EDITORIAL - Bungled investigation

The investigation of the 1991 Vizconde massacre, according to one foreign private investigator, was “full of preconceived ideas” and “the worst in the world.” That’s an exaggeration, but you don’t need to be a forensic expert to see how badly bungled that probe was. The case shows the importance of improving the criminal investigation skills of Philippine law enforcers.

Probers had little to work with after the crime scene was cleaned up and vital pieces of evidence including bed sheets were burned. Parañaque policeman Gerardo Biong, one of those who first arrived at the scene and alleged to be a bodyguard of the Webb family, spent 15 years in prison but maintained until his release that he was innocent and was not part of a cover-up.

Now the National Bureau of Investigation, which handled the original probe, has presented six individuals who have reportedly belied Hubert Webb’s story that he was in the United States when Estrellita Vizconde and her daughters Carmela and Jennifer were butchered in 1991. An alibi is the weakest defense, but it was enough to get Webb, a principal defendant in the massacre, off the hook.

The Supreme Court has cleared Webb and his co-accused with finality. Whatever those witnesses presented by the NBI have to say, Webb can no longer be tried for the same offense, as even the Department of Justice has admitted. The NBI can go after two other suspects who remain at large, Joey Filart and Dong Ventura, who are reportedly in the United States.

In pinning down Webb and his co-accused, the prosecution relied heavily on the testimony of state witness Jessica Alfaro. Her erratic testimony and reported romance with her NBI handler provided distracting sideshows to the case, but her story was deemed credible enough by then Regional Trial Court Judge Amelita Tolentino to find Webb and his co-accused guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The SC didn’t think so; it found Alfaro’s testimony riddled with inconsistencies, and cleared the accused.

This is a celebrated case. How many other criminal cases, less known or too ordinary to warrant publicity, are never solved, and how many victims are denied justice because criminal investigation was flawed? The Vizconde case remains open, but other crime victims need not suffer the same injustice.