Talk to court, soldiers in Aquino-Galman case told

The demand of 15 soldiers convicted of killing former senator Benigno Aquino Jr. and his alleged communist assassin Rolando Galman to tell their version of the story before Congress may be futile, a lawmaker said Friday.

Muntinlupa City Rep. Rizanno Rufino Biazon said Congress would not be the "proper forum" for the 15 convicts’ revelations.

"If Congress delivers, suspicions of biases would still be there and the result of an investigation that they want could be marred by doubts," he said.

Biazon, whose father is a member of the Senate, said "a lot of the people involved in the case are still around" and suggested that the former soldiers look for a more neutral venue to air their side.

Nearly 21 years after the murder of Aquino and Galman, the convicts surfaced with their yearly threat of revealing the truth about the killings. They claimed it was a close relative of the Aquinos who ordered the murders, not the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos.

"We don’t care if we change history. We just want the truth to come out," former Capt. Romeo Bautista told The STAR.

The convicted soldiers said they were certain other people would be summoned to corroborate their story if Congress creates a fact-finding committee. They added they will reveal information that had not been raised during the hearings on their case.

They said other witnesses did not reveal the truth about the Aquino-Galman murders because they feared for their lives.

Former M/Sgt. Pablo Martinez, now a pastor at 67, said he will now completely reveal the certain information he kept "during the hearing because I thought I could save myself by doing so."

Martinez admitted he was ordered by his superior, Col. Romeo Ochoco, to shoot Galman if he failed to kill Aquino. He cleared the names of his 14 fellow convicts, claiming they were only tasked to secure the area and were not aware of the parallel plan to assassinate Aquino.

Apart from Martinez and Bautista, the other convicted killers are former 2Lt. Jesus Castro; and former Sgts. Claro Lat, Arnulfo de Mesa, Rogelio Moreno, Mario Lazaga, Filomeno Miranda, Rolando de Guzman, Ernesto Mateo, Rodolfo Desolong, Cordova Estelo, Arnulfo Artates, Ruben Aquino and Felizardo Taran.

They were convicted of double murder in September 1990, along with their commander, Brig. Gen. Luther Custodio, former Aviation Security Command chief.

Custodio died of cancer before the promulgation of his sentence.

After their petition for parole was rejected last week by the Supreme Court, Lat said he and his co-accused will exhaust all legal means to fight for their rights, although they do not have a lawyer.

"We understand that our petition was denied by the justices because our sentence has to be commuted first," he said. "But then again, we have also always been denied commutation."

Speaking to reporters at the National Penitentiary in Muntinlupa City, the soldiers said they are appealing to the government and the Supreme Court to reconsider their petition.

They showed reporters several documents to prove that they are entitled to be released from prison on grounds of double jeopardy.

One of these documents was a decision of the Sandiganbayan, dated Dec. 2, 1985, acquitting them of the murders.

Bautista said a legal flaw had been committed when the Sandiganbayan ordered the murder case reopened in 1988.

The soldiers said they had been recommended for commutation in 1996 and 2002, but nothing happened in both instances.

They are also confused whether they are considered political prisoners or common criminals, they added.

In an interview with The STAR last year, the soldiers said they could not avail themselves of either an amnesty or a commutation of sentence.

However, the soldiers said they are eligible for commutation of sentence after serving 21 years in prison, which includes the time they had spent in detention at a military barracks.

Lat appealed to former President Corazon Aquino to help them be freed from prison as they have already served time.

Last year, Mrs. Aquino challenged the 15 soldiers to name the masterminds in the killing of her husband.

But the soldiers insist that they do not know who ordered the killing of Aquino‚ and that Galman had shot dead the former senator.

Emmy Divina, New Bilibid Prisons spokeswoman, said 21 years in prison is more than enough to qualify the convicted killers, who were sentenced to double life imprisonment, for commutation of sentence and parole since a convict is deemed eligible after he has served one-third of the total sentence imposed by a court.

Divina said the time allowance awarded for good conduct in prison is a significant consideration in granting parole. She said a convict serving a five-year sentence who has shown good conduct for a year would get a five-day allowance.

All the 15 convicted killers of Aquino and Galman have good records and have never gotten into trouble inside the National Penitentiary, she added.