12/16/2010
Lauro Vizconde and his Dante Jimenez-led Volunteer Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) group were again doing that which they usually do — accuse those who went against their position, and again, without any evidence.
All they do is to get media play and sympathy from the public, while excoriating whoever they want convicted.
This time around, at a press conference held the other day, both Vizconde and Jimenez accused the Supreme Court (SC) justices who voted to acquit Hubert Webb and his group of having been paid off to free the seven convicts of the Vizconde massacre.
What evidence do they have that the justices were paid off, and by whom? Webb’s father has been out of power and position for so many years and if it was power and influence involved, then the Webbs certainly would have paid off the regional trial court (RTC) judge instead of waiting 15 years to pay off the SC justices who had voted for an acquittal.
After all, if
one has to pay for a favorable sentence, it would be cheaper to pay off one judge, rather than seven or more high court justices and probably at an even higher price.
What is so puzzling is why Vizconde and Jimenez continue to insist on Webb, et al.’s guilt, rather than accept the judgment of the high court, and start looking for the real rapists and killers of the Vizconde victims.
The irony of it all is that it could have been the semen sample taken from the victim that may have led to the identity of the real killers and rapists — through DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) testing.
In this day and age, and with rapid technological advances in crime solving, the semen would have proved just who had raped and massacred Vizconde’s family. That
the National Bureau of Investigation lost the semen sample is suspicious in itself, but that
the fact that there were already confessions from members of the Akyat Bahay gang that it was they who robbed, raped and killed the Vizconde victims and have these confessions ignored by the NBI, instead focusing on Hubert Webb and his group as the criminals are really highly suspicious incidents.
More condemnable is the fact that
the NBI actually planted a “star” witness, the lying Jessica Alfaro, to pin the Webb and company down as the rapists and killers. She was an NBI agent who had moreover been given the details of the massacre, if not completely coached by the NBI. Even Alfaro’s NBI handler knew she was no eyewitness.
Perhaps, if the NBI and Department of Justice did their jobs right instead of trying to make a sensational case out of this Vizconde massacre, there would have been closure earlier for both families. But having the Akyat Bahay gang members as the culprit would hardly get them the media publicity they craved. For a case to become sensational and picked up by media, needed were sons of rich and influential persons, such as the Webbs as the culprits.
Irony it is since the Jimenez-Vizconde duo, along with their judge and the prosecutors, aided by the NBI, refused to even have this looked into, just as they had refused to accept the solid evidence of Webb’s stamped passports showing that he had entered the United States and could not have possibly been at the scene of the crime, and therefore could not have committed the crime he had been accused of. Then too, there was more than sufficient substantiation of Webb’s claim that he was out of the country, since the US immigration, in official form, attested to Webb having been in the US at that time. There was more solid evidence presented by the accused, but the court chose to ignore these pieces of incontrovertible evidence.
Yet there was a dissenting high court justice who even stated that Webb could have returned to the Philippines before the murder took place and left for the US again, as it only takes 12 hours to and from the US, insisting that the eyewitness’ direct and positive identification of Webb, et al. is all that it takes to erase any and all reasonable doubt!
Webb comes back just to rape and kill them? Unbelievable!
Some eyewitness. It is on record that Alfaro failed to even identify one of the accused in a courtroom — the very person she said whom she knew best!
How could a judge send innocent people to jail, and refuse to judge on the merits of the case? If alibis check out, the suspect is generally cancelled from the list of suspects.
She must have known that the case of the prosecution was weak; that the defense had more than enough evidence to disprove the prosecution charges against Webb, et al.
The judge, Vizconde and Jimenez, knew that Jessica Alfaro was lying through her teeth, and that she perjured her testimony. Not only that, they knew Jessica Alfaro was an NBI agent. It should have been very evident to the NBI, the Justice secretary, the prosecution and the judge that Webb, et al. were being framed by Jimenez and Vizconde.
Yet it was the Vizconde-Jimenez duo and the Justice chief and his prosecutors, along with the NBI officials and the RTC judge who shunned the very evidence and confessions of gang members that could have led them to the real killers of the Vizcondes.
That is irony.