Final jeopardy

EDITORIAL CARTOON

What could she be thinking? On June 28, 2011, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima led an unusual press conference where she and officials of the National Bureau of Investigation essentially attacked the very system of justice they represented.

Speaking to  reporters, De Lima stated that after six months of re-investigation, the NBI had turned up seven new witnesses and a precious pile of tape reels that they claimed called into question Hubert Webb’s claim that he was out of the country during the killings of the Vizcondes in 1991.

On June 29, 1991, Estrelita Vizconde and daughters Carmela and Jennifer were murdered in their BF Homes, Parañaque home. Webb and five others were charged and found guilty of the crime in 2000 by the lower court. But in December, 2010, the Supreme Court reversed the decision, acquitting the six after finding that the prosecution had not successfully proven the suspects’ guilt. Webb and company were released after spending over 15 years in jail.

The Supreme Court’s decision drew different reactions, but for the Webbs, it was what they believed to be the last step in a long journey to vindication; and for Lauro Vizconde, it was a cruel and unexpected pill to swallow.

Now come De Lima and the NBI insisting that they had found serious gaps in Webb’s alibi. “We believe that the evidence there is now rebut, or negate, or destroy or even shatter that defense of alibi (of Webb)… That is all it has established so far, the defense of alibi was in fact false,” De Lima said. The new probe’s prime piece of evidence was the magnetic tape from the Bureau of Immigration that showed Webb did not leave the country as he claimed in 1991.

The much-hyped press conference was surprising but also bizarre in the sense that it meant everything and nothing at the same time. It meant everything because this was allegedly game-changing evidence that De Lima intimated could change dramatically the accepted story behind the Vizconde slayings.

It meant nothing because the evidence is moot. Aside from the fact that Webb and the other suspects had already been tried and acquitted and they could not be tried again due to double jeopardy, the 20-year period of prescription during which charges can be brought in a specific crime elapsed the next day, June 29, 2011. No matter how loud they yell or how sure they are of their findings, there is absolutely nothing that De Lima and the NBI can legally do to chase after the acquitted Vizconde suspects.

As can be expected, the Webb family did not take this development lightly. Webb himself could hardly believe what was happening. “I lost 15 years of my life. I never saw my nephews grow up. Our family is tired. We really are. We are exhausted. I can’t even walk around without fear of getting attacked,” he said.

Webb’s lawyer Demetrio Custodio expressed the family’s outrage and threatened to get De Lima disbarred for her statements. “It is unprecedented in so far as the government and its branches are concerned … It was a public declaration that to our mind completely subverted the authority of the Supreme Court.” De Lima was grandstanding as a precursor to a planned run for public office, said Custodio’s co-counsel Jose Luis Agcaoili.

No matter how much people might disagree with the acquittal, the simple truth is that the Vizconde case is closed, the verdict is final and no new evidence or impassioned pronouncements will change that. All the sound and fury is signifying more than nothing; they signify questions about what De Lima and the NBI are trying to achieve. It is particularly unfortunate that De Lima has landed in this situation as the sparkplug DoJ secretary was considered among the Aquino administration’s bright lights. She certainly isn’t cowed by what she has unleashed and the fact that Malacañang is backing her in this is even worse.

Webb was tried and acquitted by our system of justice. That is final and cannot be changed. He and his family have earned the right to live their lives without being harassed by the government. To attempt to correct a perceived injustice by another act of injustice is just wrong. Now, Webb finds himself asking for that elusive peace of the acquitted.  “These people have destroyed our family. I don’t know if anyone can grasp how evil these people are. They are still doing the same things they’ve been doing,” Webb cried. “They fight us with ghosts. Where will we go to get justice?”