SC gives two convicted kidnappers 30-day reprieve

The Supreme Court temporarily suspended yesterday the execution of convicted kidnappers Roberto Lara and Roderick Licayan while the court studies whether evidence submitted by public attorneys would merit a re-trial of the case.

Voting 7-6, the high court stayed the executions for 30 days, starting Jan. 27, the day after the court voted to study the evidence. The two were supposed to be executed by lethal injection at 3 p.m. tomorrow.

Clerk of Court Luzviminda Puno said copies of the suspension will be immediately forwarded to President Arroyo and Bureau of Corrections director Dionisio Santiago.

Mrs. Arroyo, an anti-death penalty advocate who lifted a moratorium on the execution of criminals last month after a rash of kidnappings, said she ordered "all preparations for the execution to stand down."

"We follow the mandate of the Supreme Court. This comes as relief to me, but I have always been prepared to enforce the law despite my personal beliefs about death penalty," she said.

"Let us patiently wait for the high court’s final ruling and continue to pray for truth and justice," the President added.

Mrs. Arroyo had earlier rebuffed appeals from the Roman Catholic Church and the European Union to stop the executions, and said only the high court could save the convicts.

Puno explained that the justices needed more time to study the evidence chief public attorney Persida Rueda-Acosta submitted in asking the court to remand the case to the Marikina City regional trial court for retrial.

The public attorney’s appeal was based on the testimony of the two convicts’ alleged accomplices Pedro Mabansag and Rogelio de los Reyes whom police arrested recently for masterminding the kidnapping of businessman Joseph Tomas Co and his assistant Linda Manaysay in August 1998.

Mabansag and De los Reyes said Lara had nothing to do with the kidnapping.

Mabansag claimed in his affidavit that Lara and his family had already left their house in Marikina City. De los Reyes, on the other hand, said Lara was not involved in the crime but Licayan accompanied him in guarding the victims.

Aside from the affidavits of Mabansag and De los Reyes, Acosta also submitted the affidavit of radio reporter Zoni Esguerra of dzRV who claimed that De los Reyes exonerated Lara in a taped interview.

Puno, however, said the high court has yet to evaluate the affidavits, especially since the victims positively identified Lara and Licayan as having been their guards while they were being held in the kidnappers’ safehouse.

Also, Mabansag and De los Reyes have not categorically admitted their participation in the crime and they could not possibly know what really happened if they do not admit their alleged involvement.

The justices also noted that Mabansag and Delos Reyes are not exactly neutral witnesses and that their affidavits were so deficient "that we have to fill the gaps."

Relief

Relatives of Lara and Licayan broke down in tears as news of the stay was announced to journalists who had drawn lots to be among the 50 witnesses for Friday’s canceled executions.

The two would have been the first death row inmates to be executed during the Arroyo administration and the eighth and ninth since February 1999.

"I am crying tears of joy," said Lara’s 62-year-old mother, Benilda, tightly hugging the convict’s two young children outside the freshly painted prison compound.

Just meters away, prison workers had just finished sprucing up the lethal injection chamber sitting amid huge acacia trees and guarded by several caged police dogs.

Lara’s mother has been staying at the prison chapel since arriving from Bacolod City when news of her son’s fate made the headlines early this month.

She said her son was despondent and was always near tears when talking to his visiting children.

"I believe through prayers he will be saved. I will not let my son be executed," she said, her craggy face staring straight into the television cameras.

She said she believed her son, who only finished second grade, was innocent and beaten to forcibly admit to the crime.

Lara could not have possibly understood the gravity of the crime he was accused of and only signed his name to a confession under duress, she said.

While the two convicts’ fate hangs in the balance, prison officials said they were raffling off 10 slots to the press for the privilege of witnessing the country’s first judicial executions in four years.

The 20-man execution team has also conducted its last dry run at the execution chamber at the National Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa City, checking the gurney and the equipment to be used for the executions.

Bureau of Corrections spokeswoman Emy Divina said there were more requests from journalists than there are seats available to witness the executions, so a lottery was done yesterday.

Divina said the executioner’s guideline requires the presence of witnesses in a small room adjacent to the soundproofed death chamber, where the gallery can view the proceedings through clear glass. Cameras and other recording equipment are banned.

In the past, the seats were assigned to government officials, relatives of the condemned and the convict’s victims, as well as members of the media.

The presence of witnesses will help ensure "that the executions are conducted in a humane manner and that the procedure is executed to the letter," Divina said.

She added that the procedure takes about five minutes and there will be a five-minute interval between executions. — With Edu Punay, AFP