`Father, forgive them for they know what they do'

Among us all who were behind him at the courtroom Thursday, Hubert Webb was the calmest, the most serene, unruffled even when he knew beforehand the verdict would send him to prison for the rest of his life. At one time, we were so outraged by Judge Amelita Tolentino's insolent and shameless presentation, we silently hissed and swore under our breath. Hubert sensed it, looked back, lifted both palms to gently signal us to calm down. Please. The night before, after the vigil, I talked to Hubert in prison and he said: "I am at peace, Tito Teddy, I am all right, I am ready. I have prayed to the Lord."

He did look at peace, and somewhat thinned out. But four years and eight months in prison bore no crack, no line, no seam that even remotely suggested a life sentence would split him wide open. This was when he told his mother and father, Freddie and Beth, how he felt towards his accusers, Judge Tolentino particularly: "Father, forgive them for they know what they do." Well, that's Hubert's business, armed with the spiritual fortitude of a man imprisoned for almost five years. But I am not about to forgive the prosecution and Judge Tolentino.

They have sent an innocent boy to jail in a decision so disgraceful and so disgusting even in the courtroom I wanted to vomit.

Almost from the outset, I have never fudged my position. Earlier on, I believed in Jessica Alfaro as I believed in Mary Magdalene and I waited on her every word as she pointed to Hubert Webb as the person who raped and murdered Carmela Vizconde, her mother Estrellita and younger daughter Jennifer. I too joined the lynch mob for sometime, a media that had gone wild, rained curses on Hubert Webb, and wanted him to hang from the nearest lamppost. The difference was that the investigative reporter in me, the crusader and committed journalist won out over bigotry and intolerance. But that's a story I have long and often told in this space.

Now for the long, rambling, boring verdict of Judge Tolentino that took almost five hours for the officer of the court to read. The first thing that got you was that you were not hearing the rolling, inspiring, exalting phrases of a judge but the guttural tones of a hangman. You knew from the very beginning of the reading of the verdict, the judge was out to slit the throat of Hubert. She lathered the so-called sole witness to the murder Jessica Alfaro with encomiums and praises. She poured bile and vitriol on Hubert, the Webbs and their friends and relatives.

There were two vital elements missing (purposely?) in the verdict.

The first, and the most important in my mind, were the findings of the US State Department, in response to a diplomatic (note verbale) communication by our own Foreign Affairs Department in behalf of Malacañang August 30, 1995. The State department, initially under the stewardship of Warren Christopher and after him Madeleine Albright, confirmed the presence of the young Hubert in the US on June 29-30, 1991. The night of June 29 was the night the Vizcondes were raped (in the case of Carmela) and massacred.

September 1, 1995, the US State Department issued a diplomatic note, to wit: "In response to the (Philippine) Embassy's request, enclosed is a certified copy of the computer record provided by the US Immigration and Naturalization Services indicating Mr. Webb's date of entry and exit into and from the United States in 1991 and 1992. The enclosure constitutes an official record of Mr. Webb's travel to and from the United States in that period." March 9, 1991 was the date of entry and October 27, 1992 the date of departure from the US.

Judge Tolentino touched on this in passing, then hit a high execrable note. Since a first Immigration and Naturalization Services finding was negative (due to a superficial computer search) and the second validated Hubert's date of entry because of a more thorough search by experts, the judge brazenly said Freddie Webb, being rich and powerful as a congressman and senator, was presumably able to bribe the INS into issuing a second and final computer finding. Judas priest! The INS bribed or bought by Freddie Webb, and therefore also the State Department?

Judge Tolentino, presumably ignorant of the overwhelming weight and primordial importance of international diplomacy, didn't realize three things. The documentary evidence presented by the State Department was of the nature of "public documents." Such documents, as has been argued by Hubert's lawyers, are prima facie evidence. And unless they are rebutted successfully, "They are accorded verity." But the judge and the prosecution here merely dismissed them as "pieces of paper." Can you beat that?

Other evidence of Hubert's presence in the US, again validated by US government agencies -- driver's license, a purchased Toyota MR2, a purchased bicycle -- were given short shrift by Tolentino as not believable and credible. Bank checks Hubert encashed June 1991, and of course signed by him, were also thrown into the prosecution's waste basket. Even if Hubert's signatures on those checks were authenticated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Bank of American records those checks.

Now let me get into an absurdity that must merit inclusion into the Guinness Book of World Records. Listen carefully, gents and mesdames. For it is the witching hour, the cave whines, and the owls glower in the dark.

Judge Tolentino in her verdict says it was possible for former senator Freddie Webb to have smuggled Hubert Webb from California to Manila before that fateful night of June 29, 1991. Ergo if we believe the judge, there was a plot hatched weeks earlier, or months earlier, for Hubert and the Webbs to leave for the US and there establish their presence and their identity. The centerpiece of that plot, of course, was the fate that befell Carmela intentionally and the other Vizcondes accidentally. Right after the massacre, the young Hubert was smuggled back to America. Whoa! Believe that?

Unless the US government and Freddie Webb connived to smuggle Hubert to Manila and back to California (and again such connivance is absolutely preposterous and absurd), there must be records of this stupendous escapade. We know, and Judge Tolentino knows, no aircraft, vessel or any other vehicle can leave and enter the territory of the US without prior official authorization. But I can think of two possibilities. Hubert rode a magic carpet, or boarded a Star-Trek space ship that blitzed back and forth in a matter of minutes.

Okay, here's the second bomb.

The prosecution claims to have collected an ample amount of semen from Carmela's vagina. Why was this semen never subjected to a DNA test? Hubert himself insisted such a test be undertaken. So did this column. The feedback I often get is that this semen is either missing, if not missing then spilled and unusable. This is carabao manure. Why did Judge Tolentino not mention this semen testing in her (186-page long?) verdict? Why did the NBI, supposedly our prime investigating agency, not subject the semen to state-of-the-art testing? Even if Adolph Hitler was burned to cinders after he committed suicide in 1945, any recovered part of his body -- splinter of bone or the thinnest, tiniest scrap of hair -- can be successfully tested by DNA.

We didn't have the means? The expertise? That's a lot of baloney. But assuming that's true, the collected semen could have been DNA-tested in Tokyo or Singapore. Or we could have called for a foreign expert to come to Manila and do the testing. Why didn't we?

Judge Tolentino can praise Jessica Alfaro to the high heavens for all I care. But I will tell you this. Jessica was a confirmed drug addict, an inveterate liar, a drug-pusher and NBI asset who signed two affidavits. In the first, she swore she was nowhere near the interior of the Vizconde residence, BF Homes in Parañaque on the night of the massacre. In the second affidavit, lo and behold, she was the lone eyewitness inside. Between her and the US State Department (which includes the FBI, the INS and the Department of Justice), I'll believe the latter. Unless again, I am told, Freddie Webb came right straight from Aesop's fables and was able to bribe Secretaries Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright.

The judge didn't realize how she crucified all of us during the five-hour reading of her verdict. It was like being trapped in a monster traffic jam, a long-winding whinny like a dog in pain or a cat in heat, or an ancient mummy being dismembered by bit by archeologists, while she went back again and again to the bloodied corpses of Carmela, Estrellita and Jennifer. It was ugly all right, and gruesome all right and ghastly all right. And we pity them. And we pity the old man Lauro Vizconde, who all these years has suffered long and horribly, in his almost endless search for justice.

But Hubert Webb didn't rape and kill his daughter, nor knife to death his wife and youngest daughter Jennifer. In our mind, Jessica Alfaro told a big, big lie.

The real killers, whoever they are, are still on the loose.