General Admission
Webb and the web of lies, doubts?
By Al S. Mendoza
THEY have spoken.
And their word is final.
Seven justices of the Supreme Court said Hubert Webb and six others didn’t do it.
Meaning, Webb et al. didn’t massacre the wife and two daughters of Lauro Vizconde.
The word of the Supreme Court is law.
It can’t be broken, changed or ignored.
Vizconde was an OFW (Overseas Filipino Worker) the night of June 29-30, 1991, when his wife, Estrellita, 47, was stabbed to death 17 times in their Paranaque home.
Also killed in that Crime of the Decade were Vizconde’s daughters Carmela and Jennifer, 17-and 7-year-old, respectively.
If they were killed by drug-crazed maniacs, I will not be surprised.
Vizconde’s eldest daughter was also allegedly raped, according to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
Webb et al. were found guilty of rape and murder by the lower court in 2000, a ruling upheld by the Court of Appeals in 2005.
They were sentenced to a life in prison.
Webb was 27 years old in 1995.
But on Dec. 14, 2010, seven justices of the Supreme Court overturned the decision, freeing Webb et al. from the Bilibid Prisons that very same day.
Four justices did not agree with the Seven, including Chief Justice Rene Corona.
Four others abstained, including Antonio Carpio and Mariano del Castillo.
Carpio and Del Castillo did it out of delicadeza.
Who said delicadeza is dead?
Carpio was in the defense panel of Webb when trial began.
Del Castillo, the controversial “plagiarist,” was also indirectly involved in the celebrated case since his wife was part of the proceedings.
The 7-4 decision declaring Webb et al. not guilty, with 4 abstentions, will remain a hot topic of conversation even long after all the justices have gone to their rest.
The Seven said Jessica Alfaro, the main witness, had loopholes in her testimony. They even saw her as a “liar.”
In any murder trial, there is no room for an iota of doubt.
In the case at hand, the Seven did not base their verdict on a doubt of innocence.
Rather, they anchored it on the issue of a doubt of guilt.
Innocent? Guilty?
Almost all of us believed Webb et al. did it.
But then, was their guilt beyond reasonable doubt?
No.
To convict an accused, he must be found guilty “beyond reasonable doubt.”
The Seven justices did not just find an iota of reasonable doubt.
They found lots of inconsistencies in Alfaro’s testimony.
They also considered Alfaro, a self-confessed drug addict, not a credible witness because she was an “NBI agent.”
They said Alfaro might have been “coached” by the NBI.
A guilty verdict would score “pogi points” for the NBI.
The Seven – shall we call them now the Magnificent 7? – also gave weight to the documents from the Philippine government and the U.S. Embassy attesting Webb’s presence in America when the multiple-murders happened.
Vizconde, collapsing and almost losing consciousness when he learned of the SC decision, lambasted the verdict, saying justice is “really dead in this country.”
To him, it would be another dark Christmas, darker than his Christmas of ’91.
“Para akong namatayan ng dalawang beses,” he said (It’s as if I lost my family twice).
I can only sympathize with him.
He and he alone knew how it felt to lose an entire family to beasts.
In freedom, Webb, now 42, went home to a waiting son, now 17.
To Webb et al., it’d be the merriest Christmas after having been behind bars for 15 years.
And innocent all along?
Share your Comments or Reactions
Powered by Facebook Comments
