3 Navy officers accused of hiding evidence in Pestaño case

MANILA, Philippines - Three Navy officers were accused of conspiring to hide vital evidence surrounding the death of Ensign Philip Andrew Pestaño in 1995.

Lt. Col. Felix Tayo and Navy Commanders Joselito de Guzman and Romulo Vigilancia were charged with conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman, conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline and conduct bringing discredit upon the military service before the office of Armed Forces chief Lt. Gen. Jessie Dellosa.

Ana Luz Cristal, counsel of the group of retired Navy Capt. Ricardo Ordoñez, who are accused of Pestaño’s murder, said the three officers have hidden vital information before and after Pestaño’s death inside his cabin while BRP Bacolod City was sailing from Sangley Point Naval Base in Cavite to the Navy headquarters along Roxas Boulevard in Manila on the morning of Sept. 27, 1995.

The ship came from a mission in Western Mindanao.

In their complaint, Ordoñez and his co-accused said they are innocent of the crime being imputed to them before the Sandiganbayan.

The Office of the Ombudsman ordered the dismissal from service of four active officers – Commander Alfrederick Alba, Lt. Commander Joselito Colico, Commander Reynaldo Lopez, and Lt. Commander Luidegar Casis.

Through their counsel, the group said that Pestaño, before he shot himself, slashed his wrist in an attempt to kill himself as a consequence of the administrative complaint filed against him by his fiancee, Djoanna Grace Yasay.

Cristal said De Guzman, a classmate of Pestaño in the Philippine Military Academy Class of 1993, along with another classmate, Ensign Robert Clement Bosch, brought him to Camp Navarro General Hospital at the former Southern Command (Southcom), now Western Mindanao Command (Westmincom) based in Zamboanga City.

At the Southcom hospital, Pestaño was attended to and treated by Tayo, who was assisted by military nurse Mercy Cando, she added.

After treating Pestaño’s wrist wound, Tayo referred him to now retired Lt. Col. Jose del Rosario, a military neuro-psychiatrist and psychologist, for examination, she said.

Cristal said all these military procedures were undertaken without the knowledge of her client Ordoñez, the skipper of Bacolod City while the ship was docked at the Zamboanga City port.

“This fact was never brought to the attention of Ordoñez by Pestaño’s classmates,” she said.

Del Rosario also did not recommend Pestaño’s confinement in the hospital for his suicidal tendencies nor did he inform Ordoñez, Pestaño’s commanding officer, about his state of mind, she added.

Del Rosario has not been included in the military complaint because he is already retired.

Cristal said barely two weeks after the incident, Pestaño killed himself.

Vigilancia, another classmate, boarded the Bacolod City after docking at Navy headquarters and took away two pillows which contained bloodstains and bone fragments, she added.

Cristal said these pillows taken by Vigilancia for safekeeping reportedly contained illegal drugs belonging to Pestaño.

“Pestaño’s classmates knew from the start that he was suffering from deep depression and wanted to end his life because his problem had became unbearable,” she said.

Ordoñez and his group told Dellosa that Pestaño’s problem at the time he allegedly killed himself arose from the administrative complaint against him.

Ordoñez, citing recovered love letters, said Pestaño gave in to his parents’ desire and broke up with Yasay and entered into a relationship with another woman named Joann Doxi-Lim, whom his parents favored.

“If only the respondents informed Pestaño’s CO (commanding officer Ordoñez) and parents of the earlier suicide attempt, the second suicide could have been abated and Pestaño would still be alive today,” Cristal said.