The justice system on trial

Eight and a half years is a long time to wait for justice. On June 29, 1991, a person or a group entered a house in BF Homes Parañaque. The next day, the bodies of Estrelita Vizconde and her daughters Carmela and Anne Marie Jennifer were found in the house with multiple stab wounds. Carmela, it was found out later, had been raped. The murders brought back Lauro Vizconde from the United States to bury his family and start his long quest for justice.

For more than three months, there were numerous speculations about the killers in what was called the Vizconde massacre. The National Bureau of Investigation invited for questioning a group of young men from prominent families: Hospicio "Pyke" Fernandez, Michael Gatchalian, Antonio "Tony Boy" Lejano, John Martin, Miguel Rodriguez and Hubert Webb. The boys were freed for lack of evidence.

On Oct. 19, 1991, the Metro Manila police command presented seven alleged "Akyat Bahay" burglary gang members who "confessed" to the crime. They were charged before the Makati Regional Trial Court. While the case was still pending, a second batch of suspects composed mostly of Parañaque policemen was presented to the public in June 1993, based on a tip provided to then Parañaque Mayor Pablo Olivarez. Three months later, the Makati court acquitted the first batch after it was determined that their "confessions" were extracted through torture. The next month, the Department of Justice junked the indictment against the second batch of suspects for insufficiency of evidence.

Nearly 16 months later, a woman claiming to be an eyewitness to the massacre, Jessica Alfaro, surfaced and gave two conflicting versions of the crime. On the basis of her story, the NBI filed charges on June 19, 1995 against Alfaro's boyfriend Peter Estrada, Fernandez, Joey Filart, Gatchalian, Lejano, Rodriguez, Artemio Ventura and Webb. A Parañaque policeman, Gerardo Biong, was charged as an accessory for allegedly tampering with evidence at the crime scene. Filart and Ventura remain at large; Biong was rearrested recently. The rest have all been detained without bail.

Today the truth may finally be known about this heinous crime. The nation's eyes will be on Parañaque Judge Amelita Tolentino, who has had all of four years to deliberate on this case. It is not just the accused on trial here but the Philippine justice system. The nation can only hope for the best.