Vizconde murders

The trial began in August 1995 before Parañaque RTC Judge Amelita Tolentino. Alfaro had testified that she knew the suspects and was at the Vizconde house when the crime was committed. By her account, after a drug session with the group, Webb allegedly had hatched his plan to rape Carmela Vizconde. Webb wanted Alfaro, the then-girlfriend of one of the accused men, Peter Estrada, to join them because Estrellita Vizconde only allowed her daughter to go out and entertain female visitors.

Alfaro testified that as Webb followed Carmela into the dining room, she decided to step outside for a smoke. From there she allegedly saw Lejano and Ventura took out a knife from the kitchen drawer, while the rest of the gang acted as lookouts. Alfaro said Estrellita was killed before Webb began to rape Carmela. Jennifer woke up and, seeing Webb violating her sister, jumped on him and bit him. He then hurled the little girl to a wall and started stabbing her.

Alfaro said that when she went back to the house, she saw the bodies of Estrellita and Jennifer on the bed and Webb raping Carmela on the floor. Lejano and Ventura also took turns raping Carmela, before finishing her off with numerous stabs.[2] Alfaro said that policeman Gerardo Biong "was instructed by Webb, in my presence, to take care of the house where the incident happened". Alfaro also said that she bumped into Biong at the Faces Disco in Makati in March 1995 and relayed to her the offer of the group to give her a free ticket to the United States to shut her up. She added that suspect Miguel Rodriguez warned her to "shut up or you're gonna get killed" in the same disco on April 8, 1995, prompting her to voluntarily submit herself to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) for protection.[10] According to the footage of the trial, Alfaro had been able to identify all the defendants by their names. The defense questioned Alfaro's credibility noting that she admitted to being under the influence of drugs when she allegedly witnessed the crime and had made inconsistent statements on her two affidavits. Alfaro said she was then having reservations when she first executed the first affidavit and held back vital information due to her natural reaction of mistrust.[11]

Alfaro's testimony was corroborated by other witnesses including: Lolita Birrer, a former live-in partner of policeman Gerardo Biong, who narrated the manner of how Biong investigated and tried to cover up the crime. Birrer said she had accompanied Biong to the Vizconde house to destroy the evidence and to retrieve Webb's jacket and the murder weapon. She also testified that Biong received money at a house that she later learned belonged to then Parañaque Congressman Freddie Webb; the Webb family's maids, Mila Gaviola and Nerissa Rosales, who both testified that Hubert Webb was at home on June 30, 1991. At about 4 a.m. on June 30, 1991, Gaviola woke up and entered the bedrooms to get the Webb's dirty laundry and wash it as part of her job. She said that when she entered Hubert's room, she saw him wearing only his pants, awake and smoking in bed. While washing Hubert Webb's clothing, Gaviola said she noticed fresh bloodstains on his shirt. After she finished the laundry, she went to the servant's quarters. But feeling uneasy, she decided to go up to the stockroom near Hubert's room to see what he was doing. In the said stockroom, there is a small door going to Hubert's room and in that door there is a small opening where she used to see Hubert and his friends sniffing on something. She observed Hubert was quite irritated, uneasy, and walked to and fro inside his room.[2][12] Security guards Justo Cabanacan and Normal White. Cabanacan said Webb had entered the subdivision (where the Vizconde house was located) a few days before the massacre and that he even identified himself as the son of then Congressman Webb. White, on the other hand, said he saw the three cars enter the subdivision on the night of June 29, as Alfaro had testified; White also testified that policeman Gerardo Biong was the first to arrive at the crime scene.[13][14]

Other prosecution witnesses were: Carlos J. Cristobal who alleged that on March 9, 1991, he was a passenger of United Airlines Flight No. 808 bound for New York and who expressed doubt on whether Hubert Webb was his co-passenger in the trip; NBI medico-legal Dr. Prospero Cabanayan, Belen Dometita and Teofilo Minoza, two of the Vizconde maids; and Manciano Gatmaitan, an engineer.[11]

The defense produced documents and presented 95 witnesses, including Hubert Webb himself and his father, along with other relatives and friends to support Webb's alibi that he was in the United States from March 9, 1991, to October 26, 1992. On October 1, 1996, Judge Amelita Tolentino admitted only 10 of the 142 pieces of evidence the defense presented.[12] (Under Philippine law, generally, alibi is the weakest defense, especially where there is direct testimony of an eyewitness, duly corroborated by another. People vs. Bello, G.R. No. 124871, May 13, 2004.)

Among evidence that was not admitted by Judge Tolentino, was the note verbale from the United States Embassy in Manila claiming that Webb entered the United States in March 1991 and left in October 1992. This coincided with his passport and Philippine Immigration records but were dismissed by Tolentino due to belief that these documents can possibly be falsified. . (The Philippine Rules of Evidence require official attestation of the authenticity of any public document presented in evidence; as per Sec. 24, Rule 134, R. Evid.)

Moreover, Judge Tolentino also denied Webb's request to subject semen samples to DNA testing on the belief that the samples may no longer be intact.[15] The accused alleged that by rejecting 132 of the 142 pieces of evidence, Tolentino had set the tone for their conviction.[12] On July 24, 1997, the Supreme Court noted that Tolentino erred when she refused to admit the 132 pieces of evidence presented by the defense, although these were later admitted in court through an order issued by Tolentino.[12][16]

Among the defense witnesses was Artemio Sacaguing, a former, now deceased NBI official who testified that Alfaro was an NBI asset who only volunteered to assume the role of the eyewitness when she could not produce the actual witness to the Vizconde killings.

Former NBI official Pedro Rivera however dismissed as lies the testimony of Sacaguing saying that “Agent Sacaguing had a record of notoriety in the NBI which prompted his transfer to remote places of assignment… until his early retirement”. According to Rivera, Sacaguing was never part of the NBI team assigned to investigate the Vizconde massacre and that his former colleague took Alfaro's statement in April 1995 without the presence of a lawyer. “Sacaguing broke the guidelines in taking affidavits from witnesses. His intention was very, very dubious,” he said.[17]

On January 6, 2000, Judge Tolentino rendered her decision, finding Hubert Webb, Peter Estrada, Hospicio Fernandez, Michael Gatchalian, Antonio Lejano II and Miguel Rodriguez guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of rape with homicide. They were sentenced to reclusion perpetua and ordered to indemnify the Vizconde family Php 3 million for the murders.[2] Two of the accused remain fugitives from the law: Joey Filart and Artemio Ventura. Former Parañaque policeman Gerardo Biong was found guilty as an accessory for burning bedsheets and tampering with other evidence in the crime. He was sentenced to eleven years in prison. Biong was released from jail on November 30, 2010, after serving his sentence.[18]

In her decision, Tolentino described the testimony of defense witnesses as full of inconsistencies and biased. She said the US-based defense witnesses, most of whom are relatives or friends of the Webb family suffered from "incorrigible and selective memory syndrome". She cited the testimony of Alex del Toro, husband of Webb's relative, who said he hired Hubert Webb as an employee at his pesticide company in California. Both Webb and del Toro could not describe in court what Hubert's work was, Tolentino said. Tolentino also found it hard to believe that Webb was working with a pesticide company because he was asthmatic and allergic to various substances. Webb's testimony was also contradicted by other US-based defense witnesses who said they usually saw him "going to the beach, malling, bar-hopping or playing basketball. Tolentino also said, the photographs and videotapes purportedly showing Webb in the United States appeared to be tampered.[2] Tolentino said the certificates issued by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Philippine Bureau of Immigration "could have easily been obtained by the powerful Webb family".[19]

Seven justices based its decision on the following points:

1. Loss of DNA evidence not a ground for outright acquittal
2. Unreliability of Jessica Alfaro's testimony:
   • Alfaro had prior knowledge on the facts of the case having been an asset of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI)
   • Alfaro was not able to explain why the house was ransacked if robbery was not the motive of Webb and his group
3. Unreliability of testimony from other witnesses
4. Webb's strong alibi that he was in the United States
   • Alfaro's testimony will fall apart if Webb was not at the crime scene and will relieve the others accused of the crime

Webb, citing Brady v. Maryland, said "that he is entitled to outright acquittal on the ground of violation of his right to due process given the State’s failure to produce on order of the Court either by negligence or willful suppression the semen specimen taken from Carmela." The court argued that the cited case has been superseded by Arizona v. Youngblood, "where the U.S. Supreme Court held that due process does not require the State to preserve the semen specimen although it might be useful to the accused unless the latter is able to show bad faith on the part of the prosecution or the police".

The court considered the accused's "lack of interest in having such test done" in which they concluded that the state "cannot be deemed put on reasonable notice that it would be required to produce the semen specimen at some future time".[29]

The court ruled that Alfaro was "a stool pigeon, one who earned her living by fraternizing with criminals so she could squeal on them to her NBI handlers." The court also said that it was "possible for Alfaro to lie" on the details of the case. Alfaro, who had "practically lived" at the NBI's offices, would have been able to hear about the details, and gain access to the documents, without difficulty. The court noted the inconsistency between Alfaro's testimony of Webb being Carmela's boyfriend, who had no reason in breaking the glass panel of the house's front door to enter the house; Alfaro said that Webb "picked up some stone and, out of the blue, hurled it at the glass-paneled front door". Alfaro, upon explaining on how the house was ransacked, (the Parañaque police had earlier blamed house robbers as suspects), said that Ventura was looking for the front-door key and the car key.

The court said the "portion of Alfaro's story appears tortured to accommodate the physical evidence of the ransacked house" adding that "it is a story made to fit in with the crime scene although robbery was supposedly not the reason Webb and his companions entered that house". The court also said the same for the issue of the garage light: she claimed that Ventura climbed the car's hood, using a chair, to turn the light off. But, unlike the house robbers, however the court points out that "Webb and his friends did not have anything to do in a darkened garage."[29] In general, the court said that Alfaro's story "lacks sense or suffers from inherent inconsistencies."[29]

The court held that security guard Normal E. White, Jr.'s testimony was unreliable. White was mistaken in saying that Gatchalian and company went in and out of the gated community many times, since they only entered once.[29] Justo Cabanacan, the security supervisor of the gated community, said that he saw Webb enter the gated community, although he did not record Webb entering in his log book.[29]

The court also held that the testimony of the Webb's maid, Mila Gaviola, was also unreliable since she was not able to distinguish if it was Hubert whom she saw on June 30, 1991, nor "did she remember any of the details that happened in the household on the other days".[29]

The court said that "among the accused, Webb presented the strongest alibi". The lower courts, however, reasoned that "Webb's alibi cannot stand against Alfaro's positive identification of him." The court said that Alfaro was not a credible witness and that her "story of what she personally saw must be believable, not inherently contrived".[29]

For the alibi to be established "the accused must prove by positive, clear, and satisfactory evidence... that he was present at another place at the time of the perpetration of the crime, and that it was physically impossible for him to be at the scene of the crime". The lower courts, the Supreme Court said, held that "Webb was actually in Parañaque when the Vizconde killings took place". However, the court pointed out that while Webb or his parents may be able to "arrange for the local immigration to put a March 9, 1991 departure stamp on his passport and an October 27, 1992 arrival stamp", they could not fix a foreign airlines’ passenger manifest, and the U.S. Immigration's record system. The court also said that if Webb was in the U.S. when the crime was committed, the Alfaro's testimony would not hold together: "Without it, the evidence against the others must necessarily fall."[29]

The court maintained that for a person to be convicted there should not be "a reasonable, lingering doubt as to his guilt." As a result, the court reverses the decision of the Court of Appeals, and acquits Webb, et al.[29]

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Villarama argued that the claim of Webb that he could not have committed the crime because he left for the United States on March 9, 1991, and returned to the Philippines only on October 26, 1992, was correctly rejected by the Regional Trial Court and Court of Appeals. Given the financial resources and political influence of his family, it was not unlikely that Webb could have traveled back to the Philippines before June 29–30, 1991 and then departed for the US again, and returning to the Philippines in October 1992. Webb's travel documents and other paper trail of his stay in the US are unreliable proof of his absence in the Philippines at the time of the commission of the crime charged. Webb's reliance on the presumption of regularity of official functions, stressing the fact that the US-INS certifications are official documents, is misplaced. The presumption leaned on is disputable and can be overcome by evidence to the contrary. In this case, the existence of an earlier negative report on the NIIS record on file concerning the entry of appellant Webb into and his exit from the US on March 9, 1991, and October 26, 1992, respectively, had raised serious doubt on the veracity and accuracy of the subsequently issued second certification dated August 31, 1995, which is based merely on a computer print-out of his alleged entry on March 9, 1991, and departure on October 26, 1992. Villarama noted that the alleged Passport, Passenger Manifest of United Airlines Flight and United Airline ticket of accused Webb offered in evidence were mere photocopies of an alleged original, which were never presented. He adds, this Court takes judicial notice of reported irregularities and tampering of passports in the years prior to the recent issuance by the Department of Foreign Affairs(DFA) of machine-readable passports.[30]

• Freddie Webb: "Kami right now are on cloud nine. Bago sa lahat, there is so much to be thankful for (Right now we are on Cloud Nine. There is so much to be thankful for)".[31]"You have to understand he has lost 15 years of his life. Since day one, we were saying he was in the United States but only a few people believed it. We cannot blame them because at that time, there were so many things being written in the newspapers that, if I didn't know anything about the case, I would be the one to throw a stone at Hubert Webb. The emotions are there because we are talking of 15 years wasted in the life of my son. He lost the most critical years of any person, that's from 26 years old to 41. He should not be in jail not for a minute or even a second ".[32]
• Former National Bureau of Investigation (1992–1995) Director Epimaco Velasco: “I maintain my position. It was not Hubert. Walang pruweba na magpapatunay na sina Hubert Webb ang pumatay" (There's no proof it was Hubert Webb who killed [Vizconde family])[33]
• Winnie Monsod: I cannot speak for all the SC justices who were part of either the voting majority or the minority. But there are two justices whose integrity I can vouch for: Justice Conchita Carpio Morales and Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno, who both not only voted for acquittal, but also wrote a concurring opinion and a separate concurring opinion, respectively. But other than that, Vizconde's charge does not seem to be supported by the history of the case, because if money could really buy the decision in this case, why were these wealthy people in jail for 15 years? [34]
• Ramon Tulfo: "With my defense of Webb’s innocence, I feel that I won in the grand lotto jackpot."[35]
• Gary Valenciano: “Whatever has transpired now is only a step closer to more answers for the questions that have been asked. I’m happy for the Webb family. Hubert is basically going to begin from the very, very beginning. I can only wish him the best this time. But I’m confident, he’s got a good family backing him up”[36]
• Democrito Barcenas, former Integrated Bar of the Philippines Cebu City president and regional coordinator of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG): “I think that most of the justices are right in their decision. I expected this decision because since the start, I knew that Jessica Alfaro was not entirely telling the truth”.[37]
• Cebu City Councilor Sisinio Andales, a lawyer, said he trusts in the wisdom of the justices of the Supreme Court.[38]
• Roman Catholic Diocese of Novaliches Bishop-Emeritus Teodoro Bacani: "Si Hubert Webb talagang sa paniniwala ko ay walang sala at kaya naman ako naniniwala diyan ay mayroon akong kaibigan na nasa States na nandun sa kanila si Hubert Webb noong diumano ay pinatay ang itong anak ni Lauro Vizconde. (I believe Hubert Webb is innocent. Because I have a friend in the States who said that Hubert Webb was there when the murders happened)[39]

• Lauro Vizconde: "Is there still anyone among you who doubts that there is rampant corruption in our government? Remember when I made the disclosure that someone is pressuring the justices to vote for a reversal? I did that hoping to make them have second thoughts about doing so,”.“There is no justice in the Philippines. All of us who have cases in court, don’t we realize that if your opponent has money, brace yourself. Anyone can be paid!"[40]
• Jessica Alfaro: Alfaro's e-mail from abroad read. “I stand by my story. Am I dismayed by the decision of the (Supreme Court)? Yes, but what can I do (?). I am not an NBI agent nor an NBI asset. That's all crap! Eh di sana may sweldo ako. Di naman ako puwede magtrabaho don” (If that's the case, then I should have had a salary. But I could not work there)[41] "Nasira ang buhay ko para lang sa inyo and then ganito pa ang nangyari. Ayaw akong paniwalaan. Ayoko na! Alfaro told Lauro Vizconde. (My life has been destroyed for you, and then this is what happened. They would not believe me! I've had it!)."[42]
• Former National Bureau of Investigation(1995–1996) Director Mariano Mison: “Hindi ako pabor sa naging desisyon ng Korte Suprema. Ginawa namin ang tama. Matagal na akong nagtitimpi. I refute all arguments,” (I'm not in favor of the Supreme Court's Decision. We did what is right. I've been holding myself back. I refute all arguments)[33]
• Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption chairman Dante Jimenez: "Pera talaga ang laging umiiral sa ating hustisya (Money always prevails in our justice system)".[32]
• Former Sandiganbayan Justice Manuel Pamaran: “When it comes to the appreciation of facts especially on the testimony of the witness, the trial court should be given the credence because it has the first opportunity to observe the demeanor, gesture and tone of voice of the witness".[43]
• Presiding Justice of Sandiganbayan Edilberto Sandoval:“The one who tried the case is in the best position to know whether the witness is telling the truth or not because he has the opportunity which is denied the appellate justices to observe the demeanor of the witness".[43]
• Ateneo law professor Alan Paguia: "The order of release is questionable as it appears to be undemocratic. It was based on the rule of the minority and not the majority as they (the SC justices) had enunciated in Fortich v. Corona." “Thus the SC decision on the Vizconde massacre is flawed,” Paguia averred, citing a portion of Fortich v. Corona, 312 SCRA 751, at 758 where the SC itself ruled that unless the minimum number of EIGHT votes for a majority is attained there is no decision to speak of, therefore the release order of the Webb group should not have been signed.[44]
• Former Vice President Teofisto Guingona: Guingona said he believes that Hubert Webb, son of former Senator Freddie Webb, and his six other co-accused are guilty of killing Lauro's wife, Estrellita, 47, and his daughters Carmela, 18, and Jennifer Vizconde, 7, in June 1991.[45]

• Trial court: G.R. No. 121234 Hubert Webb et al. vs. Raul de Leon et. al, 1995
• Trial court: G.R. No. 127262 Hubert Webb, et al. vs. People of the Philippines et al., 1997
• Trial court: G.R. No. 132577 People of the Philippines vs. Hubert Jeffrey P. Webb, 1999
• Supreme Court: G.R. No. 176864 People of the Philippines vs. Hubert Webb, et. al., 2010
  • Concurring opinions
    • Carpio Morales, 2010
    • Sereno, 2010
  • Supplemental opinion
    • Brion, 2010
  • Dissenting opinion
    • Villarama, 2010