Category: hubert webb

abusing the webbs

justice secretary leila de lima’s latest statements unequivocally declaring the webbs guilty of lying re the whereabouts of hubert on the night of the vizconde massacre — new evidence daw shows that hubert was in manila and not in the u.s. — smacks of gross injustice to the webb family.  and that she’s not here to answer questions and face the webbs — nasa berlin daw for some conference — makes me wonder: was it deliberate, making her statements on the eve of her departure, so as to avoid the firestorm she set off?

and what about, making her statements on the eve of the lapsing of the 20-year statute of limitations on murder cases.  all the time i thought that the nbi/doj were looking at other suspects.  ang hirap ba masyado?  easier to just go back to hubert, lalo na’t lauro vizconde insists he’s guilty?  really, what makes de lima’s new witnesses so credible, after 20 years of silence?  and again, what about u.s. immigration records that prove hubert arrived in the u.s. when he said he did?  nabayaran din lang?  LOL

all the talk about how former senator fredddie webb was so influential, he was able to have records doctored to reflect hubert’s departure before the murders, is i think misplaced — if he were so influential, hubert wouldn’t have gone to jail at all.

the one who is really influential, it seems to me now, is lauro vizconde himself who i hear is a board director of ibc 13 and a consultant in pagcor, thanks to gma.  ano yon?  reward?  pampalubag loob?  preferential treatment?   if he hadn’t gone overseas as ocw baka buhay pa ang asawa niya’t dalawang anak?

and what about the aquino administration?  masaya ba sila sa ginawang ito ni leila de lima, refusing to respect the supreme court ruling?  or is this part lang of a continuing campaign vs the supreme court?  sana hindi.  there must be other ways to skin that cat without using the webbs who have suffered enough.

revisiting hubert webb
from fritz webb
surreal justice

surreal justice

UPDATE:  stats for revisiting hubert webb spiked like mad, through the ceiling, the day he was acquitted.   which is good. people are googling and reading up on the case.   read, too, katrina’s piece on pinky and press ethics.   i love pinky webb.   what a class act.   (krissy leaky, take note.)

***

i cheered 10 years ago when hubert webb et al were found guilty of the vizconde massacre by the paranaque regional trial court.   i cheered yesterday when hubert webb et al were acquitted by the supreme court.

i hate to admit it but yes all through the 90s it was easy to be swept up in the trial by publicity that projected hubert and the gang as rich boys getting away with murder and that clamored for their heads a la jaime jose et al who raped maggie de la riva in 1967 and were electrocuted in 1972.

but there was a lot i didn’t know then that i learned over the years, thanks mostly to winnie monsod who kept track of the case and never faltered in her belief that hubert was innocent.   i also didn’t learn until recently that alfaro was an nbi asset.   and the loss of the semen sample from carmela was just too suspicious…

so it’s back to square one , with just six months to go before it’s too late.   i suggest that a million bucks be offered for information re the true killers.   surely someone out there knows something s/he’s not telling.

from fritz webb

please understand that we have given everything required to prove that hubert was in the U.S. when the crime occurred.You name it, we gave it.

1. record of departure including ticket, ticket receipt,(with accompanying testimony from raja tours owner Bibay Nolasco), airline manifest (with accompanying testimony from a northwest airline official), passport with departure stamp from the Bureau of Immigration

2. record of entry which includes an F.B.I. report, a note verbale issued by the U.S. government signed by Secretary of State Madeline Albright stating that Hubert Webb was in the U.S. testified to by no less than both foreign secretary Domingo Siazon and Consul General Leo Herrera Lim

3. records of his stay which includes: Videos – one in Disneyland (testified to by a complete stranger who saw Freddie Webb and decided to video him), one at Lake Tahoe and another at a cousins wedding ceremony. Records of employment in the form of several encashed checks in his name Hubert Jeffrrey Webb before and after the crime California Drivers License aquired during his stay, certified by the Department of Motor Vehicles California. Dozens of eyewitness accounts all of which were excecuted by upstanding members of society all of whom have much to lose had they perjured themselves in court, the most prominent of all being Entertainer Gary Valenciano. Supreme court justice Antonio Carpio also testified that he knew that Hubert was in the U.S, based on his conversations with my father who was in the U.S. right before the time of the incident.

4. records of his departure which includes again the certification from the U.S. stating his date of departure, airline manifest testified to by an authority from the Philippine Airlines, Passport showing entry into the Philippines.  We have given everything humanly possible to prove he was in the United States four months before and fifteen months after the massacre occured. He only has one record of ever going to the U.S.A and it was only during the period we claim he was there.

Pease take note that: NOT A SINGLE PIECE OF EVIDENCE WE PRESENTED WAS EVER REFUTED OR PROVEN TO BE FALSE BY THE PROSECUTION.  THEY COULD HAVE VERY EASILY ASKED THE UNITED STATES IF THE DOCUMENTS WE PRESENTED WERE FAKE BUT THEY DIDN’T.  WHY?  BECAUSE THEY KNEW OUR DOCUMENTS WERE REAL.  THEY COULD HAVE EASILY (ABSOLVED) HUBERT IF THEY ALLOWED DNA TESTING FROM THE BEGINNING BUT THEY OBJECTED TO IT.  WHY?  BECAUSE THEY KNEW THAT IT WASN’T HUBERT’S SPERM BECAUSE THEY KNEW THAT HE WAS IN THE UNITED STATES.

We have waited fifteen long years for some people to start believing. Due to a judge and prosecution without any conscience, my brother has suffered much for a crime he very clearly did not do. All we pray is that he be set free so that he can pick up the pieces and start to live what he has left of his life. Let truth prevail.

no proof beyond the reasonably doubtful testimony and affidavits of a self-confessed nbi-asset-former?-drug-user.  ACQUIT HUBERT WEBB!

revisiting hubert webb

after catching most of cheche lazaro’s Dalawang Mukha ng Hustisya the other night, napaisip naman ako.   impossible not to be touched by the webb family’s stories and how they’ve never let up on loving, caring for, and visiting hubert in jail and believing in, swearing to, his innocence.   what if he IS innocent?

of course nakakadurog din naman ng puso ang nangyari sa vizconde mother and daughters.   impossible not to sympathize with the aggrieved husband and father and to understand why he agonizes over the webbs’ continuing appeal for reconsideration — if hubert et al are innocent, then who violated and massacred his loved ones, and why are they walking free?

so i was googling the case all day yesterday to refresh my memory and here are some worthy links:

pinoyexchange.com  forum december 30 1999 to january 8, 2000 :
The Vizconde Verdict

The Manila Times’ 2005 Special Report :
Questions linger in Vizconde case, Part I
Huberts main defense: ‘I was in California’ Part II

solita “winnie” monsod’s 2007 Inquirer column :
Hope for Hubert Webb

Sunday Inquirer Magazine’s 2008 feature :
The Vizconde Case

The Manila Times april 2010 report :
High Court reopens Vizconde massacre case

ramon tulfo’s april 2010 Inquirer column:
I Swear on Hubert Webb’s innocence

ramon tulfo’s may 2010 Bandera column :
Bakit ako atat na atat sa Vizconde Massacre?

winnie monsod’s june 2010 Inquirer column :
The case of the missing semen sample

cesar m. de los reyes’s letter to the editor, response to winnie :
Deprived of chance to prove innocence

alex magno’s july 2010 philippine star column :
DNA

pinoyexchange.com forum in reaction to cheche’s docu : The Vizconde Massacre: Do you believe that Hubert Webb is guilty?

also i found two links with information new to me.   the first from a pdf doc. “A Son, a Father and a Terrible Night” by Tamara de Guzman (google “When I first followed this crime, I believed Hubert Webb was guilty…”) where Freddie Webb is quoted as saying:

Partly because of my being in politics, my son got caught in the middle,” he finally said. “There were Indian nationals who were developing drugs in Las Piñas City, They were caught by the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) and were locked up. I accidentally discovered a plan to free them and I exposed it. The investigation led back to their financier who has connections high up in the government. They got back at me through Hubert.

which was never reported by mainstream media (if memory serves), but was confirmed seconded by a commenter on ellen tordesilla’s blog:

Mike – February 12, 2010 1:27 am

With regards to Hubert Webb, I don’t think he is guilty of the crime (Vizconde massacre). Napaginitan si Senator Webb ng NBI coz pinakialaman niya yung kaso ng mga Indian drug traders who were in the custody of the NBI then and pinatakas. I think there were 12 of them Indian nationals. It was then Rep. Webb who asked for the investigation of the incident.

the second link is more recent.   a feb 2010 gmanews.tv report of senators probed for unethical/questionable conduct has this interesting detail:

In 1996, during the 10th Congress, Senator Freddie Webb was investigated for alleged abuse of authority and probable violation of laws in the employment of his son Hubert Webb in the Senate Electoral Tribunal.

This was after Webb claimed that his son, a suspect in the celebrated Vizconde massacre, was in the United States from March 9, 1991 to October 28, 1992 when his daily time record showed that he went to work, from 9 am to 6 pm.

The younger Webb was found guilty of the murder.

so.   senator webb was not found guilty.  i suppose it was punishment enough that his son was found guilty in the vizconde case?   the  senator must have soooo regretted falsifying time records (okay, if in fact he did), lalo na if these time records were known to the prosecution and the judge who rejected all evidence that hubert was out of the country.

just the same.   i find it strange that the court found alfaro, biong, his mistress, and the two webb housemaids more credible than the u.s. state department, immigration, the fbi, etc.   kasi daw the latter’s documents could have easily been faked.   really?   all of them?  wasn’t it much much easier to bribe the so-called witnesses into concocting that wild story of drugs, sex, and crime?

what i remember most about the 2000 verdict was that it was more sensational than surprising.   thanks to two carlos caparas films — The Vizconde Massacre: God Help Us! in 1993 starring kris aquino as carmela, and The Untold Story: Vizconde Massacre Two – May The Lord Be With Us in 1994 starring vina morales — the public was just oh-so-primed to see hubert hang.