Webbs ask Supreme Court: Compel court to submit evidence for DNA test

MANILA, Philippines - The family of convicted rapist and murderer Hubert Webb has asked the Supreme Court (SC) to compel the lower court that tried the Vizconde massacre case to submit the forensic evidence needed for the final resolution of the 19-year-old case.

Webb’s lawyer Demetrio Custodio filed the motion before the SC after the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) reported to the High Court that it could not comply with the order for the DNA testing of semen samples taken from the body of victim Carmela Vizconde because it does not have them.

“It’s not possible that the specimen just got lost that easy. If it is really missing, the least the court could do is to order an investigation on how the evidence got lost because it is a vital evidence insofar as Hubert Webb is concerned,” Custodio said.

The lawyer said they filed the motion to compel Parañaque Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 274 to report to the SC what happened to the samples.

“The RTC should state on record that it is not with them. We want them to manifest officially their position. The idea is to give life to what the SC ordered, which is to conduct a DNA testing,” he said.

The motion did not name any respondent because Custodio said they only wanted to make the RTC accountable if the evidence is really missing.

NBI deputy director for technical services Reynaldo Esmeralda told the SC that the semen samples were turned over to Parañaque court during the trial of the case in 1996.

“The desired semen specimen/vaginal smear taken from cadaver of Carmela Vizconde (including all original documents and photographs) is no longer in the custody of the NBI,” the bureau said.

The NBI stressed that there were three slides of semen samples submitted to the Parañaque RTC Branch 274 by then NBI medico-legal chief Prospero Cabanayan when he testified on direct and cross examinations in January and February 1996 before the trial court.

The NBI filed the compliance and manifestation report before the SC after the High Court granted Webb’s petition to conduct DNA analysis on the semen specimen taken from the cadaver of Carmela Vizconde.

The NBI instead reported to the court its earlier findings that “microscopic examination made on the said specimen gave positive result for the presence of human spermatozoa.”

According to current NBI medico-legal chief Dr. Florencio Arizala, who is also a lawyer, the NBI only acquired DNA testing equipment in 1996. He quoted Cabayanan as saying the specimen was air-dried on three glass slides and turned over to the RTC.

Court administrator and SC spokesman Midas Marquez said the NBI compliance and manifestation and the motion of the Webb family would be included in the agenda of the last full court session of the SC to be presided by Chief Justice Reynato Puno today.

Last Apr.20, the SC virtually reopened the 19-year-old Vizconde massacre case and ordered DNA testing of the evidence by the University of the Philippines-Natural Science and Research Institute (UP-NSRI) with assistance by the NBI. It ordered the camp of Webb to shoulder the expenses for the test and also to strictly observe the confidentiality of results.

During the trial and until the verdict was handed down in January 2000, the camp of Webb had pushed for the DNA test to determine if the semen specimen taken from the body of the victim came from him. It was only in 2007 when the SC promulgated rules admitting results of DNA test as evidence in criminal cases.

The SC said favorable DNA test results would not automatically result in Webb’s acquittal, and that it only allowed the DNA testing “to afford appellant Webb the fullest extent of his constitutional right to due process.”   – With Sandy Araneta