By Blanche Rivera, Juliet Labog-Javellana, Leila Salaverria

MANILA, Philippines -- If President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo can commute the double life sentence of a convicted rapist, surely she can extend a lesser favor to five men who have been sentenced to death for a crime somebody else has owned up to.

Human rights advocates in Hong Kong Wednesday asked Ms Arroyo to ensure that the Court of Appeals soon complete the mandatory review of the conviction of the five men jailed for the murder of Col. Rolando Abadilla, exactly 11 years ago Wednesday.

Abadilla was the head of the Marcos regime’s Metropolitan Command Intelligence Security Group of the Philippine Constabulary.

Running priest Robert Reyes, to whom a member of the communist hit squad Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB) gave Abadilla’s wristwatch as proof that the ABB had killed the colonel, said Ms Arroyo should extend the same humanitarian favor given to former Zamboanga del Norte Rep. Romeo Jalosjos to the five men, collectively known as the Abadilla 5.

Ms Arroyo has commuted the double life sentence of Jalosjos to a prison term of 16 years, three months and three days, allowing the former lawmaker convicted for raping an 11-year-old girl to be set free as early as next year.

“They’re not asking for commutation or pardon. They’re not even begging for mercy. They’re asking for the justice system to work properly,” said Reyes, a vocal critic of the Arroyo administration, who recently relocated to Hong Kong.

The five men -- Lenido Lumanos, Augusto Santos, Cesar Fortuna, Rameses de Jesus and Joel de Jesus -- remain in the National Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa City. No one among the five men is a member of the ABB.

The health of Lumanog, a kidney transplant patient requiring medical attention, has deteriorated due to jail conditions, said Reyes, who is in touch with the convict’s family.

Judge Jaime Salazar of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court convicted the five men in August 1999 based on the testimony of a lone witness who claimed he saw them kill Abadilla, despite the ABB claim of responsibility for the murder.

The case of the Abadilla 5 has drawn the condemnation of Amnesty International. A Philippine Daily Inquirer special report described the torture of the Abadilla 5 as something straight out of the pages of martial law.

Picket at consulate

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), which monitors cases of rights abuses in the region, led a picket at the Philippine Consulate in Hong Kong Wednesday, demanding justice for the Abadilla 5.

Citing its “deep concern over the unequal treatment of cases” of convicts in the Philippines, the AHRC wrote a letter to Ms Arroyo urging her to push for the prosecution of the policemen who tortured the five men into confessing to the murder of Abadilla.
Chief Supt. Hercules Cataluña and another policeman, among the respondents in the complaint of torture filed by the Abadilla 5, have died. Cataluña was the principal respondent.

“This particular case is of very great interest to us because it shows the defects of the whole system of justice in the Philippines,” AHRC executive director Basil Fernando told the Inquirer.

The Hong Kong-based group also slammed the seven-year delay in the mandatory review of the death sentence as unacceptable.

Excessive delay

“I am appalled by the manner the system of justice is functioning in the country, in particular the justice department’s display of negligence and incompetence in this case,” the AHRC said in its letter to Ms Arroyo.

The Supreme Court, which does the mandatory review of all death sentences, transferred the task to the Court of Appeals in 2005, or after five years of sitting on the case.

“This excessive delay, as a result of the Supreme Court’s failure to resolve this case … is grossly a cause for concern,” the AHRC said.

The letter was submitted to Vice Consul Val Roque after the picket involving Filipino migrant groups.

The lawyer of the Abadilla 5 has questioned the transfer of the review to the Court of Appeals and even brought the case to the UN Human Rights Committee.

Fernando said the case of the Abadilla 5 was a question of legitimacy of the justice system and the government in the Philippines.

“We don’t want to give up hope that a rational form of government can exist in the Philippines … We don’t want to believe that it is a place where there is no room for reason,” he said.

Case changed hands 7 times

In Manila, one of the lawyers for the Abadilla 5 reiterated his plea for the quick resolution of the case.

Soliman Santos, representing Lumanog and Santos, noted that the case had changed hands seven times in the Court of Appeals in over two years.

On Tuesday, the lawyer filed a motion in the appellate court reiterating his request for the speedy resolution of the Abadilla 5’s appeal of the 1999 conviction by the Quezon City RTC.

Should the seventh justice handling the case, Justice Rosmari Carandang, inhibit herself, then the decision would further be deferred.

Santos said he only learned the case was again transferred to a new justice, Carandang, after he filed his urgent motion two days ago.

Before Carandang, the case was with Justice Marlene Gonzales-Sison, but she inhibited herself from the case because Abadilla was one of her wedding sponsors.

The Abadilla 5’s appeal has been submitted for decision since November 2006.

Link: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view_article.php?article_id=71223

14 June 2007