Reopen Abadilla case — convicts’ kin

The families of five men meted the death penalty for the 1996 killing of retired Constabulary Col. Rolando Abadilla sought yesterday the reopening of the case following last Saturday’s arrest of the self-confessed triggerman in Cavite.

Marilou Lumanog and Rodrigo de Jesus, relatives of two of five death convicts, urged the Supreme Court to call for a speedy review of the sentence handed down on Aug. 11, 1999 by Quezon City Regional Trial Court Judge Jaime Salazar.

"Our families have been suffering for the past three to six years," said Lumanog, wife of convict Lenido Lumanog.

Lumanog is detained at the National Penitentiary along with fellow convicts Rameses de Jesus, Cesar Fortuna, Augusto Santos and Joel de Jesus.

Rodrigo said his brother Rameses and his fellow convicts were "unjustly convicted and sentenced to death" for the Abadilla slay.

He said the five convicts were tortured by members of the Central Police District and that the authorities, including then Interior and Local Government Secretary, now Sen. Robert Barbers, were apparently pressured by the deadline imposed by then President Fidel Ramos.

The admission of triggerman Romeo Dacles, who was nabbed in Gen. Mariano Alvarez, Cavite, bolstered early probes that the slugs used in the Abadilla killing matched those in the unsolved murders of labor leader Felimon "Popoy" Lagman and a Valenzuela trader a few years ago.

The communist hit squad Alex Boncayao Brigade had owned up to all the killings. Police said Dacles was a former vice commanding officer of the ABB and concurrently, the commanding officer of its special operations unit.