Get Real
Vindicated
FOUR DAYS ago, the decision of the Supreme Court on the so-called Vizconde Massacre was promulgated, writing finis to a story that began 19 years ago with the rape-murder of Carmela Vizconde and the murder of her mother Estrellita and younger sister Jennifer.
The vote to acquit Hubert Webb and his six co-accused was seven against four, with four other justices not participating for various reasons. But the decision has raised certain issues which should be laid to rest, so that everyone involved, particularly the Vizconde Seven (Hubert Webb and his six co-accused), can maybe get on with the rest of their lives after spending 15 years in jail. Let’s discuss them:
Question 1: Is the decision proof that justice is only for the rich? This is the accusation that Lauro Vizconde, husband and father of the victims, hurled.
The “justice only for the rich” contention is common practically worldwide, buttressed by the fact that prison populations do not reflect “true” cross-sections of society. Studies in the United States (arguably echoed everywhere else) show that bias against the poor with respect to arrest rates, convictions and sentencing. In this country, while the poor constitute 33 percent of the population (2006), they constitute close to 90 percent of the prison population. It has been observed that not only have the rich access to better lawyers, but that arresting officers and judges tend to be more lenient with them.
Using that logic, the Vizconde case can be said to reflect the “justice only for the rich” contention, but only in the sense that had the accused had less access to the services of good lawyers, they would still be rotting in jail today. But Vizconde’s contention is not that Webb et al. had excellent lawyers. He contends that they were acquitted because of “bayaran”—payoffs to justices with decisions for sale.
I don’t know whether Vizconde was describing a situation where seven justices succumbed to monetary blandishments while four stuck to their principles, or if the latter were not principled either, but just did not get their asking price and so no sale, or whether there was a mixture of principled and for-sale justices on both sides, or if even the justices who inhibited themselves were “campaigning” on the sly. Vizconde did not say; he just made the blanket accusation. But one hopes that he will be made to explain (as have the UP lawyers) why he should not be held in contempt for making such a statement.
In any event, his contention does not seem to be supported by the case history: If money could indeed buy a favorable decision in this case, how come the accused had to spend 15 years in jail?
Question 2: Does the decision imply that Webb and his co-accused, though declared “Not Guilty,” were not really “vindicated,” since the SC did not rule on their innocence?
Statements to this effect were attributed to SC spokesman Midas Marquez, and one hopes that these attributions were not accurate, because they smack of intellectual dishonesty. True, the SC did not rule on the innocence of the accused. But it is equally true that any court of law, whether in the Philippines or abroad, can only return one of two verdicts: Guilty, or Not Guilty. No court in the world, or at least in countries with legal systems like ours, can or will pronounce a person Innocent. I’ve been around enough lawyers to have absorbed this by osmosis, but the man on the street may not, and attribute to the “Not Guilty” verdict an additional significance it does not have.
And yes, it is also true that a court can indeed pronounce a defendant “Not Guilty,” even if he actually committed the crime—as when a vital piece of evidence that would have proven his guilt is declared inadmissible, leaving the prosecution with no leg to stand on (I cannot resist adding here that the trial court accepted everything the prosecution had to offer and rejected all the evidence coming from the defense).
So the only way to determine the sense of the Court, above and beyond the cut-and-dried, pro-forma “Acquitted … for failure of the prosecution to prove their guilt beyond reasonable doubt” is to read the decisions in their entirety.
The reading will show, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the majority of the Court were essentially rebuking the lower courts for taking the uncorroborated testimony of Jessica Alfaro (the justices were not buying either the testimonies of the security guards or the laundress, for reasons discussed in the decision) as gospel, and completely disregarding or belittling official documentary and testimonial evidence that would show that Webb could not have committed the crime because he was halfway around the world at the time.
In their view, “Alfaro’s quality as a witness and her inconsistent, if not inherently unbelievable testimony cannot be the positive identification that jurisprudence acknowledges as sufficient to jettison a denial and an alibi” (Abad). And that Webb’s “travel and immigration documents … not to mention the testimonial and documentary evidence … deserve full credit” (Carpio-Morales). Also that “the various violations of the accused’s rights have resulted in his failure to secure a just trial.”
In short, Alfaro was lying, Webb was telling the truth. Does that sound like the Court majority thinks, in any way, that Hubert Webb could have committed the crime he was accused of?
