PHILIPPINES HIGH PROFILE CASES: The Visconde Massacre Case

PHILIPPINES HIGH PROFILE CASES

The Visconde Massacre Case

The Vizconde murder case, colloquially known as the Vizconde massacre, was the multiple homicide of members of the Vizconde family on 30 June 1991 at their residence in BF Homes, Parañaque City, Metro Manila, Philippines. Estrellita, 49, had suffered thirteen stab wounds; Carmela, 18, had suffered seventeen stab wounds and had been raped before she was killed; and Jennifer, 6, 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.[2] 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, being described as a "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 14 December 2010 for failure of the prosecution to prove their guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Prosecution

The trial began in August 1995 before Parañaque 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 affidavits. 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.

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 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.[citation needed]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 reclusion perpetua and ordered to indemnify the Vizconde family Php 3 million for the murders. Two of the accused remain fugitives from the law: Joey Filart and Artemio Ventura. Former Parañaque Citypoliceman 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".

Court of Appeals Decision

The Court of Appeals' 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."

Supreme Court decision

The Supreme Court acquitted Webb and the others tried by the court: seven justices voted to acquit, four dissented, two inhibited, one did not participate in the deliberations and another was on official leave.

In April 2010, the Supreme Court 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.