Supreme Court upholds guilty verdict on Abu Sayyaf kidnappers

MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the Isabela City Regional Trial Court that convicted 17 Abu Sayyaf bandits for the abduction in June 2001 of Ediborah Yap and three other nurses of a government hospital in Lamitan, Basilan.

In a decision penned by Associate Justice Diosdado Peralta, the SC upheld the ruling of the Court of Appeals (CA) in November 2008 that affirmed the conviction of the terrorist group led by the late Khadaffy Janjalani and Abu Sabaya.

The SC ruled that the CA was correct in directing the convicted Abu Sayyaf bandits to pay P200,000 in moral damages to the family of Yap and to kidnap victims Shiela Tabuñag, Reina Malonzo and Joel Guillo, and also to pay additional P150,000 in civil indemnity and exemplary damages to Yap’s heirs.

“The court finds no reason to reverse or modify the ruling and penalty imposed by the (appellate court). The court cannot find anything on record to justify deviation from said rule,” stated the ruling promulgated last June 22.

The SC acted on the case without any appeal of conviction from the Abu Sayyaf bandits and just by virtue of its authority to automatically review rulings of appellate courts.

The Court also junked the bid of four of the 17 convicts identified as Wahid Salcedo, Magarni Hapilon Iblong, Nadzmer Mandangan and Kamar Jaafar for transfer of detention to a rehabilitation center for the youth since they were just minors when the crime was committed.

“The evidence before the court show that accused-appellants Iblong, Mandangan, Salcedo and Jaafar, were not minors at the time of the commission of the crime,” the SC ruled.

It can be recalled that the group of Janjalani and Abu Sabaya abducted the four victims from the Dr. Jose Torres Memorial Hospital in Lamitan on June 1, 2001.

The bandits, who brought along with them the foreign hostages they previously abducted from a resort in Palawan, also occupied the nearby St. Peter’s Church.

Although government forces were able to cordon off the area, the local terrorists still managed to escape, seizing the four nurses as new hostages.

Four months later, Guillo was able to escape from the abductors while Tabuñag and Malonzo were released on separate occasions.

A year after the abduction, Yap was killed along with fellow hostage, American missionary Martin Burnham, in a crossfire during a rescue operation carried out by the military.

The Isabela City regional trial court found the 17 accused guilty beyond reasonable doubt on Aug. 13, 2004 of kidnapping and meted them the death penalty. Four of the 17 accused – Toting Hano Jr., Jaid Awalal, Mubin Ibbah and one Annik/Rene Abbas- were convicted in absentia.

In its Nov. 24, 2008 decision, the CA had junked the bandits’ defense of alibi and denial.

But the CA modified the convicts’ death sentence to life imprisonment following repeal of the death penalty law by Congress.