Key witness in Vizconde Massacre tracked in Canada

It was a crime that shook Filipinos everywhere.
There were three murder victims. One star witness. Six convicted suspects.
It happened on June 30, 1991, when Estrellita Vizconde and her two daughters: Carmela and Jennifer, were found lifeless inside their home in Parañaque, one of the cities that make up Metro Manila.
Now it has come back to haunt the Philippines, after those convicted were acquitted last month, triggering cries of miscarriage of justice and a fresh investigation that has come to Canada.
In acquitting those convicted, the Philippines Supreme Court threw out key testimony of the star witness in the case, Jessica Alfaro, who now lives somewhere in Canada.
The high court described Alfaro as an informant of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) who had only agreed to testify as a witness when she could not produce the real one.
The court said Alfaro also had access to the case details by virtue of her being an NBI asset, which she could have used to bolster her testimony. It added that her testimony appeared to have been tailored so as to fit the case details.
The Philippines Department of Justice (DOJ) is now trying to track Alfaro in Canada to convince her to help in the murder investigation, which has been reopened.
 Justice Secretary Leila de Lima Alfaro cannot be compelled to come back to the Philippines because the teams formed to reinvestigate the case have no coercive or subpoena powers.
De Lima said the only option left is to send a team to convince Alfaro to come back and testify.
“If she would not be convinced, a backup plan would be to just videotape her testimony,” she said.
De Lima admitted that the DOJ is having difficulty contacting Alfaro and is now relying on Alfaro’s relative.
“He (Alfaro’s relative) does not have direct contact now, he can ask other relatives to talk to her and convince her to cooperate,” De Lima said.
If Alfaro returns to the country, she might again be placed under the government’s witness protection program.
If it is established in the new probe that the Supreme Court was correct in finding Alfaro a fake witness, De Lima said it would be necessary to then “dig deeper and find out who were behind Jessica.”
“That includes possible accountability of those responsible if results would say that the Supreme Court  was correct - that Jessica was coached,” De Lima said.
The case, while reopening, old wounds once again brought out details of what is now known as the Visconde massacre in the Philippines media.
The 47-year-old Estrellita had 13 stab wounds. Eighteen-year-old daughter Carmela was raped, and had 17 stab wounds. The youngest victim, 7-year old Jennifer had 19 stab wounds.
The police arrested at least two sets of suspects, but all of them were released due to lack of evidence.
But in 1995, four years after the gruesome crime, a supposed eyewitness Jessica Alfaro, surfaced.
Under oath, Alfaro pointed to six men, all from well-off families, as the culprits.
Alfaro said Hubert Webb, son of former senator Freddie Webb; Antonio Lejano II, son of actress Pinky de Leon; Hospicio Fernandez, son of a retired commodore; Michael Gatchalian and Miguel Rodriguez, sons of prominent lawyers; and Peter Estrada, son of a businessman, were behind the rape and murders.
Alfaro also pointed to two others - Joey Filart and Artemio Ventura - but both remain at large.
Alfaro testified that after a drug session with the group on the eve of the murders, Hubert Webb hatched his plan to rape Carmela. Eventually, the group ended up killing the three.
But for the Webbs, this account is simply impossible.
The defense produced voluminous documents and presented dozens of witnesses in court to prove that Hubert was in the United States at the time of the Vizconde massacre.
But for Parañaque Judge Amelita Tolentino, an alibi is nothing compared to an eyewitness account.
On January 2000, Judge Tolentino found Webb and his co-accused guilty for the Vizconde massacre, and sentenced them to life in prison.
Also found guilty of burning bed sheets and tampering with other evidence in the crime was Gerardo Biong, a Parañaque City policeman.
The Webbs raised the case to the Court of Appeals, but in 2007, in a 3-to-2 vote, the Court of Appeals denied Webb’s motion for reconsideration.
In April this year, the high court had approved DNA testing to be performed on the semen specimen obtained during autopsy from the victims.
But the National Bureau of Investigation said it no longer had the specimen, as these were remanded to the Parañaque trial court.
On October 28, 2010, Webb filed an urgent motion for acquittal, asserting that with this development, Hubert’s guilt could not be proven beyond reasonable doubt.
On Dec. 14, 2010, Supreme Court acquitted the suspects, reported, ABS-CBN News Channel.
“Considered the crime of the ’90s for the gruesome way the victims were killed allegedly by scions of prominent families, the case is viewed as emblematic of the country’s corrupt judicial system,” wrote Malou Guanzon Apalisok in the Cebu Daily News.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) said there were “contradictions” in the high court’s application of legal theories when it ruled on witness credibility in the Vizconde case and the defense of alibi in the two cases.
Supreme Court spokesman and Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez had said those acquitted in the case can file a complaint and ask for damages from the government because of the wrong decision that resulted to their imprisonment for a long period.
However, Marquez clarified that if the accused resort to such an action, they need to present sufficient evidence to prove the damages they sustained as a result of their imprisonment.
Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte, earlier said that law enforcement officials who may be found guilty for bungling the investigation in the Vizconde massacre case that led to the false prosecution can be held accountable by the government for the injustice done.
As for Alfaro, who is somewhere in Canada, she texted the lawyer acting on behalf of the murdered victims family insisting her testimony was true.
“The evidence against Hubert (key suspect in the case who was acquitted) is strong because I was an eyewitness,” Alfaro texted before the acquittal last month.