandiganbayanThe Sandiganbayan is a special court in the Philippines which was established under Presidential Decree No. 1606. Its rank is equivalent to the Court of Appeals. The court consists of 14 Associate Justices and 1 Presiding Justice...
Edilberto Sandoval:“The one who tried the case is in the best position to know whether the witness is telling the truth or not because he has the opportunity which is denied the appellate justices to observe the demeanor of the witness". - Ateneo law professor Alan Paguia: "The order of release is questionable as it appears to be undemocratic. It was based on the rule of the minority and not the majority as they (the SC justices) had enunciated in Fortich v. Corona." “Thus the SC decision on the Vizconde massacre is flawed,” Paguia averred, citing a portion of Fortich v. Corona, 312 SCRA 751, at 758 where the SC itself ruled that unless the minimum number of EIGHT votes for a majority is attained there is no decision to speak of, therefore the release order of the Webb group shouldn’t have been signed.
- Former Vice President Teofisto Guingona: Guingona said he believes that Hubert Webb, son of former Senator Freddie Webb, and his six other co-accused are guilty of killing Lauro's wife, Estrellita, 47, and his daughters Carmela, 18, and Jennifer Vizconde, 7, in June 1991.
- Thelma Chiong, national vice president of the Crusade Against Violence (CAV): “I do not agree, I do not agree. I’m dismayed with our justice system"
- Michael Yu, president of the Cebu City Integrated Bar of the Philippines: “This is the sad day of our criminal justice system, but the high court has spoken".
- Lawyer Dave Duallo: “The jurisprudence is consistent on this. The trial judge who observes a witness is in the best position to judge the witness’s demeanor and veracity and to evaluate the credibility of his testimony”.
- Catholic Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez expressed sadness at the Supreme Court’s decision and also spoke about a higher justice: “I was telling the ordinary people here that this is our legal system—even if you already know who the culprits are, but if you don’t have the evidence… Anyway, there is always divine justice
Aftermath
PresidentPresident of the Philippines
The President of the Philippines is the head of state and head of government of the Philippines. The president leads the executive branch of the Philippine government and is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines...
Benigno Aquino III
Benigno Aquino III
Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III , also known as Noynoy Aquino or PNoy, is a Filipino politician who has been the 15th and current President of the Philippines since June 2010....
ordered the law enforcement agencies to re-investigate the case six months before the prescription period lapses. He also ordered the Secretary of Justice
Department of Justice (Philippines)
The Department of Justice , abbreviated as DOJ, is the executive department of the Philippine government responsible for upholding the rule of law in the Philippines...
Leila de Lima
Leila De Lima
Leila Magistrado De Lima is the secretary of Philippine Department of Justice under the Administration of President Noynoy Aquino...
to study the possibility of giving compensation to Webb and others.
On December 28, 2010, new witnesses have come forward accusing Hubert Webb and others of allegedly being behind the Vizconde massacre. Other witnesses say Webb was in the Philippines at the time of the murders.
On January 4, 2011, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima
Leila De Lima
Leila Magistrado De Lima is the secretary of Philippine Department of Justice under the Administration of President Noynoy Aquino...
said suspect Joey Filart was spotted in the United States.
On January 18, 2011, the Supreme Court denied Lauro Vizconde's motion to reverse the acquittal because of double jeopardy
Double jeopardy
Double jeopardy is a procedural defense that forbids a defendant from being tried again on the same, or similar charges following a legitimate acquittal or conviction...
.
On March 18, 2011, Hubert Webb, filed a lawsuit against Jessica Alfaro for false testimony at the Parañaque Prosecutor's Office.
On June 14, 2011, Hubert Webb filed a P180,000 compensation claim for "unlawful conviction" for the Vizconde massacre.
Result of the reinvestigation
The Inter-Agency Task Force assigned to reinvestigate Vizconde massacre case formed 6 teams or 3 parallel teams to look into 3 sets of suspects linked to the murders. The 3 sets of suspects are: the Barroso Akyat-Bahay gang; the group of construction workers with engineer Danilo Agwas tagged as mastermind; SPO3 Angel Viaje, PO3 Rodolfo Colado, Ruben Pineda; and, the group of Hubert Webb.On June 28, 2011, Justice Secretary Leila De Lima said Hubert Webb was in the Philippines when the murders took place. This contradicted Hubert Webb's claim that he was in the United States from March 9, 1991 to October 27, 1992. De Lima said the evidence that showed Webb and any of the co-accused were in the country came from the magnetic reel tape
Magnetic storage
Magnetic storage and magnetic recording are terms from engineering referring to the storage of data on a magnetized medium. Magnetic storage uses different patterns of magnetization in a magnetizable material to store data and is a form of non-volatile memory. The information is accessed using...
(MRT) of the Philippine Bureau of Immigration (BI) where all records of incoming and outgoing passengers from the Philippines are recorded. The tapes were restored by IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
while being monitored by the National Computer Center. “There was entry of (former senator) Freddie Webb leaving the country in March 1991 but no Hubert Webb,” De Lima said. She said the same MRT provided data that several Webbs arrived in the country, including Hubert, sometime in October 1992. “It is hard to believe this – there is a record of supposed arrival from other country but no record of departure in 1991 or in any month of 1991,” she said. De Lima also said seven new witnesses claimed they saw Webb in the country during the months of April, May and June of 1991. According to De Lima, all the new witnesses passed the polygraph test. The witnesses include an electrician, a drug dealer, a couple of neighborhood basketball players, a hairdresser and a village security guard. Pitong, an electrician who since 1982, already knew the Webb family claimed he saw a laundry woman wash a bloodied t-shirt on the morning of the crime. He also claimed to have heard Hubert shout, “Putang ina nyo! Kung di ninyo ako pinabayaan, 'di ako magkakaganito.”(Fuck you all! I would not have ended up like this if you had not neglected me). Three days after that, he was allegedly approached by Mrs. Webb who reportedly told him, “You did not see anything.” A week after, Sen. Freddie Webb allegedly told him, “You did not see anything. You will regret it.” Jack, a village security guard who kept records of the village where Webb lived said he saw Hubert Webb during the time of the massacre. George, a drug dealer, claimed he was introduced to Webb by former SPO1 Gerardo Biong sometime in April 1991 where the young Webb allegedly purchased from him 10 grams of shabu
Shabu
Shabu or syabu may refer to:*Shabu, a slang term for the drug methamphetamine used in Japan, Hong Kong, Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia....
worth P10,000. He alleged that Webb bought illegal drugs from him on two other occasions in May 1991. He alleged that he could not forget Webb because Biong had allegedly threatened him, “Do not cheat him. I will kill you,” brandishing a shiny revolver. Mario, a hair stylist during the period June 1991, testified that Webb, along with Tony Boy Lejano and Dong Ventura had their haircut. He said that he heard Hubert Webb quarrelling with another young looking customer. Rey and Jerry claimed they saw Webb playing basketball between the months of June and July of 1991 during a league in BF Homes.
The findings alo point to another set of suspects, namely Dong Villadolid and his brother Bing. The Villadolid brothers were mentioned by a certain Rhoda Pujanes alias Dang, who claimed she overheard Villadolid and his friends, including Miguel Rodriguez and Michael Gatchalian(both co-accused of Webb), talking about the massacre during a pot
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...
session in 1991. Dang claimed to have heard Dong Villadolid shouting at the top of his voice, saying they had raped and killed a certain Maria(presumed to be Maria Carmela Vizconde) and other persons. She also said that Bing was accosting Ging Rodriguez on why he had to stab and kill a young girl. De Lima believed Dong Villadolid is the same person as Dong Ventura, one of the co-accused who fled to the US following the massacre. Another accused, Joey Filart also fled to the United States. De Lima said they could still go after Filart and Ventura, as well as the Villadolid brothers, since the prescriptive period of 20 years for homicide does not apply to them because they were abroad. One team uncovered “Black Maria,” a woman whom one witness said had told him she was with Webb’s group inside the Vizconde home and saw the crime take place. “She admitted to knowing Webb and company but denied knowledge of the Vizconde massacre,” NBI Death Investigation Division head Romulo Asis said. De Lima said it was possible that it was Black Maria who was in the Vizconde home and not Jessica Alfaro, the NBI’s star witness during the trial.
Although Webb's group can no longer be retried because of double jeopardy
Double jeopardy
Double jeopardy is a procedural defense that forbids a defendant from being tried again on the same, or similar charges following a legitimate acquittal or conviction...
, De Lima said the purpose of the reinvestigation was to “uncover the truth” and bring closure to Lauro Vizconde.
In popular culture
It was made into a movie in 1993: The Vizconde Massacre Story (God Help Us!) starring Kris AquinoKris Aquino
Kristina Bernadette Cojuangco Aquino , commonly known as Kris Aquino, is a Filipino television and movie personality who gained prominence from her talk shows, game shows, and numerous endorsements. Known as the Queen of All Media and Philippines' Queen of Talk, she is the youngest daughter of...
as Carmela Vizconde. A second movie released in 1994, The Untold Story: Vizconde Massacre II May The Lord Be With Us, starring Vina Morales as Carmela and Joko Diaz as one of the assailants, is reportedly based on new evidence. The Jessica Alfaro Story in 1995 had Alice Dixson
Alice Dixson
Jessie Alice Dixson or Alice Dixson, often misspelled Alice Dixon , is a Filipino-American actress, commercial model, and former beauty queen...
as the star witness. The case was featured on a Philippine TV show Case Unclosed
Case Unclosed
Case Unclosed is a news and public affairs television show in the Philippines aired every Thursday evenings by GMA Network. The show is currently hosted by Arnold Clavio...
as its ninth episode, "Vizconde Massacre Case."
Timeline
- Night of June 29–30, 1991: Estrellita, Carmela and Jennifer VIzconde were killed in their Parañaque home; Carmela was found to have been raped.
- April 28, 1995: Jessica Alfaro presents herself as a witness and accuses Hubert Webb, et al. of murder.
- October 1, 1996: Judge Amelita Tolentino of the Parañaque RTC rejected 132 of the defense's 142 pieces of evidence.
- January 6, 2001: Tolentino finds Webb, et al. guilty beyond reasonable doubt of murder and sentences them to reclusion perpetuaReclusion perpetuaReclusión perpetua is a particular kind of sentence of imprisonment in the Philippines, Argentina, and several other countries....
. - December 15, 2005: The Court of AppealsPhilippine Court of AppealsThe Court of Appeals of the Philippines is the Philippines' second highest judicial court, just after the Supreme Court. The court consists of 68 Associate Justices and 1 Presiding Justice...
dismisses the defendants' appeal. - December 14, 2010: The Supreme CourtSupreme Court of the PhilippinesThe Supreme Court of the Philippines is the Philippines' highest judicial court, as well as the court of last resort. The court consists of 14 Associate Justices and 1 Chief Justice...
acquits Webb, et al., except for the two defendants tried in absentia.
See also
- Hultman-Chapman murder case (People vs. Claudio Teehankee, Jr.), another high-profile criminal case decided by the Supreme Court, occurred a fortnight after the massacre.
- List of massacres in the Philippines
External links
Court decisions
- Trial court: G.R. No. 121234 Hubert Webb et al. vs. Raul de Leon et. al, 1995
- Trial court: G.R. No. 127262 Hubert Webb, et al. vs. People of the Philippines et al., 1997
- Trial court: G.R. No. 132577 People of the Philippines vs. Hubert Jeffrey P. Webb, 1999
- Supreme Court: G.R. No. 176864 People of the Philippines vs. Hubert Webb, et. al., 2010
- Concurring opinions
- Supplemental opinion
- Dissenting opinion